A Couple Suggestions for the New World Trading Post

 One of my favorite parts of MMORPGs are the online markets that they host.  I love making a few virtual bucks buying low and selling high.  I played Guild Wars 2 and Albion Online for a long time just off flipping stuff on the market and turning the profit into silly things I didn't need for my characters.  With my current addiction still being New World I find myself in the same boat with it's auction house.  Here are a couple suggestions on how it could be improved.

The first suggestion is adding a couple more filters to the recently added filter page.  Filtering by perks, gear score, and attributes were all great adds but there is still a lot of hovering or sorting required to find exactly what is needed.  A couple filters being added would finish out the filters in my opinion.

• First change: If I want to find only heavy armor I have to hover over each item to see its weight.  Adding an armor weight filter would solve this.
  
• Second change: If I select an attribute filter of STR and CON then I have to sort through all the split stat gear that has, for example, CON + FOC when I just want STR/CON split stat gear.  Ideally a filter would be added that allows for "only these two split attributes".

After these changes, again, I think filters are nearly perfect.

Next I would advocate  for a better buy order system for specific armor and weapons.  The buy order system for the rest of the items in the game works fine but its not useful trying to find very specific gear.  While you can define perks + gear score minimum + attributes desired in the current buy orders there are three main issues.  

First, you have to specify a specific item instead of just a certain slot (for example; you have to say Defiled Gloves instead of just "all heavy armor gloves").  Then secondly finding the buy orders as a seller/crafter is near impossible due to having to look through all the specific items instead of a general category.  Third; placing buy orders for a larger sum of gold is prohibitively expensive and only lasts a set number of days.  Combine these together and you are better just spamming TRADE chat.

To fix this I would separate the buy orders for specific gear from the rest of the commodity market.  Create new screens and ways to view the buy orders and then a way to much more easily match your inventory to those buy orders.  For example; "show all great axe buy orders" so a crafter can determine what they may want to try and craft or another example "show all matching weapons I can sell" for a seller to click sell from a single screen.  

Remove fees for having a buy order posted and instead limit how many a single player can have at a time.  I'd keep the 1/3/7/14 day durations to ensure the trading post doesn't get clutter, but make it easy for a player to renew a listing instead of starting over.  Then have a fee only for when a sale is made.

New World has a unique gear system with a ton of variety.  Players can swap gear on the fly as needed for different content.  It is part of what I find makes New World so fun to play.  Helping match buy orders and sell orders to the right players would go a long way for everyone.  There is likely gear being salvaged as you read this that is the perfect piece some is desperately trying to find to buy and that is unfortunate.  The in-game market should connect that buyer and seller!

What do you think?  Leave a comment.

New World: 3v3 PvP Arena Queues Split Solo vs Group

 A sneaky patch note landed in patch 1.6.7 from New World this week.

• 3v3 Arenas

  • Groups of three entering 3v3 Arenas are now placed into a separate queue with teams of the same size. This will help prevent matches between premade groups and teams made up of solo players.

This caught the community by surprise as this sort of change is not normally made in these small, usually just bug fix, patches.  Rumor also has it that the change was not in the original notes and was added later; leading to speculation it was accidentally released.  Either way it is a nice change to have!

I jumped in last night and gave the solo queue a whirl and my arena experience was night and day difference.  I had far more enjoyable matches and the queue was popping much faster.  Previously I always seemed to get stuck against premade groups and after a couple of rounds of getting thumped would quit arenas.  I suspect many others did this as well because in the solo queue the wait time between matches was seconds vs my previous experience of minutes.

With the good does come the bad though.  Getting matched with random players against random players does mean sometimes you get terrible group comps while the opposing team will land on ideal comps.  The presence of a single healer on one side still almost guarantees a win (healing is very strong in PvP).  But I'll take this over the old system of getting beat down by premade groups.

What are your thoughts?  Were you a sweaty premade group player that can't farm the newbs like myself anymore?  Comment!

Fish. Swim. Faster!

 I did some fishing in the post-1.05 patch world of Call of the Wild: The Angler.  For my thoughts before I gave the patch a try read my last post.  For my thoughts after the patch; read on!

It is changes like this patch to games where I wish I did video content as it would be much easier to explain and show the difference before and after changes.  So you will just have to trust me that fish swim faster.  Fish. Swim. Faster!

When the game first launched fish were painstakingly slow to the point that players had to reduce the speed they fished at to the lowest setting and even then it was a slow motion activity to watch a fish "strike" a lure.  I use quotes around strike because can it really be considered a strike when the fish nibbled on the bait after taking a leisurely stroll through the water?

