Acceptance At Last

 Hear ye, hear ye, let it be known across the land that I, Heartlessgamer, have come to peace with the New World end-of-development announcement. Not really, but I have a grief checklist to complete, and the last checkbox is acceptance. And if there is anything certain in life, it is death and taxes; and for MMORPG players, completing checklists.

 The acceptance stage of grief is all about exploring options, new plans, and moving on.

 Except I can't move on yet because New World dropped a bunch of new content in what we assume will be the last major patch. Multiple in-progress features were released to the game: daggers, the Reekwater revamp, global storage, and more. That means there are immediately new things to do and try in New World, and I owe it to my 4,000+ hours invested to try them out.

 As far as new plans go, I was able to play a little bit of ARC Raiders, a game I was waiting on for months after it didn't get shadow-dropped this past summer. It’s an amazing game with incredible experiences. So you'll find me over there in the solo queue, beating down robots and screaming, "FRIENDLY FRIENDLY FRIENDLY DON'T SHOOT!"

 That brings us to exploring options. What MMO is Heartless going to go play in the wake of New World's demise? I'm glad you asked.

 Guild Wars 2 jumps to mind immediately, as I have put an enormous number of hours into it prior to shifting to New World as my daily driver MMO. I have tried revisiting it a couple of times during my time playing New World, and I own the expansions up through Path of Fire, but in those revisits I couldn't jump backwards to tab-target combat. New World really spoiled me with its action combat. But if New World isn't an option, then Guild Wars 2 combat is still pretty good.

 Guild Wars 2 also has an amazing in-game economy, which was one of my favorite aspects when I've played it for extended periods. It is also casual in nature with true horizontal progression. Most time in Guild Wars 2 is spent doing something of interest vs. doing something strictly for vertical power gain. The barrier to entry for PvP is also low, which makes it easy to try things out—and easier to get friends to consider it.

 Albion Online is also attractive to go back to, as I have a few hundred hours logged there. While it is a step back visually because of its top-down isometric view, it more than makes up for it in variety of features. The in-game economy is unmatched in my opinion, and I played the market aspect of the game for months even after I gave up on PvP and PvE content. It is solo and casual friendly, but at the same time offers a deep, grind-it-out aspect for the more dedicated player. There is every level of PvP content you can imagine: risk-free and repeatable through to hardcore drop-everything-on-death.  Then private housing islands, crafting, refining, gathering, collecting, and even fishing!  There is a lot to enjoy about Albion Online.

 Ashes of Creation is in alpha testing and is the "next big thing" in MMOs (if there is such a thing). I've had a mixed history following and writing about this game. I don't think it's ready for my time yet, so I'll keep on watching and waiting for its fuller form to make it to a release.

 

 

 In reality, I am going to keep playing New World. I have a few months, at least, of enjoyment left. My friends and I will also be playing ARC Raiders. Then we'll re-evaluate early next year and maybe—you never know—just possibly, New World might get a lifeline.