Post by Morreion on Sept 4, 2018 7:06:30 GMT -5
New World preview (Tech Advisor)
New World is in development by Amazon Studios and finally sees a massive publisher take a proper swing at a sandbox MMORPG. We played it at Gamescom 2018 and here is what we thought.
New World is a sandbox MMORPG set around the 17th century in an alternate historical timeline in which an another continent was found by the settlers traveling from Europe across the Atlantic ocean. This particular continent is one of magic, danger, mystery and riches and will feel broadly familiar as an MMO setting.
New World is focusing on a couple of key aspects that will set it apart from the current mainstream MMORPG stock. First of all, there are no classes. The game supports a wide array of skills and specialisations that you are free to persue and work towards as you wish. If you'd like to tank, heal, support, do damage as a sneaky rogue or a powerful mage all these options are available to you.
The gear system is also equally varied, and so between this and the open ended progression system, you will be offered a large amount of customisation for your character. The style of armour and weapons is psudo-faithful to the time period so you will find muskets and explosives can be found along with your standard array of melee and magic.
This focus on specialisations combined with a deep crafting system and a dangerous world means you will want to make some friends. The game puts a very heavy focus on social features and everything that comes along with player interaction. Forming guilds to take on greater challenges and build your empire (more on that in a moment) will be a good idea if you want to survive.
New World is focusing on a couple of key aspects that will set it apart from the current mainstream MMORPG stock. First of all, there are no classes. The game supports a wide array of skills and specialisations that you are free to persue and work towards as you wish. If you'd like to tank, heal, support, do damage as a sneaky rogue or a powerful mage all these options are available to you.
The gear system is also equally varied, and so between this and the open ended progression system, you will be offered a large amount of customisation for your character. The style of armour and weapons is psudo-faithful to the time period so you will find muskets and explosives can be found along with your standard array of melee and magic.
This focus on specialisations combined with a deep crafting system and a dangerous world means you will want to make some friends. The game puts a very heavy focus on social features and everything that comes along with player interaction. Forming guilds to take on greater challenges and build your empire (more on that in a moment) will be a good idea if you want to survive.
Speaking of the movement, the game is action combat based and so does not rely on tab targeting (although you can press tab and lock to a specific target in a Dark Souls type of way). You have a stamina bar and can attack, sprint, roll, block your way through combat which makes the game feel very fluid and responsive even at this early stage. The pacing of combat felt good, not too fast or slow, and the animation locking made the attacks feel like they had weight behind them without going over the top and making it feel too cumbersome or heavy.
PvP seems to be at the very focal heart of the game and currently when you die you drop all of your gear which can then be looted by other players. This does mean that the gear your acquire is not very difficult to get, but there will be more powerful gear that offers a greater risk for a potentially larger reward. You might be more powerful and effective in combat, but if you die you will lose that powerful set of equipment.
This brings us onto territory control whcih will be a large part of the 'end game'. You can capture land and build upon it, creating outposts and bases for your guild to operate from which can house more advanced crafting stations giving you access to better gear. Your territory can expand over time and in the current version of the game there was a faint line indicating the boundry of a guild's territory. You will be able to tax players that wish to operate or build within your territory, which allows their structures to be under your protection for a price.
This brings us onto territory control whcih will be a large part of the 'end game'. You can capture land and build upon it, creating outposts and bases for your guild to operate from which can house more advanced crafting stations giving you access to better gear. Your territory can expand over time and in the current version of the game there was a faint line indicating the boundry of a guild's territory. You will be able to tax players that wish to operate or build within your territory, which allows their structures to be under your protection for a price.
While killing other players is possible, it will be discouraged by a criminal justice system that we sadly weren't given details of yet, but we do know there will be bounties that can be placed on a player's head. These sort of features allow the introduction of emergent gameplay where the players create the content for themselves. With criminals with bounties on their heads comes bounty hunters, harking back to the old PK (player killer) vs Anti-PK days of Ultima Online.
The world is massive. Really massive. We played in a very small part of it and it still took some time to move around. The environment was also incredibly dense with the undergrowth being very thick and lush. The game looked great too and the game also ran surprisingly well considering it's state of development and the sheer amount of stuff in the environment.
The wild life are no joke either, wolves hunt in packs and take a few people to bring down safely and you have as much chance of taking down a bear on your own as you do in real life, so keep your distance. This helps to emphasize how dangerous the world around you is, which helps create an environment of suspense and consequence.
The world is massive. Really massive. We played in a very small part of it and it still took some time to move around. The environment was also incredibly dense with the undergrowth being very thick and lush. The game looked great too and the game also ran surprisingly well considering it's state of development and the sheer amount of stuff in the environment.
The wild life are no joke either, wolves hunt in packs and take a few people to bring down safely and you have as much chance of taking down a bear on your own as you do in real life, so keep your distance. This helps to emphasize how dangerous the world around you is, which helps create an environment of suspense and consequence.
