Last week, New World announced a new season system. It includes a free and a paid pass. Both are intended to contain equipment items, materials, and boosters. We at MeinMMO are looking into what exactly is included.
What is the pass all about? New World is set to start a new season every 3 months. With this season, there will be two passes – one free and one paid, costing 20,000 luck coins, which is equivalent to exactly 19.50 euros.
Each pass contains 100 levels. You will also receive the rewards from the premium pass retroactively if you purchase it later.
You increase the levels in the pass by collecting seasonal XP. You earn this by completing special tasks during a season, but also through faction missions, city quests, dungeons, and PvP. In addition, a so-called stamp card will be introduced. On this card, you will find various daily tasks that you can “stamp off”.
When do the seasons start? The first season will start on March 28th. However, you can already check out the pass on the test server.
Premium Pass offers Legendary Items, Shadow Shards, and Luck Coins
What is included in the Premium Pass? Right at the start, you will receive a useful reward. Level 1 gives you a legendary weapon, a legendary armor piece, and a legendary piece of jewelry. However, the attributes on them are random. For example, we received a bow with Dexterity, gloves with Constitution, and a ring also with Constitution on the test server.
The received items were okay, but they are definitely not “best in slot”. Additionally, there were immediately 5 boosters for seasonal XP, weapon XP, gathering XP, area XP, and skill enhancement. The latter provides a 10% increase in yield for gathering professions like logging or mining, while all others grant double experience points for the respective aspect.
The next levels are somewhat more harmless. They include:
- A random skin from the dungeon Stormwind
- New emotes
- Colors
- New company emblems
- Skins for gathering tools and tents
- 1,000 luck coins, which you can theoretically use to buy the next season pass at a lower price. Overall, you will receive a total of 5,000 luck coins in the pass – so 1/4 of the price back.
At level 10, it will get tricky again. Here you receive a weapon selection chest, which guarantees weapons with fixed attributes – namely Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Focus. One of them is also guaranteed to be legendary.
Immediately afterwards, there are 1,500 shadow shards, which are needed for the later upgrade of the equipment from level 600 to 625. In total, there are 7,500 shadow shards in the pass. These can be secured in about 10 to 30 hours of gameplay, depending on how effectively you are while playing.
Further chests containing dungeon skins, a legendary piece of jewelry with stats, and later also a legendary armor with stats will follow. At level 17, there are also 3,000 coins in cash in hand. In total, the pass contains 12,000 coins, which takes several hours of farming.
The pass includes 10 flame cores and 5 gypsum orbs. Those who complete the entire pass receive a total of 30 flame cores and 25 gypsum orbs. Materials in the form of an elemental quintessence and vials with resting Azoth are also included.
In the next levels of the pass, further skins, chests with legendary weapons, armor pieces, and pieces of jewelry, as well as a box with 3 flawless cut gemstones will follow. Additional boosters are also included.
The last 10 levels of the pass also bring big reward chests with equipment from the mutated dungeons. The final reward at level 100 is not yet visible on the test server.
The free pass offers significantly less
What does the free pass include? Significantly less. To welcome you, there are 1,000 shadow shards, 1 gypsum orb, and a random named weapon. However, this does not necessarily have to be legendary.
Overall, the free pass offers:
- 4,000 shadow shards
- 8,500 gold
- 2,500 luck coins
- 31 gypsum orbs
- 10 flame cores
- Several chests with a chance (!) at legendary weapons and armor
- Healing potions
- Vials with Azoth
- Boosters
- Some new skins
The Premium Pass can be defined as Pay2Win, but it doesn’t have to be
Is the Premium Pass Pay2Win? It depends on your own definition. The pass provides some items that save you time, such as gypsum orbs, shadow shards, and boosters. In addition, you receive coins and materials that you would otherwise have to farm in the game. It is thus a great help and certainly saves you a double-digit number of hours of farming time.
However, with this pass, you can only catch up to “veterans”. Because nothing in the pass makes you stronger than active players already are – like boosters for more strength or higher item levels.
Most will have already leveled their weapons and professions to max level and also brought their equipment to 625. Many also value perfect stats, for example, through perks tailored to their weapon. The equipment in the pass only has these with a lot of luck. It is good for the transition, but in PvE and PvP, it falls short against perfect stats.
Furthermore, the shadow shards are by no means enough to upgrade the gear to level 625. You will still need to farm.
Nevertheless, the pass is debatable. Especially materials, coins, and legendary equipment are very useful for newcomers. Had it been limited to gypsum, shadow shards, skins, emotes, and colors, the outcry would surely have been smaller.
What do you think about the pass? Do you consider the content to be Pay2Win? Feel free to write it in the comments.
If you are looking for another MMORPG besides New World, you will surely find it in this list:
