So what's up with New World then?

Old problems.

I like to think of myself as a fair critic... okay, that's not remotely true, but I at least like to think of myself as the kind of guy who will tell you straight up when I have a prejudice on a subject for any matter not related to the product itself. It's important to me that I'm forward in matters like this because I find it so much more fun to write whilst being myself but from that vein I don't want anyone to feel like they're being subtly manipulated into believing what I do. That being said, I'll come out and say that I do not like Amazon's New World, and that is entirely fuelled by the studio who led it. My concerns with Amazon as a developer doesn't really extend beyond that one time me and by brother found that train wreck 'The Grand Tour' racing game before it was scrubbed from existence, so in that sense they've at least provided me a good hour of laughing and mockery. My concerns are for the people who are benefitting of the game, the company who feeds from that, and the CEO at the top of the pile polishing his bald head to a mirror sheen as he sits perched atop his super villain throne.

I mean how can you really like a guy like Jeff Bezos? It's an impossible task. The man is a walking industrial factory producing nothing but red flags at an alarming rate. If you ignore all the potential human right's violations, the blatant tax dodging and the general lack of empathy, then you at least have to shake your head at that space trip he did. (Correction: Trips) The first one had the man play around with skittles in zero G instead of actually taking in the magnitude of having one of the most exclusive views possible in the entire world right by his stupid head, and the second had him send William Shatner and then perform a single-man show of obnoxious behaviour whilst Captain Kirk was trying to come to terms with a paradigm shift in his whole world view. What I'm trying to establish here, is that Jeff Bezos isn't a normal guy, and I mean that in the worst possible way. I don't like him. I don't like the company policies he defends. And as an extension I guess I don't like New World either.

Which puts me in a bit of a pickle, because New World launched to great initial success and reception, to the point where this does look like it's going to be the new major MMO around to stay; so we're likely going to be hearing a lot more about Amazon and their game development endeavours in the months and years to come. (yay) Still, the launch hasn't been perfect and the audience is on the verge of slipping out of that haze-like honeymoon period, so the stories of growing pains are starting to rise and I've taken a little of bit of sick pleasure in reading them. So with the full context imparted that I'm absolutely being a callous ass when I dig all of these up, I want to take a look at a few of the issues that is stopping New World from being a perfect game for the time being, (If, indeed, that was ever in the books at all) and which is causing the game to haemorrhage approximately 135,000 players a week, according to Paul Tassi over at Forbes. (That probably sounds worse than it is)

Now the first issue I've read about is actually so incredibly interesting because of it's very unique-quality as a problem which infects MMOs. The Amazon team stated very clearly that they wanted New World to be very distinct from its contemporaries, and that is plain to see in the way that the team have handled it's currency. You see, much like with any MMO, the game drags you through it's lack lustre storyline with quests that offers rewards of tools and money to help you through that early game. The intention is for this to be that 'starting off' point, the place from which, once the quests leave, you start mounting on the real MMO content to get the good loot. This was the case in relation to gear, but not so much gold. As it turns out, picking up and retaining gold is actually quite the burdensome task, and it's led to an honest-to-goodness deflation crisis.

As things are right now, people find that after the main quest is done there's no reliable way to make decent amounts of money, but plenty of outlets to spend it on, meaning that the value of that money skyrockets out in the player-to-player economy. The only items fixed in value are the basic resources that can bought at in-game vendors, as well as the taxes that guilds are forced to pay on lands that they own, and obviously that just makes everything else much more valuable in comparison. There's currently a need-to-know basis barter economy in place where resources and services are weighed by perceived usefulness as judged by the notorious fickle eye of the community, creating economical oddities for processes as simple as getting your tools repaired, an act considered inferior to replacing them entirely thanks to the comparative cost. Additionally, fixed taxes makes the cost for PVP unappealing to those not seeped deep into the game's grind, painting a questionable drop-off on interest for one of the biggest draws of an MMO; player to player violence. All this would make one think that there's some serious reward balancing that needs to be coming New World's way, but the team disagree. They like having to do no economy balancing and letting player figure it out between them. (Because creating barriers between newcomers and entering the solid money-gameplay loop is good for retention? Heck, I'm sure these 1st time MMO developers know what they're talking about...)

But that's just the most interesting issue. You also have your classics; the lack of an endgame, a particularly weak narrative that showcases the absolute bare minimum of worldbuilding, and the slog midgame progression that weens out the none-diehards pretty quick. Among all this I've found another favourite conundrum; the ban system. As I understand, New Worlds has (or had when this was an issue at least) a particularly strong report policy that would ban people with enough accusations for an evening or two whilst claims were investigated. (Or, knowing Amazon, weren't.) The thing is, quite a big part of New World's sales pitch relies on this strategic PVP overworld space, so you can bet it wasn't long before people found a way to weaponize this report system. Yep, I'm talking about strategic reports to get top enemy players banned and give one side a temporary advantage in their war, absolutely ruining the spirit of the game, but oh-so-imaginative!

New World is a spectacular success for a company who's previous contributions to the gaming world ranged from forgettable to 'Oh my god, my eyes, it's burning my eyes'; and that does mean they're likely to be bowled over by this rare success. It isn't really all that fair to expect these guys to have their handle on everything right out of the bat; sure, a lot of these developers were poached from established gaming companies, but they're still new to working together and a rough launch or two is going to be inevitable because of that. This coming year, heck maybe even the next one beyond that, is going to be their chance to prove they've got what it takes to come together and endure that these 15 minutes of fame stretches into 15 years, or their opportunity to show they're out of the depth and just got lucky. (Pointing at a clear problem and calling it a 'feature' isn't the best first foot forward.) I'd be lying if I said I was routing for them, but against by own bitter nature I'll wish the ground floor devs, at the very least, good luck. (Here's hoping they still make some interesting slip-ups on the way though; they're super fun to laugh at.)