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Author Topic: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO  (Read 1339 times)

Dunamisdeos

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New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« on: October 02, 2021, 04:21:07 pm »

Do we have a thread for this already? Anyway New World is a player-driven economy MMO. There are zero NPC shops, everything is supply and demand crafted or drops from bosses/dungeons.  - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1063730/New_World/

On our server, you'd think this would create a terrifying, dystopian, cutthroat environment where the haves dominate the have-nots in an endless cycle of exploitation that would make a Ferengi blush. And it did, for about 15m. The first guild to take over a territory set taxes at 300% of the normal rate (which goes straight into their guild's coffers). Crafting and trading from any player incurs a tax. Our faction took a neighboring territory, advertised the taxes at normal, then used VOLUNTARY DONATIONS to very effectively outpace the rest. We own 3/6 territories now. The original greedbuckets own 2. Another faction owns 1.

People from the greedy bunch were coming to our town just to craft/trade and avoid their own factions taxes. (Which means the tax money went into OUR factions coffers).

Anyway the game is very heavily crafting and PvPvP centric. I'm enjoying it thoroughly. Also, no sub.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2021, 05:07:37 pm by Dunamisdeos »
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Folly

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2021, 03:03:50 pm »

A lot of my groups are playing this right now. Personally I'm skipping this one.

I played for a couple of months in the early alpha, and NW did have some good points. Lovely graphics, great performance, and smooth combat controls.

I did however have a few major issues with the game. Firstly, it's a pvp-oriented game, with a divisive RPG progression system; meaning that if you are level 1, you have absolutely no chance in combat against a lvl 60. If you are lvl 50, you have no chance in combat against a lvl 60. You absolutely have to hit the max level before you can even consider competing, and even at that point your performance will be heavily weighted by the gear you can aquire. But just getting to 60 is an ordeal, because there is no pvp area limited to low-levels, so your only option for grinding levels is PvE. And the PvE is an absolutely awful tradeskill grind of literally just walking up to resource nodes and clicking them every few seconds until they are depleted, then finding another and repeating until full, then mashing all the junk you collected into something so useless that you immediately toss in on the ground and go back to gathering some more. Repeat this process for around 300 hours until you hit the level cap so that you can actually start playing the game. Utterly terrible gameplay systems from concept to implementation.

And then there were the balance issues. From day 1 it was immediately apparent that some items were dramatically overpowered and others completely useless. And each patch would address this by nerfing the overpowered items into uselessness and buffing the useless items so they were now overpowered. It was immensely clear that whoever was in charge of balancing these things was just putting in the absolute minimum effort, and more often than not making things worse than they were before.

Like I said, this was early alpha. Since then I've been somewhat following news of the game and heard that much of the development staff was replaced. I also heard the replacements were even worse somehow. I don't know, maybe the game is better now. But I'm not inclined to go through that grind again just so I can find out.
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Nelia Hawk

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2021, 05:05:34 pm »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kioumWRu_Y&ab_channel=JoshStrifeHayes

the mmo about exploring a new world, that is already explored before it even begins.
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a1s

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2021, 09:25:30 am »

On our server, you'd think this would create a terrifying, dystopian, cutthroat environment where the haves dominate the have-nots in an endless cycle of exploitation that would make a Ferengi blush. And it did, for about 15m. The first guild to take over a territory set taxes at 300% of the normal rate (which goes straight into their guild's coffers). Crafting and trading from any player incurs a tax.
Taxes are socialism. I know in this case taxes are, in fact, just highway robbery, but I'm assuming you provide some service to you constituents (they seem to be grateful enough to give you voluntary donations.)
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forsaken1111

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2021, 09:26:21 am »

Trying this a bit. So far it's pretty standard MMO fare. The crafting system seems pretty good. No queue issues, no lag issues. Seems... fine? I guess. Nothing groundbreaking.
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Chiefwaffles

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2021, 11:09:00 am »

If anything this is capitalism propaganda. “See? Competition and the invisible hand works perfectly, and taxes are universally bad.”

That being said, it’s not a bad game. I’m still not sure if it clicks for me personally though. It’s just… eh. There are lots of minor complaints I have, whether they’re weird bugs/quirks that would hopefully eventually be patched, or just minor dislike of intentional design choices.
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vjek

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Re: New World: Jeff Bezos' Capitalism MMO
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2021, 11:24:02 am »

From my testing/playing it, it's very similar to many other MMOs that already exist.  Move, interact, repeat.
And, some, most, many or all of those MMOs have a cash shop and/or micro transactions, just like New World.

However, some, most, many, or all of those other MMOs have more content, more features that I like, a better community, or other mechanics that I would prefer.
So, (and this is the decision I've had with every MMO since the first cash shop was introduced) I have to decide if this cash shop is now and will be worse than any other, and make my decision based on that.

It's not that the graphics are better or worse, or the gameplay is better or worse.  That's all been the same since 1995, from my perspective. 
You move your character in a ~persistent 3D environment. Ok, that's the interface.  Beyond that, the mechanics can be good, bad, many or few. 
All I want is a level playing field to go with those mechanics.  No customer should be able to open their wallet and gain any in-game advantage.  Using RL money to cheat?  Nope, not a fan.
New World doesn't have that level playing field, for me.  And given history, it's unlikely it will get more level over time.  8)

Objectively, if Daybreak would remove krono from the Mischief-style TLP EQ1 servers, I would go back to playing on those for many many years. 
That's how little graphics and direct player conflict matter to me, when comparing a 20 year old game to New World.