New World launched this week. You don’t need me to tell you that but I’m doing it anyways.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to stop in this week on account of next week I hardly be able to play at all. But alas, Tuesday morning rolled around and I just couldn’t resist picking it up. A $40 price tag is exactly that sweet spot for me for I’ll buy this and give it a go. Any more and I would have been waiting to the blogs and reviews before dipping my toes in.
I didn’t play in any of the betas. By the time I got around to remembering there was an open beta earlier this month it was already over. I haven’t really followed the news about it either. I remember when it was announced, I remember a beta last year and reading some blog posts about it, and that’s about as invested as I was in it. But when the new Western MMO launch happens you just got to be there.
And I got the full experience! I knew there was going to be queues but man, those were some queues right? I knew for sure I wasn’t getting in Tuesday, I got home from work late and figured by the time I got through the queue it would be way to late to actually enjoy playing. I woke up earlier than usual Wednesday, figuring I might be able to beat the crowd and dable a bit before work. Unfortunately I was met with server maintenance! I was able to get in right as the servers came back up that morning and run through some of the tutorial quests.
Thursday night I decided to brave the queue for a chance to play. When I got online I was only 67 deep and that number was slowly going down. Right until it was stuck at 17 players for 2 hours…..Today I was off from work and woke up with my wife in the wee hours of the morning and beat the crowd.
Not today queue, not today.
Having no previous experience with the game everything was new and shiny, sort of. I keep getting the impression that I’m playing a weird, piecemeal, game that doesn’t quite all go together but it kind of works. The gathering and crafting feels like a hold over from a survival crafting game. The supply crates on the map feel straight out of a Battle Royale. The combat feels like an early access souls-like knock off/ Oh and there’s also this whole open world faction PVP thing you can just completely ignore but seems like kind of the focus of the whole thing.
But like I said, the whole thing kind of works for me.
Relatively speaking, I haven’t put that much time into it. I’ve played for a total of 6 hours and I’m still very much in the honeymoon phase. I’m taking it slow and taking it all in as I go. I’ve been trying all of the weapons to see which one I like the best. So far, I’m a fan of the rapier, ice gauntlet, and war hammer.
I’ve been following along with the main questline at a steady clip. I chose my faction and everything: Go Team Purple!
To be completely being honest though, the majority of my time spent in New World has been doing manual labor.
I can’t help myself. I think playing Runescape at a young age (and much more recently) instilled a compulsion to mine and chop trees. Especially, when the mining and cutting of the trees has level that goes up…it’s a problem, probably. But I’ve been happily swinging away at them gathering those materials and bringing them back to town to engage with the crafting system that also has levels attached to it.
Oh and there’s fishing which I haven’t even looked into yet. I’m going to be a very happy camper in New World even if I never swing a sword again.
Many Welps 