Fortunately the slow motion fish are gone and in their place are the proactive fish the patch notes promised.

• Fish are now more proactive when chasing the lure.

For anyone that played before the patch the difference is night and day.  For any new players playing now it will feel good right out of the box.  This was the right change to make and the game feels better because of it.

Speaking of the game feeling better; the action of catching fish feels better.  There still isn't any real skill to getting a fish to strike or to reel them in, but there is at least some semblance of a fight that matches the animations with reeling and the rod bending.  It's not "entirely new game" difference but again for anyone playing before the patch and now they will notice a difference.

The other changes all seem to be in good shape.  Reeling speed feels spot on, floating lures don't sink, and moving water/shorelines continue to look better.  The only fix that I didn't see a change in is with my line snapping.  My line snapped on my first couple fish in the spot where the line always snaps (which sucks because this spot is loaded with fish... the spot just requires some rock climbing to get to and fishing from rocks seems to be the trigger for snapping line).

 Over all I am very happy with the patch and fishing in the game is at a tolerable level now.  Still not much of a reason for me to fish since I am maxed out on gear, but I have confidence the team will add in some form of progression system soon.  

And in true fisherman showing-off fashion here is my latest diamond catch:

Think the fish are still too slow?  Leave a comment.

Call of the Wild: The Angler Hotfix 1.05 Comments

 Call of the Wild: The Angler has hotfix patch 1.05 released and here are some thoughts on the notes before I give it a whirl later today.  I'll share my thoughts tomorrow as well after I get a chance to give it a go.  Anyways; here are my before-trying-it thoughts.

First off there are four banger of release notes right off the bat:

• Frog and popper lures have an updated buoyancy setup to prevent them from sinking too fast.
• The animations for reeling speeds are now faster!
• Fish are now more proactive when chasing the lure.
• Players’ lines no longer snap so easily.

Floating lures not sinking is a good fix; hopefully we no longer have the rock-that-sinks-immeidately-to-the-bottom experience.

Reeling speeds being faster is huge.  It ... was ... so ... slow.  Now my guess since it says animations it won't speed up the actual retrieval which will still be a problem -- it should not take over a minute to reel in 90 feet of line.

Fish being more proactive hopefully means they are faster and strike faster.  Fish in this game are another ... so ... slow.  Looking forward to seeing this in action, but suspect there is still a long ways to go to replicate that real life fishing feeling of a fast moving pike slamming your lure out of nowhere.

Lines no longer snapping so easily is a welcome change; assuming it fixes some of the areas where if you fish from an obstacle near the shore it was 100% line breaking everytime you tried to bring a fish in regardless of line strength or fish size.  I tested a specific spot near a waterfall where with the highest strength line/reel/rod and catching anything (bass, pike, perch) was 100% line break; assuming because of some issue with object collision that was not visually obvious to me as a player.

Moving further into the notes the are more fixes to water; water being key to a good fishing game (duh!).

• We’ve calmed the waters so that it ripples and flows more naturally.
• We’ve touched up some water seams and shoreline transitions, and corrected some water-type blending issues.
  

And 3rd times a charm for this fix (hopefully!).

• Players can now move their Buckwheat Rod and Cria Reel from their inventory to storage.

That is it as far as patch notes of import, but the developers also left a message at the end talking about whats next for the game.

Now that Patch 1.05 is out, we’ll batten down the hatches for a bit and focus on our first major update since launch. It’ll bring more of the player-requested improvements you’ve come to expect from us, but also add new features that should satisfy those who like a challenge.

We’ll share more about this upcoming update as we get closer to release, currently scheduled for the end of October/early November.

This was interesting to read; especially with the date noted for end of this month.  My current feeling on the game is that its a paid alpha.  It is very feature incomplete and the fishing experience is basic.  The open world is fun but much of that open world has no relation to fishing and thus makes no sense.  My wish list at this point for the first major update:

1. Significant speed increase for fish.
2. Significant speed increase for how long it takes to reel in a cast; goes with #1
3. A progression system of some sort with skills/perks; anything to give me a reason to play
   
4. More fish species; ideally in specific locations and conditions only
   
5. Speaking of conditions; let players see altitude, water temp, etc.

The fishing experience needs to see significant improvement with this update and there needs to be more reasons to come back and fish (i.e. progression system).  More fish species would be a good show of confidence for the community. If there is add-on content released that players have to buy this game will be run into the grave by the community.

