Category Archives: Games

New World: Having a Blast, Despite the Bugs

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In theory, New World should finally be unveiling their Big Mysterious Announcement at the Summer Game Fest today. Before that, I have some musings on my recent adventures in the game.

My Covenant poses after tanking the Tempest's Heart expedition in New World.Full disclosure first, though: I wrote this post about a month ago. I’m currently working on a new TTRPG project (for another company, not my own work), and I pre-wrote my blog and Massively posts for several weeks so I could focus on that. So it’s possible that some or all of what I say in this post is now wildly out of date, but you can at least consider it a time capsule of my experiences in New World a month ago.

My focus lately has mainly been on playing my Covenant alt, who as I’ve probably said before is now more of a co-main, as often happens with me.

While I still love her traditional bow/spear light armour build, I’ve also been spending a lot of time with a heavy armour set that stacks strength and wields a sword and shield alongside a greatsword. Whereas her original build is all about not being hit, this one is all about being able to take whatever enemies can throw at me and just keep fighting. I even tanked my first dungeon recently, although it was a story mode, so that hardly counts.

The greatsword is a weapon I always wanted to like in theory, but struggled to enjoy in practice, despite its incredible (arguably excessive) power level. I still wish its attack speed wasn’t quite so slow, but I do think I’ve finally found a set-up I enjoy with it.

A cutscene featuring Grace O'Malley in New World.After going back and forth between the two skill trees and their associated stances, I’ve settled on a build that allows me to weave both stances. I’m mostly using the Defiance tree, but I added Crosscut from the Onslaught tree. The idea is to open with Crosscut for a big burst of damage, then my options diverge depending on the situation.

On harder fights, I immediately follow up with Calamity Counter to activate Defiant Stance, then throw in a Steadfast Strike and stay in Defiant Stance for the extra survivability, repeating the rotation as necessary once my abilities are off-cooldown. When facing weaker foes, I can stay in Onslaught Stance after using Crosscut and swiftly finish them off with the faster heavy attacks.

I love the versatility and decision-making, and I regret not going this route sooner. The idea of weaving between greatsword’s two stances always seemed so intimidating, but in hindsight this combination of active skills feels obvious, and I feel dumb for not figuring it out sooner.

I’ve also been working towards buying her second house, which will be in Brimstone Sands. I waffled for a long time, as I don’t like desert zones much, but New Corsica is a gorgeous town and its houses are arguably the best in the game, being both beautiful and spacious. It’s also still the zone with the most challenging and fun open world solo content.

Using the greatsword ability Calamity Counter in New World.I’m still deciding how to decorate the house, but I was thinking of setting it up less as a private home and as more of a chapterhouse or mission for the Covenant. I see this character as a real true believer in their cause; she could use a place to preach to the converts. It’s a shame there isn’t much in the way of faction-themed furniture, but I’m sure I can come up with something.

Now is an odd time to play New World. Even as a die-hard cheerleader for the game, there’s a definite storm cloud hanging over it. I think the chatter about “no content” on social media is pretty out of touch with reality — I’ve got more to do in-game than there are hours in the day — but the developers also seem to be running scared, and that does have me worried.

Aside from the strange radio silence punctuated by the mantra of “wait for the June announcement,” they seem to have all but raised the white flag when it comes to bugs. The Slayer Script update that was supposed to make the game more stable only added more problems, which could be explained as growing pains, but it’s taking what seems like forever for anything to get fixed. Probably it will all be fixed by the time you’re reading this, but it’s already taken longer than it should have. There’s a definite sense that the live game has been abandoned in favour of whatever today’s announcement will be.

It’s all so strange because a few short months ago I would have said the game was in a great place. Aside from the bugs it still is. It always had the best moment to moment gameplay of any MMORPG on the market, and mounts and the cross realm group finder really were the secret sauce New World was missing to take it to the next level.

Adiana Theron mourns the desecration of nature in New World.I had already started the draft of a Vitae Aeternum column about how New World had finally found its footing and was entering its golden age. Then season five got delayed, and it’s kind of all been downhill from there.

