They backpedaled and had to fundamentally change the way PvP worked in their game because they were SHOCKED! SHOCKED! when unrestricted open world PvP led to toxic behavior. Um... Yeah. Of course it will. This is the kind of thing you’d only see from a company clueless about online gaming culture and history. They have a really high budget and grand ideas but are out of their depth. I anticipate a juicy disaster after the sheen rubs off of this one.
HA, too funny. I knew they did a double push back but didn't look into the exact reasons why. This explains a lot. I also agree that they should have KNOWN. There are plenty of older games out there they could have researched (and should have) but obviously didn't. I was actually interested in this game until I saw how they were restructuring PvP. It's gonna get a pass from me. Good thing Amazon has deep pockets and can afford to take a potential loss like this in stride.
but I digress.....
Just a note about, "narrow time frame". This is not the case unless Amazon delays NW for a 3rd time which I don't think will happen due to anti-hype factor. So that means NW will release Spring 2021, so 7ish months away while we know AoC will not release for 2 years (or longer) .That gives me nearly a year and a half to even TRY NW, completely play it out, get bored of it and quit.
I appreciate IS not rushing into finishing this game because nothing kills a game quicker than releasing something half-baked. WoW got away with it because, well because there was nothing else like it at the time but now a days, with MMOs around every corner, you have got to get it right out of the gate.
I mean, considering the fact that they didn't even invest on promoting the game as they knew they wouldn't release it in 2020, yet they let people buy it and announced its delay only 1 month prior to release, that tells me everything I need to know about NW, there's people that still support companies that do this sht and enjoy a killing 20 mobs and looting 10 boxes running simulator game, so maybe NW will succeed after launch, or maybe not.
@grumple my guild and I signed up for New World almost immediately upon seeing it. We all bought it and prepared for the beta. When they delayed the game a second time, I started looking around for other games and came across lazy peons video on AoC. We immediately realized that a non subscription game being done by Amazon which already was dealing with its first complete flop of a game just wasn't going to work out. They removed PvP content and started focusing on PvE when they had minimal PvE content. Their move absolutely reflects chaos. AoC is open to feedback, transparent in their beliefs and works with the community to build a community based game. It's a no brainer. New World will not be successful....there is no money in it after the first release.
From the video i saw, they rarely seemd to use their abilites. Plus only 4 on the bar. I thought this was because the game would also be released on console, but i don't think it will. Of course you can quickly switch weapons. The looks of the games are different
Guys, not to mention the current state of the game was meant to be released this year and then they hid behind Covid-19. I know Corona has caused and is causing a lot of issues for companies in general but it was never near completion to even consider releasing it at that point. It's... weird.
"Magic is not a tool, little one. It is a river that unites us in its current."
XenantayaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2020
Back in early 2019, I thought New World would work well from a technical standpoint (few bugs, smooth gameplay, etc.), but I was concerned that it didn't have any new or interesting ideas. And my thoughts about Ashes were just the opposite -- a ton of interesting ideas, but not sure Intrepid will be able to make it all work technically.
Unfortunately, the development and main goals of the game shifted in the last year of development from a PvP MMO to a PvE MMO, I am of the opinion that now both aspects of the game are going to be mediocre.
NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2020
New world is a game that was in development and tried to use as many of Ashes Of Creations designs as it could without infringing on copy rights.
You can see it very clearly in their directional designs and game concepts (corruption, siege, open pvp without flagging) and their rush to release, followed with extreme 180 design changes with half baked attempts at AoC's systems designs but didnt attempt to fully implement them, creating an uninviting experience for both PvP'ers and PvE'ers looking for an engaging and challenging combat and endgame.
Another issue is that this is Amazon people, lol, they do not care about the quality of the games experience for players or the game itself. Their funding will not be going towards making the game good, the engine upgradable, the servers quality for lots of players, or their workers paid well and rewarded for innovative and good idea implementations. They want their bottom line and I will bet you twice what I backed AoC that NW will have pay to win in its shop.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Guys, not to mention the current state of the game was meant to be released this year and then they hid behind Covid-19. I know Corona has caused and is causing a lot of issues for companies in general but it was never near completion to even consider releasing it at that point. It's... weird.
Another reason why exactly. Intrepid has a clear design path and has been expressly clear about their combat and mechanics implementations and what they are going to put forth.