What are your thoughts?

New World: Start now, return now, or wait for the patch?

 With New World's recent upswing in population and upcoming changes there are many players debating whether they should return now (or start now if they are new to the game) or should they wait for the patch.  To encourage some players to return now and to help them get ready for Brimstone Sands there is an experience boost event starting tomorrow (10/5 - 10/17 players get 1.5x experience gain).  Here are my thoughts on the matter.

For players that played at launch but left some time afterwards my recommendation is to return now.  If you are still leveling to 60 this event is perfect.  If you are already 60 but quit before the expertise/umbral shard system was introduced there is no better time than now as the expertise system is in a sweet spot.  If you were 60 and 600+ expertise but left the game then there is still plenty to get yourself back and familiar with and if anything start caching some chests (like OPR or PvE arena chests) to help rapid fire increase Greatsword expertise after the patch.  

If you are a player looking to return and start over with a new character or are an interested player looking to start I'd recommend waiting for the patch.  Why?  Mostly because there are plans for fresh start servers where you can join a ton of like minded folks starting fresh alongside you.  Also the level 1-25 experience has been entirely revamped: new quests and zones changed -- basically it is a legit new experience.  Players coming back for a fresh experience will get to relive a launch-like experience all over (or for the first time!).

I have no plans to join fresh start servers and plan to stick to Castle of Steel and my daily activities along with exploring the new zone; PvP flag on of course!

What are your plans?  Do you play every day like me or are you a returning/new player looking forward to the patch?  Comment away!

Get Ready! Oct 18th date set for Brimstone Sands update in New World!

It's time to get sandy!  Oct 18th is the release date for the massive Brimstone Sands update for New World.  See the announcement here.

Sunday 10/2/2022 Post

 

A little too close for my comfort but the boys sweated it out in the end.

Mounts in New World

 As mentioned in the New World September development update; mounts will be coming to Aeternum.  Here are some of my thoughts.

First I will admit that I was not one of the players that argued for mounts in the game.  The world of Aeternum feels small enough that even the farthest depots are not that tough of a run.  Part of what makes it feel small is that it is jam packed with things to stop and do along the way; something of interest is never more than a few steps away.  Mounts would ruin that feeling.

However, now that we've seen how BIG the new zone Brimstone Sands mounts start to make some more sense.  Before we get into what I would like to see out of mounts lets list a few things I don't want.

1. No random creature mounts; no wolf mounts, no elk mounts.  No flying mounts!  Just stick with horses please.
2. No mounts in town.  It is crowded enough already; we don't need mounts in town.
3. No insta-mounts; make it a decision to call a mount and make use of them.

With the "please don't" covered; lets look at a few things I'd like to see starting with a few ideas I'd lift from other games.

The first idea I'd steal is the way Roach (the horse) works in The Witcher 3 (and no I am not talking about Roach randomly appearing on a roof -- see picture above). When you call your horse in The Witcher it appears from just off screen; no magic horse from your pants.  This obviously is difficult to pull off in a multiplayer game, but if the mount could appear from a cloud of azoth and charge towards you that'd be neat. 

Secondly, the horse in The Witcher will automatically follow paths/roads and the player can basically AFK to their destination if its at the end of the road.  This would be awesome in my book; I already spend a ton of time on the roads of Aeternum and the world is beautiful so I'd love kicking back and watching the scenery pass by.

In Albion Online players can have pack mounts that can both be ridden but also can be used for increased storage as long as the player stays in range.  This would be awesome with the gathering that can be done in New World; I can just imagine an hours long logging spree without having to stop every few minutes to zip back to town.  Since we don't want mounts out in town the pack mount would just be stabled with the extra storage capacity available just like town storage.

Next I'd steal a couple features of Guild Wars 2 mounts.  First, the way you unlock mounts via in game quests and objectives is a great way to engage the player instead of just making it something they purchase.  Next progressing your mount so that it can do more and more makes the mount system in Guild Wars 2 its own entire horizontal end game progression system.  Lastly the way mounts control in Guild Wars 2 is definitely worth stealing.  Mounts in Guild Wars 2 have unique control characteristics (which can improve with leveling them up); not all mounts can stop or turn on a dime - some are slower to turn and some are faster to stop and some are slow but can bounce really high.  

While we don't want the flying or "silly" side of Guild Wars 2 mounts (for example the kangaroo mount that is meant for jumping puzzles) we want the core concept that mounts are their own track of content for the player to explore, progress, and then ultimately feel like they have some skill in using rather than just being a flat speed boost.