I do still hope to finish that column at some point, but it doesn’t quite feel appropriate in the current climate. I’ve now also got outlines for a column in the event the game goes free to play, and in the event it shutters, though I certainly I hope I won’t need the latter any time soon.

I suspect what happened is that Rise of the Angry Earth didn’t bring back as many players as they hoped, and that sent them scrambling on a hail Mary plan to do something else to boost player numbers. I wonder if the current population is truly unsustainable, or if they’re just still chasing the probably unrealistic idea of getting back to their lofty launch numbers? Even the latter could still threaten the game’s future if Amazon’s upper level management are sufficiently heartless and greedy.

(And if any of y’all come into the comments talking about how the game only has seven thousand players, please go look up the definition of “concurrent” before I forcefeed you my boot, because I spend way too much time lurking New World social media and I can’t take that nonsense anymore.)

My Covenant alt looking concerned during a cutscene in New World.I don’t know what to predict at this point. At the start of 2024 I would have said New World’s future looked bright, but things went off the rails real fast.

And even then, it does need to be said that the game still kicks ass in so many ways. I’m still playing almost every day and enjoying the hell out of it. Even with the bugs, I think this is the best MMORPG still in active development by a pretty commanding margin. Which is both very high praise of all New World does well and a bit of an indictment of the rest of the genre.

I hope whatever gets announced today proves to be the win the game needs. Stay tuned to my column at Massively Overpowered for coverage of that in the near future. I’d be perfectly happy with some bug fixes and for the content cadence to continue as it has, but something needs to be done to improve the game’s reputation. I think a lot of its bad press is underserved (not all, but a lot), but regardless the negative image exists, and it needs to change.

Because regardless of what you’ve heard, there’s a great game here, and it’ll be even better once the bugs get fixed.

WoW: A Partial Changing of the Guard

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I continue to walk the tight rope of what to post on my blog versus what to write as paid columns on Massively Overpowered. As you may have already seen, I’ve got a four part series of columns covering my big thoughts on the state of World of Warcraft that will be releasing on MOP over the coming weeks, but I’ve got some more personal thoughts to share here.

Tess Greymane leads the charge during the reclamation of Gilneas in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.Consider this a bit of a follow-up to my previous post, where I wondered what characters I would be bringing forward into this new WoW era.

I started out leveling my rogue through Dragonflight. But it soon became clear that the rogue class had been butchered like a hog (A hog I tell you!) in my absence. More on that in my MOP column series, but suffice it to say it was time to return to her to the sad role of neglected alt.

I then spent my “enhanced” level seventy boost on my monk, who has become my main for this expansion. Despite my bringing her to level cap in every expansion I’ve played since the inception of the monk class, this is the first time she’s worn the mantle of “main.”

I’m glad to have done it once, but I’m not sure I’ll do it again. Monk is an excellent class, but I’m not sure it’s quite my absolute favourite.Windwalker is probably my vote for the most fun DPS in group content currently, but they’re kind of suffering from success when playing solo. All you do is one-shot everything with Touch of Death and Rising Sun Kick, and while WoW’s open world content is never challenging, it’d be nice to at least use more than one button while playing.

My Night Elf monk poses in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.Brewmaster was my preferred spec in the past, and it’s still okay, but it’s never been quite the same since Blizzard took chi away from it. Also tank damage in general seems to have gone done since I played last, so questing as a tank is once again kind of a slog.

Meanwhile Mistweaver still feels a bit odd to me. I don’t dislike it, but it’s never really clicked for me. I’ve actually mostly been Fistweaving (healing through damage) when I play it in raids this expansion, which I haven’t done before. Fits my backstory for the character better, and it’s not an unpleasant playstyle, but it doesn’t really feel like healing at that point. You’re just a discount Windwalker.