New world clearly was just meant to be a pvp open world esque game that was going to have pve mobs as a generic pokemon like level system without a real lore backstory or depth
New world clearly was just meant to be a pvp open world esque game that was going to have pve mobs as a generic pokemon like level system without a real lore backstory or depth
And if this is what they intended, they could have actually made it work. There is nothing wrong with a PvP centric game. It probably would always be a niche game but still possibly successful.
DAoC is a good example of this. It has plenty of mobs to kill and even PvE dungeons but the real focus and the end goal was RvR. If you weren't doing that you kinda missed the boat.
So what Amazon should have done after discovering how toxic PKers could be is to rework and refine what they had, not completely gut it and try to turn it into something it never was, a PvE game. We already have PLENTY of those so NW really won't stand out for doing something a bit different.
Played New World now for close to a 100 hours between both tests, once you get passed the Honeymoon stage, the PvP is lackluster, quests extremely repetetive and after 30 just seems like more of the same. Non flagged people blocking doorways and stairs and you can't do anything, fighting they just run away and you have to chase them across the map.
New World right now is making me want AoC even more, but it's the only thing to play atm
this discussion is about what distinguishes AoC from New World (NW) and how to capitalize on the fact that both these promising newcomers to the genre release in a relatively narrow time frame.
Here's my view on it (obviously much in favor of AoC):
First of all, AoC is, as the name suggests, about creation. NW on the other hand is about destruction: the very first text on their main page asks what you will do in "a land hell-bent on your destruction" and the whole trailer is about "Fighting the World".
Second, AoC is created by a team of MMO enthusiasts who started the whole thing in order to make a game they always wished for. NW was instead initiated by a billion dollar company founded by a man selling books because of their good storability properties instead of his love for books - the game's development is therefore likely based on strategic considerations rather than passion.
For these (and other) reasons the two games speak to very different audiences. NW might have more polished graphics, due to higher funding, maybe a great action combat system due to their whole focus on combat. AoC on the other hand has the whole node systems, where only one out of four nodes is combat based, the economics will most likely be more complex and I'd suppose that because of the passion aspect the community will be way more involved and the role playing community will likely be more present.
I'd suggest to deliberately focus on the audience that tend towards AoC, who may even be repulsed by the sheer brutality with which NW boasts, and give players the opportunity to indulge in trading, shop keeping, farming and whatsoever. Of course a good combat system is important and might be a dealbreaker for some, hence it should not be neglected (and it obviously isn't ). But I also think that it will pay off even better to focus on the core systems that differentiate AoC from NW - and these are mainly creation based.
I'm looking forward to your opinions on this!
PS: There's some more reasons I prefer AoC over NW, like NW's guilds being called "companies" as if the games title wouldn't remind you enough of Huxley's Brave New World; but these points are probably off topic here.
I'm playing the new world preview this days and the game is very far away to be complete, when you pass the first town which is basic the "tutorial" the game became very boring, the mob are basically always the same, and so the missons. The game main point is the faction pvp but the only real intersting way to play it are the 50vs50 wars but even there after 15 minutes is all over. The player base economy is nonexistent.
If they relase the game this spring the game will "die" very fast, i don't think they can change a lot in a few months.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited August 2020
Here’s a very interesting, I should even say damning take on the game:
As of 10 hours ago, we know that New World won't host free-for-all PvP (and it won't host PvP servers). Many folks here will indeed be happy about this, thinking of New World as a potential new PvE-crowd friendly MMO. But as of June 2019, NW didn't also have quests, raids, or even interesting PvE whatsoever. There was literally NO PVE worth doing, other than mass killing bunch of monsters to level up quickly (which caused PvP fights for the best spawning spots on the map). There were around 10 monster species and only a third of the original-thought map had been built. Considering the game was in alpha and lots of other content was missing, there is a zero chance that worthful PvE mechanics are going to be added before April/May 2020. Infact, the only PvE that has been added is supposedly a "monster city siege" which only city-owning clans will experience (and is that really fun? I'll leave it to you). At launch there won't be raids or dungeons. And again, there won't be quests. And the skill system is basically non-existent (combat was very arcade, dark soul like with only 1-2 "combos").
What you'll find at release is a good looking game, averagely polished animations, with barebone PvE and no open world PvP. You won't have NPC interactions and are left completely alone to level up and group up. There are no NPC cities. It will feel like playing a 3rd person Rust with optional PvP. Is this appealing to the PvE crowd ?
That’s absolutely horrible. This game is going to bomb so badly.
