Richard Bartle is one of the co-founders of MUDs (Multi User Dungeons), which are considered the forerunners of the first MMORPGs. He also wrote the well-known book Designing Virtual Worlds. In the last few months he has spent over 350 hours in New World summarizing his experiences.
What does the developer think of the game? On Facebook, Bartle shared a lengthy post summarizing his experience with New World. Overall, these sound very positive, even if he lists a few points of criticism.
His overall verdict: “All in all, New World was a lot better than I was led to believe. I liked it better than Lost Ark, which I also really liked because it was a bit different.”
What has Bartle achieved? In his 350 hours of play, he brought the Gearscore to 619 out of a possible 625 points. He has gathering skills at 200 (with the exception of woodcutting at 190), most crafting skills at 150+. He tried a few things in PvP, but he was mostly in PvE. There he played through the main story and tried his hand at dungeons as a healer.
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New World feels like a throwback for PC gamers
What exactly is Bartle criticizing? His biggest criticism relates to the interface and the general structure of New World. Here he puts forward the thesis that New World would be better off on consoles than on PC:
Interfaces don’t usually bother me too much as I’m more interested in the world and gameplay. But if an interface has negative effects, then that bothers me. New World is one of those games that was made for consoles and feels like a throwback to PC gamers (which I am one of). That alone isn’t a big problem, but one of the consequences is that you can only use a very limited number of actions available.
Essentially, there are only three actions per weapon, and you can only equip two weapons at a time; if you want to use an action for the other weapon, you have to switch to that weapon first – there is no automatic switching because there are only three slots and not six for console interface reasons.
The result is quite a thrilling action-combat punctuated by unnecessary flailing.
He also emphasized several times that far too few players were online on his server. This led to dead events and grouping issues for dungeons and PvP.
The quests and the lore, however, get a mixed conclusion. The developer described many quests as “terrible”, while the lore and world building were very consistent overall.
What does the developer praise? The many freedoms. So he thought it was great that the players worked out the chest runs themselves and still do them regularly 1.5 years after the release. You run through elite areas in a large group of players to open chests and get loot and equipment.
He also pointed out that while he suffered from fall damage, he never died. He had had negative experiences with The Secret World, for example.
He also praised the combat system as very action-packed.
How do you see the conclusion of the developer legend? Is New World actually better than its reputation? And what is stopping you from returning to the MMORPG? Most recently, the game got its first major update of the year:
New World brings first major update of 2023 – is it worth returning?