Crowfall: Going Dark on Nov 22nd

Crowfall is going offline Nov 22nd (what a birthday present for me!).

Hello Crows!

Over the past few months, we’ve been evaluating the current state of Crowfall. One of the biggest challenges has been the sheer amount of development effort required to build new campaigns and keep the game running daily. In order to refocus our efforts from live operations to development, we have decided to take the Crowfall live service offline for the time being.

On November 22, 2022, at 11 AM CST, Crowfall will go dark, and the game servers will be unavailable. Until the service goes offline, take this time to try out all of the cool buildings, mounts, and emotes for free in the Crowfall store.

We're going to use this time to map out the future of the game. We have yet to determine what that looks like, but we are investing in and rethinking every part of the game - from the core technology and tools to art, design, and gameplay. Nothing is off the table.

We'll share the plan with the community as it shapes up.

We want to thank Crowfall players for their support, feedback, and patience since Monumental purchased the game.

The Crowfall Team

 Not surprising to be honest.  The game launch was lackluster and struggled to find an audience.  I don't feel the game was unplayable but it really didn't offer anything to your average player.  To be honest if you wanted to enjoy any part of the game you needed to be part of the in-crowd and the in-crowd had all sorts of exploitation to game the system which made it irritating to be part of.  I had an enjoyable run but as a mostly-solo player being forced into waiting around for guilds to do something meant there was nothing for me in the game.

I will be curious if Crowfall comes out of this dark period.  I could see the cost to re-develop not being worth it, but that would really make me wonder why it was acquired in the first place.  As an early backer on Kickstarter I do want to see Crowfall realized into a live service game so hopeful they are taking the down time to make a serious development effort around the game.  If they do relaunch I'll be there to give it a try.

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 7: Greatsword Part 2 )

For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword 
• Part 5: Nightveil Hallow 
• Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience

Part 7 (maybe 4.5): Greatsword Part 2 - read on!

 In my first impressions post about the greatsword I mentioned I had not yet played with it. Well that has changed and I am here to tell you all about it.  I grabbed one off the market and hit the weapon experience grind spots to make it to weapon level 20.  Then I took it into some PvP.  Holy **** this weapon is good!

 The greatsword feels better than any weapon I've used in New World.  The hit tracking and mix of capabilities it brings are phenomenal.  Its flexability between defensive and offensive capability is unrivaled.  I now want every weapon to feel as good as greatsword does.

 I want to key in on the hit tracking for the weapon; sometimes called homing or seeking.  New World has an action oriented combat system so players hit where they are aiming.  This is fine and good with ranged weapons, but it is problematic for melee attacks, especially in PvP, so to compensate the game helps melee attacks cheat a little bit by locking onto their target.  Greatsword seems on another level as far as its tracking and was much easier to ensure hits with.  Combined with some great mobility skills and I was slaying enemies left and right.

 Another key that makes greatsword great is the area of effect of the light and heavy attacks.  The attacks swing far and wide and have superior reach compared to other weapons.  Where with a warhammer I can rarely hit a target right in front of me I have NO ISSUE hitting with greatsword. I also understand why I've been getting wrecked in PvP by greatsword; it literally doesn't seem to be able to miss!

Watch out - greatsword coming at ya!

 Contributing to the "don't miss" is also the greatsword abilities, at least from the Onslaught tree, is that the player has agency over all parts of the attack.  For example there is Cross Cut which is a three-part attack.  Instead of being locked into an animation that goes in one direction I can twirl and twist my camera and character around to ensure the three attacks land on target.  There are also other attacks where bonus attacks can be triggered mid animation.  It feels so good compared to weapons like warhammer where you have zero control once that animation starts and your opponent can literally just "walk away" from the attack in PvP to avoid it.

 I am in love with the greatsword now and rapidly building towards a medium bruiser build with great axe.  Even without gear or experience I was instantly wrecking players in PvP and that was just taking my frontline tank build and swapping in a greatsword fully specced in onslaught.  With heavy armor you often feel so underpowered for damage but greatsword makes up for so much of that its crazy.  And I've seen the defensive tank build with greatsword and the defensive skill tree; literal unkillable turtles.

 Greatsword: 12/10!  Note: I fully expect a nerf as this is crazy strong and explains why every 3v3 arena, OPR, and open world encounter seems to heavily feature greatswords.

 Have you tried greatsword?  Agree/disagree?  Leave a comment.

 

 

 

"This build. Has. It. All." and Melee Sucks! (New World: Greatsword/Great Axe Build)

 Don't have much for today so just going to highlight a greatsword/great axe build I saw on YouTube (snarky comments about melee sucking included!).  Based on my experience getting wrecked by greatsword players in PvP this definitely seems like a legit "has it all" build to quote the video's creator.