I’ve done some reading and they’ve added fetch quests. Those are the only kind of quests though.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
New world clearly was just meant to be a pvp open world esque game that was going to have pve mobs as a generic pokemon like level system without a real lore backstory or depth
And if this is what they intended, they could have actually made it work. There is nothing wrong with a PvP centric game. It probably would always be a niche game but still possibly successful.
DAoC is a good example of this. It has plenty of mobs to kill and even PvE dungeons but the real focus and the end goal was RvR. If you weren't doing that you kinda missed the boat.
So what Amazon should have done after discovering how toxic PKers could be is to rework and refine what they had, not completely gut it and try to turn it into something it never was, a PvE game. We already have PLENTY of those so NW really won't stand out for doing something a bit different.
Yeah I'd have no problem if their focus is pvp. A games developers are the content creators and if thats their design choice more power to them.
They just definitely didnt implement it right. Or have interesting... well anything besides visuals.
But lets be honest updated and good graphic visuals are about the only thing going for alot of modern games today. I feel like most have lost any depth or character or systems with anything beyond (what is the least amount of effort)
But lets be honest updated and good graphic visuals are about the only thing going for alot of modern games today. I feel like most have lost any depth or character or systems with anything beyond (what is the least amount of effort)
Most of the effort has gone from developing game depth to figuring out how to monetize the **** out of games to rip players off through microtransactions. Let's face it, this is the real innovation in the last few years.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
But lets be honest updated and good graphic visuals are about the only thing going for alot of modern games today. I feel like most have lost any depth or character or systems with anything beyond (what is the least amount of effort)
Most of the effort has gone from developing game depth to figuring out how to monetize the **** out of games to rip players off through microtransactions. Let's face it, this is the real innovation in the last few years.
Micro transactions stem from wow's influence on the genre. That game's addicts fed that, even with how poor the game is (in my opinion)
That being said content expansion prices dont bother me. Neither do cosmetic only stuff. Artists and coders spend alot more time designing stuff than we give credit for. Especially for the higher demand for higher quality stuff in todays age. Higher quality with higher technology needed has higher costs and therefore justify proper compensation to satify our selfish desires for "fabulousness".
But in general yes micro transactions do have a negative impact.
New World is called Ashes Lite around these parts. As soon as they get done ripping off Steven's ideas come back and let us know how your comparisons work out. The whole mantra of "New World will be better because it has unlimited money" has been proven to be false. Take a look at Amazon Game Studios track record so far. First game aborted before birth (Breakaway), second came out missing a chromosome and is strangling itself with it's own umbilical cord (Crucible), and New World? It will have money showered on it because it is B2P and there is literally nothing new to play if it hits that end of August release date (iffy). There are several people in the Ashes community playing in the New World alpha and they have been very forthcoming that the game is going to fail and why, NDA or no. Expect people to play it for a couple months, reach "endgame", realize there is nothing to do but stand around posing in cosmetics and repeating the same content over and over and over. It will take it the rest of 2020 to die, but in 2021 start looking for Death of a Game series guy to make one about AGS's trifecta of shit year in 2020 around the middle of 2021.
Seems like a lot of this turned out to be... not so true, eh? A few notes:
(1) It is one thing for testers to think a game will fail and for one to actually *know* that a game will fail. In other words, the opinion of a few testers doesn't really tell you much.
(2) The game is far from complete (especially seeing as it keeps being delayed and modified). So how can you at all know how players will react to it? How do you know what its endgame will even consist of? How do you know it will reduce to cosmetic display? There's no basis for this.
(3) It won't take the rest of 2020 to die, because it still hasn't been released in 2021... lol -- But maybe you'll be right about 2022. We will see. So far, though, not too accurate, bud.
New World had some very interesting mob behavior, overall it didn't strike me as a game I am all too interested in, but I got reinvited for a testing round just a few days ago so I will take a look at its progress for sure.
You didn't address the topic of the thread: how do you think the two games compare, so far?
(New here) I canceled my Pre-Purchase of NW today and my search of a new world has (lol pun was not intended) led me here.
I stumbled upon it (NW) by accident and was initially excited, as i searched for as much info on the game as i could find i came across a video by Neckrage, whom ive never heard of but he was an Alpha tester for NW, he painted a very disappointing picture for NW, everything i can find on it suggests hes correct.
So ill be looking around.. /wave
You probably shouldn't base your entire view of something on one single streamer. Best to try to come to your own conclusions. Many of them are very biased... and always very convincing (even if they may not have the best viewpoints). Always trust your own instincts over others.
I played the "old" alpha like 2 years ago and it was bad.
