First Impressions of New World Fresh Start

I played the first three days of the New World Fresh Start servers launch. Here are my first impressions so far.

Day 1 - Server Issues

My first day of playing New World was the worst of the three. When I first saw the release schedule for the servers about a month prior, I was immediately skeptical. 

Their plan was to have servers come out in waves, with one East server every hour for four hours, and only two West servers, one at the beginning and one at the end. Having only one US East and one US West server for the initial launch just seemed like an extremely bad idea. Based solely on their original launch, it was sure to be a mess if they did this. I’m sure they had to be well aware of the hype that was being generated for the re-release—especially when there were very big streamers advertising a special event just for this launch.

The first four hours of my day were spent just trying to get into a server. Medea, the first East server to launch, was immediately full in seconds and the queue to get in was over 6k players at one point. I think they realized very quickly that their scheduled release plan was not going to work. They started to bring online more and more servers to meet demand, in addition to the scheduled ones. 

I had almost a whole page of notes of my struggles to get into a server, ranging from ridiculously long queues times, disconnect errors, or my game files not being validated properly. That error frustrated me the most. I had waited almost an hour to get into a server only to say my game couldn’t connect because of an “unknown file version”. 

I had to quit the game, run a check on my game files, which took almost 20 minutes, and then I could try to connect again. Before I got back into a queue, I logged into my old character just to make sure everything was working properly, and I had no issues.

With that finally resolved, I decided to just pick one of the newest servers, and stick with it no matter how long the queue was. I decided on Devourer, a US East server. It took me almost an hour, but I finally made it through the queue and into the game. At this point, it was 4 PM EST. I had spent 4 hours just trying to get in, which in my opinion, is just absurd for a game that already had experience with launching their game. I understand you start small and add more to meet demand, but having just two servers to start with is inexcusable. Especially when they went through the same situation last year.

The very beginning of the game was the same from what I remembered. There really isn’t too much to take away from it. Originally you would randomly spawn in 3 different zones, Windsward, Monarch Bluffs, or First Light. I’m not sure how the game decides this, but it still does exist. I spawned, funnily enough, in the same zone as my original character, Windsward. I noticed they did add some new voice lines for a certain character, but that was about it. At this point, I was already feeling tired, and I decided to quest until I got to the main settlement, and pick back up tomorrow. 

Days 2 and 3 - Questing/New Features

Questing:

• Leveling speed has been dramatically increased for everything.

  • Territory Reputations

  • Crafting/Gathering

  • Character Experience

• Main Story Quests and side quests reward massive amounts of experience. My advice: keep up with your side quests. Once the Main Story hits level 30, the next few quests require level 35 and level 40 to advance. Which is a massive jump in levels in comparison.

• New Faction Introductory quests for each Faction (Marauder, Syndicate, and Covenant). 

• If you wish to change factions, you must complete their Introductory quests. You can only switch once every 60 days. 

• New Side Quests for gathering tools (mining, skinning, harvesting, etc.) 

New Features:

Azoth System has been reworked

• Now mainly used for crafting

• The 1k cap remains. The issue now is getting too much Azoth.

• Already constantly overcapping on Azoth because I just can’t spend it fast enough. 

• Fast traveling has been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. 

  • 10-20 Azoth to travel, depending on where you are going

The Expedition Finder is now available.

• You can join or start your own group for an expedition anywhere in the world

• It will automatically teleport you to the expedition.

• New Quest Markers to make finding quest objectives easier

Entirely new Instrument System

• They each come with loads of sheet music so there is a nice variety of music to play

• The gameplay is similar to rhythm style games like Osu or Beat Saber, just a much milder version. 

• You can receive tips from generous players if you put on a good performance.

• Every song you play you can give out buffs to players in your area such as increased gathering speed, for example. 

  • You can play music using any of these five instruments. 

    • Flute

    • Guitar

    • Mandolin

    • Upright Bass

    • Drums

Overall impressions so far of the New World Relaunch

I am actually really enjoying the game again, so far. The main issue I had with the game, Azoth, is now completely non-existent. It is actually fun to quest in the open world without constantly thinking about how much Azoth I need to manage. The good things about the game (crafting, gathering, expeditions) are still there and they’ve improved problems most players had issues with. 

The next week or so should give me more of an idea of the direction this game is going for me. I have just achieved level 39, and this was around where I started to lose interest in New World previously.