Enjoy!

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword 
• Part 5: Nightveil Hallow

Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience - read on!

 With the Brimstone Sands update there was also a massive change to the new player experience and the level 1-25 quest and related storyline.  This also includes big changes to zones and some towns.  Big visual changes are also part of the package.  While I have not done much of the new experience I do have some thoughts from the part that I have done.

 First the biggest part that jumps out is the visual changes to towns like Monarch's Bluff.  Gone is the rickety fishing village vibe replaced by a castle worthy of King Arthur.  While its a shock initially the feeling wears off quickly once you realize, for the most part, the layout and structure is the same.  It is also wore on me as far as theme as it does not feel like the New World I know and love.  I wouldn't say it takes away but I actually liked the fishing village vibe.  For new players this is likely not an issue as the general feedback from many new players is "I love it!".

 There are also other big visual points of interest in the revamped new player experience up through level 25.  The "castle worthy of King Arthur" is a recurring theme here as players run across massive castles everywhere. Visually stunning when viewed from afar but again, for the New World OG like myself, it just feels out of place when we still have literal "slapped together boards" towns like Reekwater.  

Castle; pretty!

 Fortunately the new points of interest are explored on the back of new and interesting quests.  There is still the "loot X chests" quests, but there is a variety of new quest experiences to go with them.  There are escort quests, go blow stuff up quests, dodge under the lasers quests, and plenty of interesting find and kill things quests.  This carries through level 25 before going back to the originaly-release-experience to level 60.

 I will give credit to the team for the new quest designs and experience up to level 25 but players will be in for a culture shock as they get to end game and are back to the "loot chests" loops.  Personally I have no problem with the "loot chests".  The chests are really just a driver from point A to B and where New World has always won me over is all the stuff that happens between A and B; especially if you are PvP flagged.

 In conclusion: 5/10 on the revamped experience; at least for this New World OG.  I can understand other players returning to the game for fresh start, who were expecting a different experience, heaping praise on the changes.  For me though it is a skin on top of what existed and a skin that feels misplaced.  Once the full experience is put together from 1-60 I will re-evaluate.

 Have you tried the revamp?  Playing on a fresh start server?  Leave a comment or ten.

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 5: Nightveil Hallow)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword

Part 5: Nightveil Hallow - read on!

 A little untimely as the event is over, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the Nightveil Hallow event that was part of the Brimstone Sands update.  Nightveil Hallow was New World's Halloween Event and it brought bubbling cauldrons and an open world boss to fight.

Bubbly!

 The first noticeable part of the event were the large bubbling cauldrons in each town; visually stunning and thematic!  Next to the cauldrons was an event vendor and quest giver.  One of the changes I liked with this event was that there were only two reputation levels and players could quickly get to the second level just by completing the questline.  This meant all reward levels were available to players without any grinding required which was very nice considering the massive amount of other new content that was also available at the same time (new zone, new expedition, new weapon, etc).

 To get tokens for the event players were tasked with defeating Baalphazu and his cast of minions.  Baalphazu was an open world boss fight that takes a large number of players to defeat as not only are you fighting Baalphazu but also his never ending waves of creatures.  A good number of tokens were rewarded for each kill and combined with ease of access to reward tiers it meant with some part time effort players could get the rewards they wanted from the event.  This was a big win compared to other events that required constant daily grinding to get the best rewards.

 The fight had a few unique mechanics; mainly throwing pumpkins at him to break his defense down so players could take down his life (if the defense bar was not depleted via pumpkin tossing he had greatly increased damage reduction).  Creepy crawly pumpkin headed enemies would spawn and once killed dropped the pumpkins that players could pick up and chuck.  Baalphazu also featured a few tricks with a pull and bomb mechanic followed by cascading damage waves.  There is nothing like seeing 50+ players all of a sudden get sucked in and then wiped out!

 Since the fight was open world and lots of players were interested in killing Baalphazu the fight was never much of a challenge and just a question of "how long".  While there were the mechanics with waves of spawning minions and the pull-everyone-in-and-bomb-them there was always enough players left alive or coming back (since you could create a camp right next to the boss spawn) to keep the fight going.  

 I'd of preferred seeing some sort of cooldown for players killed before they could rejoin the fight.  I don't necessarily want special events to be  "hard" but I'd prefer if more of these types of open world fights didn't boil down to throwing a zerg at it and have a camp located right next to the event boss.  Same goes for Elite points of interest in the open world; they just favor zergs and camping right next for fast respawn.  A little more challenge is all I am asking for to encourage players to pay more attention.

 Over all I enjoyed the event.  It didn't ask me for a lot of my time and gave me some cool skins and an awesome house pet I stop by daily to water in my house (yes, you literally can water your pumpklin buddy - see video embedded below). Rating: 8/10