Michael “shroud” Grzesiek has streamed more than 70 hours of New World on Twitch since Tuesday. In his last livestream, he explained what New World still lacks compared to other MMO hits. The UI is particularly a thorn in his side.
Who is speaking? Shroud is a variety streamer and has showcased over 50 different games in the last 365 days. This includes survival games like Valheim or Rust, shooters like Warzone or Valorant, and MMORPGs like SWTOR or WoW.
New World ranks fifth in the most streamed games for him. Shroud has significant experience in the game. He has commented on New World during the beta and was particularly excited about the endgame back then:
Twitch streamer shroud loves the endgame in New World: “This is how MMOs should be”.
After the streamer recently stated that New World is not aimed at casual players, he has now openly complained about the UI in the game.
“The game is great, but the user interface is flawed”
What does shroud criticize? His biggest point of criticism lies in the interaction with other players. It’s difficult to trade or whisper to other players. Responding to a player in chat is particularly challenging. Overall, he is bothered by the chat as it’s “hard to follow the events happening there.”
He does not spare any comment on the rest of the UI either. The problem becomes clear the moment he enlarges the chat. There are buttons everywhere, the chat has numerous options, and the group interface also seems overloaded. Shroud then asked his viewers:
Why is the feed so terrible? Look at this. Are you telling me that all this crap here is good? You can see it’s made for thumbs. It makes me angry.
Furthermore, he explains that it is not the game that is the problem, but merely the user interface.
The game is great. I’m not saying the game is bad. I’m just saying the user interface is flawed, that’s all I’m saying. The user interface is flawed.
You can’t argue against that. You simply can’t. The game is fantastic, it’s interesting. It just has a bad UI.
What would be a solution? Shroud does not explain that. He emphasizes that he does not know a direct solution, and that this is not his job.
However, the streamer assumes that the developers will continue to work on the UI. But until there is a fix, he must criticize the UI.
As an alternative, shroud suggests addons that could allow players to customize their own UI.
Is shroud alone with his criticism? No, there are some critics. The points of criticism can also be found on reddit for New World:
- The user Confidy wishes for a fix for the many UI elements that overlap (via reddit).
- Discoveryj wishes for adjustments to the archer UI. When aiming, there are just too many symbols cluttered together, making it impossible to hit the intended target (via reddit).
- The user NLonSec wishes that players could generally customize their UI (via reddit).
- Additionally, since the release, there have been more than 20 threads complaining about bugs in the UI.
What do you think of the user interface of New World? Do you find it successful, or does it bother you more? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
The biggest problem since release, however, are the queues that exclude many players from playing. They are also long because players exploit ways to stay logged in during their AFK time. But Amazon is now tackling this:
New World is now hunting AFK cheaters to resolve the long queues