And now i have played the new Alpha, and its so damn boring, you spend 99% of the time running from point A to point B
What this man said. If they had transportation it wouldn't be so bad.
Honestly, they can easily patch the game to include much of this, especially considering it's still in development. So who knows.
They backpedaled and had to fundamentally change the way PvP worked in their game because they were SHOCKED! SHOCKED! when unrestricted open world PvP led to toxic behavior. Um... Yeah. Of course it will. This is the kind of thing you’d only see from a company clueless about online gaming culture and history. They have a really high budget and grand ideas but are out of their depth. I anticipate a juicy disaster after the sheen rubs off of this one.
The culture and mentality around open world PVP in 2020 is actually different from what it was in 2006 and onwards. The problem we face today is that there's no group mentality on ganking low level players or people in general, if a high level player kills you over and over again with clear malice and ill-intent people won't start ganking him in turn. Most will even laugh at you or treat you like you're bad.
Here's a great example: There's an infamous case of a very toxic PK'er in Vanilla wow who would haunt Menethil harbor and PK people for hours on end. The reason he got away with it was because he was clever about it and never corpse camped for very long, he'd kill you once or twice and you could be on your way. He'd only target you if you targeted him and would avoid groups of players if he wasn't confident he could kill one of you and slip.
The mentality now?
"Guys! Let's get our ENTIRE GUILD of 100 players and kill every player we find until they quit the game! It's so funny to see these losers quit get gud scrub lmfao! xD"
They weren't shocked about the toxic behavior, they were shocked about how no one would do anything to combat it and in fact JOINED in on that behavior. As for how they changed PVP, it's not a great change but that's also subject to be changed. Most likely, they will settle for a system where companies can openly declare war on each other and said guilds will be able to attack one another openly but not other players. That combined with the siege system is also good, the siege system requires 50 on both side (which is pretty massive) and allows the defenders to simply wait out the attackers, it's 100% better then Albion Online's crappy 15v15 arena battles for land.
Seems like a lot of generalizing there. I've seen players these days help out with ganking. So... *idk*
I really don't know why people keep comparing the two. NW is more like Conan Exiles, except they stripped the building aspects, then added factions and taxes.
It really isn't anything like AoC.
Yeah, not sure NW will even be an MMO at all. Last I heard, it's more of a survival game.
Guys, not to mention the current state of the game was meant to be released this year and then they hid behind Covid-19. I know Corona has caused and is causing a lot of issues for companies in general but it was never near completion to even consider releasing it at that point. It's... weird.
Yes, Covid is definitely causing delays. Not entirely sure if anyone is hiding behind it, because it's literally holding back games across the board. Everything is messed up, from industry to industry. Might have a fullblown economic depression on our hands, soon.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Put in 120hrs into NW, thoroughly loved what was on offer. Saddened though that if they do not put more in to keep players going, it will last only a few weeks to months.
Landscape
New World has layered & grouped landscape elements that make sense for each biome type. The baren areas feel barren and desolate, the open areas feel open, fresh, and free, the forests give a true sense of enclosure and with dense tall thick undergrowth, you feel like you are in a forest. With Ashes going the fantasy route does not preclude the same depth and layering, just an understanding of the what makes an environment as well as the how to put it together.
Sounds
New World very impressive sounds, some of the best and most striking I have come across in any mmorpg.
The crack of a musket echoing through the landscape would stop you in your tracks.
The sound of a felled tree has similar gravity.
New World is called Ashes Lite around these parts. As soon as they get done ripping off Steven's ideas come back and let us know how your comparisons work out. The whole mantra of "New World will be better because it has unlimited money" has been proven to be false. Take a look at Amazon Game Studios track record so far. First game aborted before birth (Breakaway), second came out missing a chromosome and is strangling itself with it's own umbilical cord (Crucible), and New World? It will have money showered on it because it is B2P and there is literally nothing new to play if it hits that end of August release date (iffy). There are several people in the Ashes community playing in the New World alpha and they have been very forthcoming that the game is going to fail and why, NDA or no. Expect people to play it for a couple months, reach "endgame", realize there is nothing to do but stand around posing in cosmetics and repeating the same content over and over and over. It will take it the rest of 2020 to die, but in 2021 start looking for Death of a Game series guy to make one about AGS's trifecta of shit year in 2020 around the middle of 2021.
Seems like a lot of this turned out to be... not so true, eh? A few notes:
(1) It is one thing for testers to think a game will fail and for one to actually *know* that a game will fail. In other words, the opinion of a few testers doesn't really tell you much.