The world aims to feature up to 1000 players at this moment in time, although the tentative goal was tens of thousands at some point. It seems like they're just going to push thier technology as far as it can go when it comes to player count, this may come with drawbacks in other areas as time progresses so it remains to be seen. This is going to be closer to a persistent MMO experience than it is to a survival based game like Rust or Ark.
There haven't been many attempted by larger companies in the past few years because the risk is too great for the potential reward, but with Amazon Studios stepping into the ring with some extremely impressive first footage we could well see a AAA sandbox MMO in the next few years. No word on a release date yet but considering the impressive state of the pre-alpha build, it's not a million miles away but it's certainly not round the corner either.
Hands-on with Amazon's MMO New World, where hundreds of players war over a supernatural continent (PC Gamer)
I blew up a guy's wall, helped murder him and now his land is mine.
It feels like part MMO, part survival game. You build forts with other players, you can cut down every tree, mine pretty much every stone, and if there's a resource you need but don't have, you might need to venture to another part of the world to get it. What they're aiming for sounds like a simulated society. You'll apparently be able to set quests for other players, paying them gold if there's a certain resource you need tracking down.
Everything in the world will be built by players—it seems like the larger and more diverse in skills your clan is, the more likely you are to control huge parts of the world. You can also sack it all off and become a criminal, if you want to, but there'll then be no penalty for players who kill you.
Amazon's cloud technology is how the game supports this many players. "The biggest breakthrough was that ability to scale one simulation across multiple hubs in the cloud," Gilmore explains, as I pretend to completely understand what that means. "We're leveraging AWS to create a new type of gameplay experience, and that was really kind of the foundation of the game. First we had to build the technology, and then it was all about, what's the customer experience?" Amazon, then, is looking to demonstrate its tech's potential with this game. "Absolutely. Although the technology is bespoke to this game—it's brand new and created just for New World."
Amazon's cloud technology is how the game supports this many players. "The biggest breakthrough was that ability to scale one simulation across multiple hubs in the cloud," Gilmore explains, as I pretend to completely understand what that means. "We're leveraging AWS to create a new type of gameplay experience, and that was really kind of the foundation of the game. First we had to build the technology, and then it was all about, what's the customer experience?" Amazon, then, is looking to demonstrate its tech's potential with this game. "Absolutely. Although the technology is bespoke to this game—it's brand new and created just for New World."
I ask how they're going to charge for the game. "We're going to monetise as just premium—so straight up you pay a flat rate, come in and join the game, it's a live service. As it expands, you're in that community. We are going to have MTX in the game, but no loot boxes, no pay-to-win, it's all just like additional vanity content."
New World aims for 10,000-player territorial wars across haunted lands (PC Games)
Amazon Game Studios makes an ambitious survival MMO debut and forces us to fight some terrifying bears
...This is all in aid of the large-scale territory wars Amazon is hoping to encourage. You hunt, gather resources, craft weapons and health-giving food, and construct forts with like-minded players. The forts act as a respawn point to catch your falls from grace after each misadventure.
Within them, you generally can’t be attacked by NPC wildlife or other players, and they’re a place to store your hard-earned (or ill-gotten) gains, too. If you’re going on a particularly long jaunt, you can craft a campfire – using wood and flint – at which to rest your weary, sword-damaged bones. These serve as a temporary respawn point, which can prove particularly useful when, say, sieging other players’ constructions.
Within them, you generally can’t be attacked by NPC wildlife or other players, and they’re a place to store your hard-earned (or ill-gotten) gains, too. If you’re going on a particularly long jaunt, you can craft a campfire – using wood and flint – at which to rest your weary, sword-damaged bones. These serve as a temporary respawn point, which can prove particularly useful when, say, sieging other players’ constructions.
If you establish an HQ in one, it then belongs to your party – you’ll even get a share of resources gathered by any players from other groups who stray into your borders. And there’s nothing stopping a well-organised group of players from taking over huge chunks of the world map. If that’s your ambition, however, be prepared to fight off all manner of challenges to your claim.
Within this burgeoning realm, you’ll be able to set quests for other people. The game will track these deals and make sure both parties receive the respective items and payment – or trade – when a task has been completed. This is a particularly handy way of avoiding getting your hands dirty if you can’t be bothered to wander miles from your home counties in order to procure some rare resource.
Within this burgeoning realm, you’ll be able to set quests for other people. The game will track these deals and make sure both parties receive the respective items and payment – or trade – when a task has been completed. This is a particularly handy way of avoiding getting your hands dirty if you can’t be bothered to wander miles from your home counties in order to procure some rare resource.
A MOP comment:
“We want to see what happens when civilization works.”
*builds full loot murder sim*
*builds full loot murder sim*
Overall, comments seem to show a healthy skepticism of a full-loot PvP game, considering there has never been one to date that was able to limit griefing. Amazon is certainly going out on a limb here- who knows what the game will be like at release.