Another idea I'd like to see mounts take on is a role in combat of some sort with the possibility for armor that gives them different abilities just like light/medium/heavy armor for players.  I don't want the combat aspects to be defining but whenever I think of mounts in games I also think of charging down my enemies, flying off the mount, and launching into an attack.  If my enemy is taking off on a mount I want mechanisms to knock them off and engage them in combat.

I am hopeful that there is some care and thought put into mounts for New World so they do not just become a visual speed boost.  They need to fit into the game just as any other system.  If we look at things like music became a tradeskill and how musical instruments fit into crafting then I'd hope to see mounts and mount accessories fit right in.  And I really, really like the idea of mounts appearing out of a mist of azoth at full gallop when called.

Want to mount up?  Leave a comment.

Old Post, New Thoughts on Games and Business Models

 Getting back into blogging (apologies for missing yesterday for my post a day commitment) has also had me reminiscing through my 17+ years of posts.  I stumbled across This is WHY Free 2 Play works, quote from Pirates of the Burning Seas team today and it got me thinking.  I find it odd how, as a gamer, I jumped in to defend a company making money.  More odd is I still hold to this line of thinking.

It took me reading a few posts to wrangle what my younger self held as opinion on the topic of business models for games, but here is my "years later" assessment of that journey.

• Back in the day you bought a game in a box and got everything with it.  
• If the game was online you paid for a subscription and that made sense.
• Online games with player trading often had real money trade (RMT) where players would sell in game items and game accounts to other players for real cash (usually via eBay)
  
• RMT was part of how we played Ultima Online back in the day; you had to go to eBay to buy a house as an example.
  
• After moving on from Ultima Online to newer games like Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC) it became clear to me RMT ruins these games
• Anti-RMT, buy the box, and pro-subscription became my mantra; just look at how much a player could get out of World of Warcraft for $15 a month!
• Micro transactions (the infamous horse armor DLC) made no sense
• At some point I then tried some free 2 play games and I still remember when I posted: My First Microtransaction (in retrospect that was money NOT well spent)
  
• I seem to have turned the corner around the time of this post
• "So, color me conflicted on micro-transaction business models. I still don't believe it beats a subscription model, but no longer is it the EVIL that I thought it was."
• Ever since that time I seem to have adopted the moniker of "games are a business and have to make money first"

With that last bullet I am going to hop off the autobiography train and focus on "games are a business and have to make money first".  In my older age I find this really odd as a position for a consumer of a product to take, but as a gamer who really-really wants to see my niche of games (MMORPGs) have new options to try.  Basically I want to "vote with my wallet" for games that I want to be successful or from developers I want to be successful.

Speaking of "voting with my wallet" that brings us back full circle to business models.  In the subscription model players have a single vote; my vote counts the same as yours -- either I am a subscriber or I am not.  In a micro-transaction model each player's vote is variable.  A player in a free 2 play game may abstain from voting by just playing for free or a player may be a whale 

There are so many issues with this.  The biggest problem of video games making money is that it preys on human weakness.  For some of us it's just a case of "I have more money than time so I want to buy my way ahead or buy things that are fun", but for others it preys on impaired decision making (children, addiction, FOMO, etc) and works to extract maximum cash.  Yet, I still defend that a game is a business first and has to make money.

To the post I kicked this off with on why free 2 play works (which is really to say micro transactions work) is that it does let players invest at their level so developers/publishers can maximize per-player return. I do still believe as I mentioned in that post that good game design can keep the playing field level.  

At the simplest level for my argument are the games that "just sell cosmetics"; games like New World where after you buy the game you can play for free (no subscription) but then there is a store that offers all sorts of goofy outfits and stuff to put in your house; none of which affects power level when playing.  If you really like and want to support the game then drop $50 on the store, but there is no requirement to do so.

In the more complex category are games with things like battle passes/premium/season pass (for my purposes just called battle pass).  I think battle passes came from a marriage of game design and business model.  For many games battle passes offer unique rewards and drive players to participate in the game in a certain manner.  Good game designers marry battle passes with great game play and it's a great experience.  Every time I jump back into Apex Legends I snag the battle pass and it is worth it.  In Guild Wars 2 I've bought multiple living seasons (which are battle pass like).  Battle pass is the modern day subscription, but this time around players get a benefit.