(2) The game is far from complete (especially seeing as it keeps being delayed and modified). So how can you at all know how players will react to it? How do you know what its endgame will even consist of? How do you know it will reduce to cosmetic display? There's no basis for this.
(3) It won't take the rest of 2020 to die, because it still hasn't been released in 2021... lol -- But maybe you'll be right about 2022. We will see. So far, though, not too accurate, bud.
Yep, it is always good to take a look back to June 2020 and how development has changed since. AGS still has yet to release a game that they haven't immediately yanked back out of release. They continue to be a watered down version of Ashes in almost all of their planned systems, from concurrent server population caps, to land area, to how pvp is implemented, and making of actual content. Where they are both similar is that they both have realized that their envisioned combat was lackluster and needed work. Various people in this community are in that testing and have good things to say about the combat direction. It isn't there yet, but they are working on it. Still won't help them with my original post from June last year. There is no endgame shown once you "cap out" beyond grinding the same mobs over and over. Could they implement a content progression system? Sure. Let me know when they do.
It is hard to be an internet Nostradamus, especially when dealing with game development. But like many others, doesn't really matter at this point. AGS has none of my money right now, and won't until they release probably. But I will play it then, just because like everyone else, there is nothing out there that isn't a decade old and beat to death. If I get the probably $40-60 of entertainment grinding away with my group of friends on crafting and lackluster content, so be it. Then I will be able later to point back at it and give you less of a prophetic vision, and more an analysis of where they were wrong.
Comments
HA, too funny. I knew they did a double push back but didn't look into the exact reasons why. This explains a lot. I also agree that they should have KNOWN. There are plenty of older games out there they could have researched (and should have) but obviously didn't. I was actually interested in this game until I saw how they were restructuring PvP. It's gonna get a pass from me. Good thing Amazon has deep pockets and can afford to take a potential loss like this in stride.
but I digress.....
Just a note about, "narrow time frame". This is not the case unless Amazon delays NW for a 3rd time which I don't think will happen due to anti-hype factor. So that means NW will release Spring 2021, so 7ish months away while we know AoC will not release for 2 years (or longer) .That gives me nearly a year and a half to even TRY NW, completely play it out, get bored of it and quit.
I appreciate IS not rushing into finishing this game because nothing kills a game quicker than releasing something half-baked. WoW got away with it because, well because there was nothing else like it at the time but now a days, with MMOs around every corner, you have got to get it right out of the gate.
I heard a bird ♫
And those are still my concerns for each game.
Intrepid wants the best MMO ever.
You can see it very clearly in their directional designs and game concepts (corruption, siege, open pvp without flagging) and their rush to release, followed with extreme 180 design changes with half baked attempts at AoC's systems designs but didnt attempt to fully implement them, creating an uninviting experience for both PvP'ers and PvE'ers looking for an engaging and challenging combat and endgame.
Another issue is that this is Amazon people, lol, they do not care about the quality of the games experience for players or the game itself. Their funding will not be going towards making the game good, the engine upgradable, the servers quality for lots of players, or their workers paid well and rewarded for innovative and good idea implementations. They want their bottom line and I will bet you twice what I backed AoC that NW will have pay to win in its shop.
Another reason why exactly. Intrepid has a clear design path and has been expressly clear about their combat and mechanics implementations and what they are going to put forth.
New world clearly was just meant to be a pvp open world esque game that was going to have pve mobs as a generic pokemon like level system without a real lore backstory or depth
And if this is what they intended, they could have actually made it work. There is nothing wrong with a PvP centric game. It probably would always be a niche game but still possibly successful.
DAoC is a good example of this. It has plenty of mobs to kill and even PvE dungeons but the real focus and the end goal was RvR. If you weren't doing that you kinda missed the boat.
So what Amazon should have done after discovering how toxic PKers could be is to rework and refine what they had, not completely gut it and try to turn it into something it never was, a PvE game. We already have PLENTY of those so NW really won't stand out for doing something a bit different.
New World right now is making me want AoC even more, but it's the only thing to play atm
I'm playing the new world preview this days and the game is very far away to be complete, when you pass the first town which is basic the "tutorial" the game became very boring, the mob are basically always the same, and so the missons. The game main point is the faction pvp but the only real intersting way to play it are the 50vs50 wars but even there after 15 minutes is all over. The player base economy is nonexistent.
