Tag Archives: alternate history

Marking the End of New World’s Development

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By now, you will have heard the news, and I’ve already posted lengthy thoughts on the matter at Massively Overpowered, but I felt like I should say something here, as well.

An isolated and desolate region of Nighthaven in New World.I feel a vague sense of regret that almost all of my writing on New World has been on a site someone else owns. Of course, there are good reasons for that. Posting on Massively gets a lot more attention, and obviously I get paid for it. But this blog was a mostly complete record of my gaming exploits for a long time, and there’s now a gaping hole in that record. New World was my main game for several years, but I’ve hardly talked about it here.

Like I said at Massively, I did feel like something like this was coming after how mishandled the Aeternum relaunch was. I didn’t think it would come this soon or suddenly, but I was somewhat mentally prepared. It still sucks, though.

For now, I’m still playing. The population has dropped precipitously, but there’s still enough people around to do Myrk runs, buy most things from the trading post, and so forth.

I must confess I’m confused by the exodus. I can understand being a bit less motivated to grind in a game when a game has an impending expiry date, but I don’t understand the impulse to completely drop a game you were having fun with just because it got put in maintenance mode. At least wait until you’re bored with the current content.

My Covenant alt smashing skeletons in New World.We all understand MMOs are temporary, yes? New World’s end might be sooner than others’, but this stuff was never meant to be forever. Even if a shut down is not coming any time soon, they usually find other ways to make your accomplishments transient. People will grind their faces off for a single upgrade in World of Warcraft fully knowing that item is going to be vendor trash in three months or less, but they won’t play New World now that we know it won’t be getting more patches? I don’t get it.

My priorities have shifted a bit. I’m less concerned with my item level (never the biggest priority for me), but there’s still lots for me to do. This news was so sudden I hadn’t even unlocked all the fast travel points for the new zone when it first dropped.

My goal is mostly just to check off items on my New World bucket list so I can have no regrets when the true end finally comes. I’m finishing up the Nighthaven side quests on my main, exploring the Reekwater revamp, and getting my Covie alt to 70 while leveling her dagger skill. Planning to do some lore hunting at some point.

It was really exciting to see them drop a whole bunch of new content with no warning. It is all a bit janky because it was probably intended for the next season and clearly wasn’t fully finished, but it’s still a great gesture by the remaining devs (and further proof the shutdown was a last minute decision by Amazon execs rather than the result of the game running out of money).

A cave in New World's Edengrove zone.Daggers probably aren’t going to be my new favourite weapon, but it is still nice to have a new toy to play with. I enjoy their absurd attack speed, but it is an extreme glass cannon build. Still getting the hang of it.

Despite my griping over it when it first arrived, I’ve also decided I do want a house in Edengrove after all, so I’m grinding gold and reputation for that. Unfortunately I depleted much of my gold reserves buying perk charms in the early days of the patch.

I might also use up my Covie’s remaining house slot, as well, but I haven’t decided where yet. Might just see what zones she has good rep in.

I’ve been in the habit of taking a lot of screenshots for many years now, but I’m increasingly also capturing video clips, as well. I really want to have some remembrance of the full experience of the game, especially since the sound design is so much of what makes New World special.

My New World main encounters an old foe in the ruins beneath Nighthaven.What sucks most about this is that there just isn’t another game quite like New World. Most other major MMOs are much more dated, and nothing else feels as good to play. I’m hoping Aion 2 will be good, but I worry I’m overhyping myself, and even if I’m not, I don’t think it’s going to quite fill the gap left behind by New World.

Well, for now, the game is still there, and I aim to enjoy it while I can.

New World: Fresh Faces

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Just a small post today about something I felt was worth marking but wouldn’t fill a Vitae Aeternum column over at Massively OP.

My less than perfect attempt to fix my Covenant alt's face in New World.A few months back, New World revamped player faces, leaving both my characters with new faces I didn’t ask for. While I didn’t mind the new look for my Syndicate main too much, I hated the changes made for my Covenant alt. This left me eagerly awaiting the release of this season’s barbershop feature.

Of course, the barbershop tokens come from the cash shop. I’ve nothing against that on principle, but considering they changed all our faces a few months before, they really should have given every character a free token off the bat. Instead they offered only one for free, at level 90 of the season pass.

I spent a few hours enduring the misery of grinding the current season pass as a PvE player and got the freebie, and my Covie now has a new new face, as you can see above.

To be honest, I’m still not thrilled with it. It’s nowhere near as ugly as the one the update saddled her with, but it doesn’t suit her. She looks mean now. While I imagined her having a fairly rough past, she’s a true believer in the Covenant’s mission now, and “mean” doesn’t fit. Problem is there just aren’t that many faces in this game, fewer that look good, and even fewer with Asian features. Maybe the new one will grow on me with time. One could hope…

My main's updated face in New World.That was to be the end of it, but my Syndicate main’s new face wasn’t quite sitting right either. It didn’t look bad, but it wasn’t her, either. Thus, in a moment of weakness, I bought a second barbershop token and changed her up, as well.

This does mean I broke my boycott of Trump-aligned big tech, and I feel genuinely bad about that. It is complicated because I’m pretty confident the California-based developers of a game about a multi-cultural setting that’s featured bisexual and nonbinary NPCs since launch aren’t particularly supportive of Mango Mussolini, but at least some of the money still does get filtered up the chain to Amazon’s orange-scrotum-gobbling boss. I won’t attempt to make excuses. It was, as I said, a moment of weakness.

At least I’m happy with the result. While I struggled with my Covie, for the main I was able to find a nice-looking face that feels like a pretty good match for her original look. While I was there, I also gave her a messier hair style and a nasty facial scar, as I figure a few years on Immortality Is Actually Hell Island would have her looking a bit less prim and proper.

This reflects how my view of the character has evolved over the years. I’ve always pictured her as a magical scholar, but originally I was picturing her as very book smart and civilized, whereas these days I’m seeing her as more of a witchy, druidic type. This can be seen as a natural evolution rather than a retcon. You can read all the books on alchemy you want back in Europe, but once you get to Aeternum, the wild powers of the island don’t follow such clear-cut rules.

With that done, I’ve largely dropped New World, and I imagine that will remain true until season ten launches in fall. Maybe I’ll drop back in for the occasional world boss or something, but I’m pretty burnt out on the game on its current state of content drought. Let’s hope they hit it out of the park with the new zone that is probably Dunwood. I want me a nice spooky zone where I can get a gothic horror mansion for a house.