I’ve also gotten my warrior to cap. I’m a bit ambivalent on whether I’ll actually be playing The War Witihin (again, more on that on Massively in the coming weeks), but if I do it feels like a good time to go all-in on playing Dwarves. Underground expansion and all. And I did have a surprising amount of fun with the warrior class back in Legion, but didn’t spend a huge amount of time actually playing it.

It hasn’t changed much since, so I’m still having a lot more fun with it than I’d expect given my dislike for warrior as an archetype in most games, but it’s not quite what I’d call top tier fun-wise, so I’m not sure she’s “new main” material. Was fun to spend more time with the character, at least. It baffles me that almost no one plays female Dwarves in WoW. They’re absolutely adorable, and their animations are full of personality.

On that note, we have had our first major new addition to the cast. I’ve created a Dark Iron Dwarf shaman to replace my aged Orc shaman. Tentatively thinking she’ll be the new main if/when I play War Within. Elemental and Restoration remain extremely fun specs, and I’m quite enjoying the voice overs for the female Dark Irons. Again, why no love for the Dwarf girls?

Otherwise, I’ve toyed around with leveling some of my excess alts from Legion just enough to get a feel for how classes have changed and unlock the heritage armours for their races.

The heritage armour quests are pretty hit and miss. Most are a bit forgettable, but I did enjoy the human and Orc ones considerably. Especially the Orc heritage quest; that’s now one of my favourite quest chains from the whole history of the game.

I played it on my old shaman, and this felt like the perfect swansong for the character. He had always been about restoring the honour and spirituality of the Orcish people, and bringing back the traditions of the Kosh’harg festival is the ideal representation of that.

My shaman doing the Orc heritage armour quest in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.I’m not going to delete the character — maybe I might even dust him off for timewalking now and then — but for now I consider him retired, and in the story I tell to myself in my head, he’s reached the end of his days. I like to imagine he laid down on his furs the night of the festival, drifted off to sleep, and joined the spirits of his ancestors, his wartorn heart having found peace and redemption at last.

One thing I haven’t done much of this expansion is play Blood Elves, aside from a few timewalking runs and the heritage quest, and that does make me feel something is wrong in the universe.

Although I enjoy the current state of both classes, my warlock/demon hunter remains in moth balls for role-play reasons. If I make it that far, I’d thought of dusting her off for the Midnight expansion, which is supposed to be about defending Quel’thalas. That’d certainly get her out of retirement. I’ve also thought of playing her again with some sort of (cosmetic?) change to reflect her finding some form of emotional healing, but I haven’t settled on anything.

I had vaguely given some thought to leveling up my mage. The RP justification for him stepping out of the spotlight doesn’t feel as strong, and Fire spec is actually quite fun these days (even if I do hate that they gave Living Bomb a cooldown). The hero talents for mage in the upcoming expansion also look quite cool, which is more than I can say for most classes’ hero talents. Not sure I want to level through Dragonflight again, though, and there’s no real need for another max level alt right now.

My warlock models the Blood Elf heritage armour in World of Warcraft.We may soon see some other new faces appear with the upcoming Pandaria Remix leveling event. Still not sure if I’m going to play a lot of that or not. I do love Pandaria, but I played plenty of it back in the day, and it remains to be seen how much I’ll appreciate the “remix” aspect.

I’ve been thinking of making a Blood Elf paladin to replace the old human one for a while, so that will likely be my first priority. I’ve also considered making a new death knight. Nothing really wrong with the old one, but he’s another character where I kind of like the idea of him getting to retire. Becoming an undead vessel of disease and violence is so far against what the Tauren hold dear it feels a bit depressing playing him sometimes.

Paradoxically, I do still kind of want to play a Tauren (especially now that I have their amazing heritage armour), but I’m not sure what class they’d be. I don’t really need another warrior or shaman, which would feel the most appropriate choices. I thought about a Survival hunter, but the current incarnation of that spec has them constantly chucking Looney Tunes bombs, and that just doesn’t fit a Tauren at all.

All that’s a lot of rumination for a game I’m still not sure I’ll be back to once my current sub expires, but for good or ill, it seems WoW can still get me obsessing like nothing else.