If they relase the game this spring the game will "die" very fast, i don't think they can change a lot in a few months.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/eqeytv/why_everyone_should_be_wary_of_new_new_world/
Here is the key part of the page:
That’s absolutely horrible. This game is going to bomb so badly.
I’ve done some reading and they’ve added fetch quests. Those are the only kind of quests though.
Yeah I'd have no problem if their focus is pvp. A games developers are the content creators and if thats their design choice more power to them.
They just definitely didnt implement it right. Or have interesting... well anything besides visuals.
But lets be honest updated and good graphic visuals are about the only thing going for alot of modern games today. I feel like most have lost any depth or character or systems with anything beyond (what is the least amount of effort)
Most of the effort has gone from developing game depth to figuring out how to monetize the **** out of games to rip players off through microtransactions. Let's face it, this is the real innovation in the last few years.
Micro transactions stem from wow's influence on the genre. That game's addicts fed that, even with how poor the game is (in my opinion)
That being said content expansion prices dont bother me. Neither do cosmetic only stuff. Artists and coders spend alot more time designing stuff than we give credit for. Especially for the higher demand for higher quality stuff in todays age. Higher quality with higher technology needed has higher costs and therefore justify proper compensation to satify our selfish desires for "fabulousness".
But in general yes micro transactions do have a negative impact.
Seems like a lot of this turned out to be... not so true, eh? A few notes:
(1) It is one thing for testers to think a game will fail and for one to actually *know* that a game will fail. In other words, the opinion of a few testers doesn't really tell you much.
(2) The game is far from complete (especially seeing as it keeps being delayed and modified). So how can you at all know how players will react to it? How do you know what its endgame will even consist of? How do you know it will reduce to cosmetic display? There's no basis for this.
(3) It won't take the rest of 2020 to die, because it still hasn't been released in 2021... lol -- But maybe you'll be right about 2022. We will see. So far, though, not too accurate, bud.
You didn't address the topic of the thread: how do you think the two games compare, so far?
You probably shouldn't base your entire view of something on one single streamer. Best to try to come to your own conclusions. Many of them are very biased... and always very convincing (even if they may not have the best viewpoints). Always trust your own instincts over others.
Honestly, they can easily patch the game to include much of this, especially considering it's still in development. So who knows.
Seems like a lot of generalizing there. I've seen players these days help out with ganking. So... *idk*
Yeah, not sure NW will even be an MMO at all. Last I heard, it's more of a survival game.
Yes, Covid is definitely causing delays. Not entirely sure if anyone is hiding behind it, because it's literally holding back games across the board. Everything is messed up, from industry to industry. Might have a fullblown economic depression on our hands, soon.
Landscape
New World has layered & grouped landscape elements that make sense for each biome type. The baren areas feel barren and desolate, the open areas feel open, fresh, and free, the forests give a true sense of enclosure and with dense tall thick undergrowth, you feel like you are in a forest. With Ashes going the fantasy route does not preclude the same depth and layering, just an understanding of the what makes an environment as well as the how to put it together.
Sounds
New World very impressive sounds, some of the best and most striking I have come across in any mmorpg.
The crack of a musket echoing through the landscape would stop you in your tracks.
The sound of a felled tree has similar gravity.
Costumes
Wonderfully detailed
Ashes - yet to see.
I wonder if they coded in the sound to play even if there's no-one around to hear it...
Common practice is not to play it if there's no-one around. Saves resources to spend elsewhere in the world simulation.
So the next question to ask: Are we in a simulation?
Yep, it is always good to take a look back to June 2020 and how development has changed since. AGS still has yet to release a game that they haven't immediately yanked back out of release. They continue to be a watered down version of Ashes in almost all of their planned systems, from concurrent server population caps, to land area, to how pvp is implemented, and making of actual content. Where they are both similar is that they both have realized that their envisioned combat was lackluster and needed work. Various people in this community are in that testing and have good things to say about the combat direction. It isn't there yet, but they are working on it. Still won't help them with my original post from June last year. There is no endgame shown once you "cap out" beyond grinding the same mobs over and over. Could they implement a content progression system? Sure. Let me know when they do.
It is hard to be an internet Nostradamus, especially when dealing with game development. But like many others, doesn't really matter at this point. AGS has none of my money right now, and won't until they release probably. But I will play it then, just because like everyone else, there is nothing out there that isn't a decade old and beat to death. If I get the probably $40-60 of entertainment grinding away with my group of friends on crafting and lackluster content, so be it. Then I will be able later to point back at it and give you less of a prophetic vision, and more an analysis of where they were wrong.