Of course there is the opposite end of this where battle passes are required to make any meaningful progress and the entire game is designed to get you to pay up.  This is where I start drawing the line as it falls into an area of abusing players.  This is basically why I don't play any mobile games; every single one I've ever looked into, while looking fun, are just designed to make me depart with my cash.

In conclusion: I support game companies making money and I believe good game design can go hand in hand.  It is important to keep this in mind when looking at future games; the sooner they outline the business model the more likely it is the game design will support it in a positive manner.  The later a game decides on it's business model the more likely it is to be abusive and/or insufficient to be successful for the game.  

Want me to review more of my old posts?  Want to argue with me?  Leave a comment.

New World's 1 Year Anniversary and September Update

 New World is one year old as of today and the September developer update has been posted.  Feel free to watch the update and then read on for my thoughts.

Year One

The first year of New World has flown by.  It was an amazing launch and the popularity of the game lead to some great moments.  For me, it was easily the best MMO launch in the last decade, and I still play the game every single day a year later.  There were some ups and downs through the first year, but for the most part the team at Amazon Game Studios has knocked it out of the park as far as how they have addressed the issues that have popped up and the improvements made to the game.

My favorite release of the year was Tempest Heart.  I am not a huge expedition (New World's term for a PvE dungeon) player, but playing Tempest Heart converted me.  It is hands down the best MMORPG dungeon I've ever played.  The visuals and sound are amazing.  The fights were well done (albeit with some bugs early on) and the atmosphere as you go through the expedition is incredible (giant robot head shooting laser beams!).

My biggest disappointment of the year was 3v3 PvP arenas.  The combat in PvP can just be frustrating at
times and 3v3 hits the worst parts of it such as excessive crowd control where you spend the entire match on the ground unable to do anything or alternately if you don't have the right crowd control light armor players are nearly impossible to catch and kill.  Many of these elements are mitigated in other modes, but when condensed down to 3v3 in a small arena its all right there on display.  Mix in that there is no solo vs group queue and right now, as a mostly solo player, the 3v3 experience is not fun.  

Also its clear, to me at least, the community isn't excited about PvP arenas -- as evidenced by no one showing up for the first public tournament. It is unfortunate the team seems to be investing more into the mode so hopefully they see something I don't.  I'd rather that time be spent on other parts of the game.  The only thing 3v3 needs is solos vs group queue and a ranking; otherwise leave that mode alone.  It is not where the game wins over players.

Whats coming next?

In the update the team talked about focusing on more solo content.  I found this interesting because I think New World is easily the most solo friendly MMORPG on the market.  It sounds like they want to target harder solo content where you can get a sense of fighting a boss fight like a group would but just as yourself.  I am on board with that but I think the team is underselling the current content as it is all very friendly to solo players and offers solo players end game progression.

They also announced wanting to expand into hardcore raid content that is more challenging than expeditions and mutations currently.  No hard details were provided, but a focus on gear specific for PvE was mentioned so that rewards feel more useful in PvE instead of the current "best" being PvP gear.  While not what I am necessarily excited about it was the logical step to take for the PvE crowd.  Personally I think 5-man expeditions + mutations are perfectly good content and I'd be happy seeing a dozen more of those than any multi-group raid content.  But I will admit if the progression and rewards that go with it are done well then I am probably on board.

Also exciting was the mention of working on a gear management system.  Unfortunately seems it is still a ways off which is disappointing.  Adding gear management is the number one thing that could be done to make the game more enjoyable.  It is getting nightmarish to manage my gear sets currently and directly impacting my enjoyment level when playing.  I logged out the other night because I was too irritated to change my gear/attribute/weapon build because plans changed.

Mounts were also a topic of conversation.  I don't think the game needs them but it is a repeating topic in the community and now confirmed it is something the team is officially working on now.  My hope is the mounts are modest, mostly just horses, and don't turn everything into "mount up and alt tab while it runs in a straight line".  An idea I thought would fit perfectly with New World is the way the horse works in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.  In Witcher III your horse automatically locks into the paths and guides itself so if you are on established roads it just does its thing for you.  Then you can take it off the path/roads and free form it.

Some closer term changes in the upcoming October patch were covered in the video but I'll have more thoughts on those as they get closer to release.  Over all I am very happy with where New World is at and where it is headed.  The team has earned my trust and I foresee continued engagement with this game and it's community.  Everything isn't perfect but there is so much for me to do that is in a great spot that the areas that need improvement don't intersect my play time.  I love playing New World and play every day; my vote is cast.

What are your thoughts on New World's first year and future plans?

A neat infographic as well