With the release of Amazon’s New World, the debate about how to get more players to flag up for world player versus player has again been raging. The New World sub reddit and official forums have been consistently abuzz with players asking, pleading for, and demanding buffs to bonuses for opting in to PVP. A common justification is that better bonuses would inspire more players to opt in… including those who prefer PVE and don’t want to PVP. Is this better? In this video, we break down how not to incentivize players to flag up for world PVP.
Tag: mmo
Is It Pay to Win? Elyon (Ascent: Infinite Realm)
Welcome to ‘Is it Pay to Win’ – a column where we examine a game and decide if that game is has aspects of pay to win and to what extent. Check out Is it Pay to Win?: Defined to see how we break down the components of pay to win (p2w), such as pay for advantage, pay for convenience, and pay for cosmetics.
Elyon (formerly Ascent: Infinite Realm) is a korean MMORPG developed by Bluehole and is being published for Western audiences by Kakao. The game has 5 classes with a large variety of skills. It features both PVP and PVE. The game must be purchased (buy to play) and has a cash shop with microtransactions.
Scoring:
- Pay for Power: 2/5
- Pay for Advantage: 3/5
- Pay for Convenience: 5/5
- Pay for Cosmetics: 5/5
- Pay to Win: 3.14/5
Here’s a video discussion of the cash shop. Continue reading for a break down of the games system, an explanation for those scores and our final verdict on the game.
(more…)Should You Play New World?
Amazon’s New World is an upcoming MMORPG set loosely in the colonial era with a supernatural (distinctly not high-fantasy) twist. The player shipwrecks on the mysterious island of Aeternum and discovers three (player) factions vying for survival and dominance of an uncharted island full of pirate zombies and choppable trees. The game features action combat, as is common in newer MMOs, instead of the older but still popular tab target of WoW or FF14. The game, while having a variety of types of content such as PVP, PVE and gathering, is very much not for everyone. Those expecting a WoW-clone or wanting the heavy survival or hard-core PVP elements of the early builds might be disappointed. Who then, is this game for?
(more…)New World Closed Beta Keys & Info
The New World closed beta starts on 20th of this month. Fortunately, this one is not under NDA, unlike the alpha, so we’ll be able to share information, stream it, and so forth. We’ll be streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/shardentv and will have more feedback posted here during and after the test. Additionally, we have several keys to give away (given to us by Amazon as part of their content creator program). We’re going to give away a key to commenters on this post, a key on twitter, another on the stream, and maybe one more elsewhere. Continue on for when the beta starts/ends, server locations for it and how to win one of those beta keys.
(more…)Ashes of Creation: Big Expectations
We’ve seen games heralded as “the next big thing” or a “WoW Killer” for years upon years. So far, nothing has killed World of Warcraft and we rarely even get a new big thing. Sometimes, in the worst case, we don’t even get a thing at all as upcoming MMO’s often never launch due to complications or financial constraints given how large and expensive developing this sort of game is – particularly for indie developers.
So here we have Ashes of Creation. It’s an independently developed upcoming MMO. It has more going against it than for it. The market is saturated with MMOs: WoW, ESO, FF14 & Runescape dominate the market, and there’s dozens if not hundreds more eating up little slices of the potential player base. Each game brings with it a their take on the genre – their own unique trait or gimmick. So what does AoC bring to the table that is unique? And what is it that has players expectations so high? What has people willing to spend $500 to get into the first alpha tests?
(more…)New World: First Impressions
So, I was able to get into this New World preview. I didn’t get in until 3 days to the end so I didn’t get to progress very far, however, I made it to level 17, got into factions, did some questing, some exploring, and some crafting. For context, getting to level 17 took 5.5 hours. This probably wasnt the most efficient 5.5 hours of my gaming time, but getting to max level will probably take a significant time investment. In this post, I’ll throw out my thoughts on the look and feel of the game, the combat, crafting, my overall thoughts and a review of the interview their developer did with Richwcampbell and Asmongold. Also, at the end, there’ll be a little story regarding Amazon’s customer service for their gaming division. Make sure to subscribe to the blog to get future updates for the game, including details about their November beta test and a bunch of already-created game resources.
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