Since its announcement, New World has referred to itself as an MMO and not an MMORPG. This has already led to many discussions. In a new interview, Game Director Scot Lane talks about other games in the genre and shows that they use MMO as a synonym for MMORPG.
What is discussed in the interview? In conversation with Gamesindustry, Scot Lane discusses the general direction of New World and what they want to achieve with the game. He particularly sees Amazon as an opportunity to implement a really big MMO:
I don’t know where we could have done it differently than at Amazon. We have this huge cloud infrastructure for computations. We love MMOs. We love action RPGs. It just seemed like a really cool and fitting mix.
Scot Lane in an interview with Gamesindustry
Furthermore, Lane emphasizes that there are already many good MMOs on the market, but there hasn’t been a real hit lately. Here, New World also sees an opportunity, especially with their own combat system:
Everyone is always looking for the next new MMO, and we’ve already had some really good ones. Final Fantasy 14 is fantastic. Black Desert. But it seems like there hasn’t been a new [hit] for a while and a large part of the focus is shifting to other genres. I saw it as an opportunity… and our combat style, which is more physics-based, is a distinguishing feature.
Scot Lane in an interview with Gamesindustry
Is New World an MMORPG? In both quotes and other statements from the interview, it is evident that Lane uses MMO here as a synonym for MMORPG. After all, Final Fantasy XIV and Black Desert refer to themselves as such.
He himself also describes New World in the first quote as a game that emerged from MMO and action RPG.
New World does not want to be the next WoW
Why do they not officially call themselves MMORPG? During the conversation, Scot Lane also makes a comparison to the successful World of Warcraft. This was also drawn by the well-known streamer Asmongold during the preview.
The Game Director emphasizes that they do not want to be the next WoW, but rather a cool MMO of their own. Too many games have supposedly failed because they tried too hard to be like WoW:
There’s always the question: “Who will be the next World of Warcraft?” I think that has led to a lot of games that tried to adhere too much to the formula… You never want to be the next “somebody else.” The iPhone didn’t want to be the next Blackberry. They just wanted to be something cool.
And we prefer to be our own new cool thing.
Scot Lane in an interview with Gamesindustry
Lane also considers some mechanics from well-known and successful MMORPGs to be outdated, such as tab-targeting.
It is therefore possible that the developers consciously avoid the term “MMORPG” so as not to be immediately grouped together with WoW and similar games. At the same time, it seems that there is no significant difference for them between MMO and MMORPG.
Small team but regular updates: According to Scot Lane, the developers are currently working to expand the content of New World. However, he also emphasizes that a rather small team is working on the MMO. He is also unsure whether the team will actually grow after the launch.
He sees the small team as an advantage to quickly respond to community requests. Additionally, Lane mentioned that they are currently planning an update for each month after the release. They already succeeded in doing this during the alpha.
However, New World is currently in a new development phase. There are currently no public tests and no closed alpha. They are expected to start again in November. The release is set for 2021.
However, the developer team of New World has already learned some things from the preview event and is striving for improvements for the MMO. However, the game is supposed to remain the same at its core, colorful unicorns and dragons will reportedly not be part of it in the future.
