In New World, the preview event ended on September 5, allowing many new players to try the MMO for the first time. Accordingly, there was a lot of feedback for the developers. In an interview, Mike Willitte, the lead game designer, revealed what was learned from the event.
What was the interview about? In a livestream on Twitch, streamers Rich W. Campbell and Asmongold spoke for about 30 minutes with Mike Willitte from Amazon. The topic was the preview event for New World and what changes should be made to the MMO.
Criticism points raised included cooldowns in battles, weapon design, monotonous quest design, or a lack of endgame. These are all points that we at MeinMMO have also seen in our preview report.
The lead game designer of New World provided some interesting answers to the questions and an outlook on what changes should be made by the start of the next tests in November. He also revealed that the game version that could be tested was already a few months old.
Weapon Balance and Quests Will Be Adjusted
What is happening with the weapons? There were several points of criticism regarding the weapons, including global recharge times and the ability to keep opponents in a “stun lock”, meaning they can’t do anything during the entire fight.
Mike Willite revealed that the developers will take a closer look at the design of all weapons and adjust the balance. Particularly, the life staff, which has a strong teleport skill, and the axe will be examined more closely.
When asked about the cross-weapon cooldowns, the developer said:
Yes, it was intended [that the skills have a shared cooldown], but based on player feedback in the alpha and now in the playtest, we will adjust that.
We don’t want it to become too “spammy”, but at the same time, it has to be understandable and logical for the players…
Mike Willite in the interview
Additionally, adjustments are planned for the performance of attacks and issues with collision with enemies.
What is happening with the quests? Many players provided feedback that New World felt very monotonous, and they felt like they were repeating the same tasks over and over again. Most of the quests consisted of killing mobs and opening chests.
Mike Willite revealed that the developers will focus on that and want to bring more variation. The quests should be more deeply connected with the game systems and become more diverse.
The criticism regarding encountering the same monsters was also acknowledged by the developers.
No Colorful Unicorns or Crazy Cosmetics
How significant will the changes be overall? New World is expected to change noticeably by the tests in November, but it will not become a completely new game.
Thus, the MMO will not suddenly focus heavily on story or prioritize dragons. There will also not be crazy cosmetics:
If you think there will suddenly be rainbows, unicorns, flying dragons, and all that stuff, I’m sorry, but that won’t happen before the release.
Mike Willite in the interview
Will the map get bigger? The currently quite small map of New World is supposed to get bigger before the release. There should be some new areas that players can explore. At the same time, the lead designer also mentioned that this expansion will not be “dramatically large”.
New open-world content as well as instances are also planned. Both should provide challenges for the players.
Are mounts coming? MeinMMO editor Leya Jankowski expressed during the preview event the desire for mounts to travel the world faster and complete quests more efficiently. The streamer Asmongold also brought up the topic and asked the developer about mounts.
He primarily pointed to the balance issue, as mounts could quickly make a world feel much smaller. However, there was no concrete yes or no in this case.
Interest in New World has noticeably increased since the focus shifted to PvE. According to us at MeinMMO, it is considered the most popular new online role-playing game that could be released soon.
