New World: Aeternum Review-In-Progress | MMORPG.com

System · October 15

New World: Aeternum Review-In-Progress | MMORPG.com

New World: Aeternum is finally here, bringing Amazon's updated vision of Aeternum to PC players and, for the first time, the console audience. Check out our thoughts in our first review-in-progress.

Read the full story here

Margrave · October 15

Still no dual wield dagger rogue build I see.

pass.

Elidien_ga · October 15

I am excited to return and I do hope it rekindles that same magic I felt before. For me, I love the journey in New World. Leveling is fun for me and I enjoy seeing and experiencing the world. This is why I am very excited for the changes they made. It sounds like they made that even better.

I have over 500 hours in the game so I got my money's worth and I am excited to level again. But that brings me to the same point from prior play-throughs - end game for me is lacking and it will be interesting to see if that is still the case.

My biggest worry is that so many changes are to the leveling experience that former players will come back and dust off their old characters and wonder where all the changes are at (outside the obvious things like raids, etc...). I worry those players will not stick around and do not expect them too. I do not see legacy servers changing much if at all whereas new ones should thrive.

Sovrath · October 15

“I asked Game Director Scot Lane and Creative Director Dave Verfaillie if this was simply down to the fact that you have to own the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion to use the weapon, to which they confirmed that was the case and didn’t want to make anyone feel left out if it was included and they couldn’t use it.“

Perhaps make it so that pc players have access to it from the start without gating it behind an expansion. It’s a simple thing but would engender good will.

Elidien_ga · October 16

I was finally able to play last night (kids' baseball game so I did not get home to late) but I was very surprised at the story, cut-scenes, and how invested I was in it. The story makes sense now and your role in it as well. This probably will not appeal to those who do not focus on things like story and lore but given I was a history major and fascinated by the crypto-history and "mysteries of history" it appeals to me greatly. The connections to the Great Exploration era where European explorers went searching for the fountain of youth and eternal life is now part of the game. I was surprised how much it changed the feel of the game.

Outside of that, its still New World so if you liked it before, and story/lore/etc appeal to you, I would recommend it.

vanderghast · October 16

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

KaliGold · October 16

It's a rebranding and push to consoles to squeeze the last bit of juice from this lemon. On paper, this game should have been a huge long term hit. Great dungeons, endless professions, many different PVP modes.

What went wrong? Everyone has their opinions but I can name a few: Poor combat. 100% manual gathering of resources which is fun at first, but then becomes soul killing. Poor balance between PVE and PVP because you use the same gear and stats for both.

I am sure there are many more problems with New World, but I just don't care anymore.

Belgaraath · October 16

I'm strongly considering giving this a go since I haven't really played any MMORPG over the last two years after leaving ESO for good. Huge single player games like the Horizon series, Cyperpunk, Ghost of Tsushima, Baldur's Gate 3, and Elden Ring have taken me away from online games because they are just so fantastic to play solo. With the upcoming DragonAge game and Kingdom Come II, I'm not sure I have the bandwidth.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing more reviews of New World as someone who never played it to begin with. It seems from the little I've read that it is perfect for someone like me who likes to play solo and occasionally coop or group up, I love exploring, I like collecting for crafting, and I like story based games with questing.

The only thing that I find very annoying is that this would have been the perfect game for cross saves between the PC and PS5. I like to sometimes play in my office on my PC with its 4080 super and other times in front of the big screen TV. Thats a lot of money to pay for two copies without cross save. Oh well, if I go that route, I guess I will just level up two different characters which I normally don't do as I like to play one character at a time.

lotrlore · October 16

Belgaraath said:

I'm strongly considering giving this a go since I haven't really played any MMORPG over the last two years after leaving ESO for good. Huge single player games like the Horizon series, Cyperpunk, Ghost of Tsushima, Baldur's Gate 3, and Elden Ring have taken me away from online games because they are just so fantastic to play solo. With the upcoming DragonAge game and Kingdom Come II, I'm not sure I have the bandwidth.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing more reviews of New World as someone who never played it to begin with. It seems from the little I've read that it is perfect for someone like me who likes to play solo and occasionally coop or group up, I love exploring, I like collecting for crafting, and I like story based games with questing.

The only thing that I find very annoying is that this would have been the perfect game for cross saves between the PC and PS5. I like to sometimes play in my office on my PC with its 4080 super and other times in front of the big screen TV. Thats a lot of money to pay for two copies without cross save. Oh well, if I go that route, I guess I will just level up two different characters which I normally don't do as I like to play one character at a time.

The lack of cross progression is one of my biggest gripes, and I have to wonder if this was solely an Amazon decision to sell more copies, or if Microsoft and Sony wouldn't allow it on a game like this.

Either way, it really sucks having a high-level PC character and being unable to swap to him when I want to sit on my couch and play this on the Xbox. Just needless friction.

lotrlore · October 16

vanderghast said:

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

If you're on PC, try turning off FSR, which is now on by default. FSR makes this game look like it's been smeared with vasoline.

Belgaraath · October 16

lotrlore said:

Belgaraath said:

I'm strongly considering giving this a go since I haven't really played any MMORPG over the last two years after leaving ESO for good. Huge single player games like the Horizon series, Cyperpunk, Ghost of Tsushima, Baldur's Gate 3, and Elden Ring have taken me away from online games because they are just so fantastic to play solo. With the upcoming DragonAge game and Kingdom Come II, I'm not sure I have the bandwidth.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing more reviews of New World as someone who never played it to begin with. It seems from the little I've read that it is perfect for someone like me who likes to play solo and occasionally coop or group up, I love exploring, I like collecting for crafting, and I like story based games with questing.

The only thing that I find very annoying is that this would have been the perfect game for cross saves between the PC and PS5. I like to sometimes play in my office on my PC with its 4080 super and other times in front of the big screen TV. Thats a lot of money to pay for two copies without cross save. Oh well, if I go that route, I guess I will just level up two different characters which I normally don't do as I like to play one character at a time.

The lack of cross progression is one of my biggest gripes, and I have to wonder if this was solely an Amazon decision to sell more copies, or if Microsoft and Sony wouldn't allow it on a game like this.

Either way, it really sucks having a high-level PC character and being unable to swap to him when I want to sit on my couch and play this on the Xbox. Just needless friction.

On top of that, for someone like me that doesn't need Playstation Plus, if I do get it on the PS5, now I have to get that too. So it would be about 120 for two copies of the game and another $54 dollars or so just to play online. That's a lot. I'm going to wait for Black Friday to see if any deals surface. Normally there is a good deal for at least the Playstation Plus around that time for a year's payment. Looking forward to your complete review.

Germzypie · October 17

The game we got 3 days ago, is the game we should have had at release. I have only had a server que a couple times, and only very briefly (like 2 or 3 minutes). Lvl 63 now and still have not encountered a single bug. I am still waiting for the hammer to drop though. AGS track record is always lingering in the back of my mind while playing. "When is the thing going to happen?"

They did encounter some issues like Legacy players being able to transfer to new xplay servers in some regions. But looks like they quickly addressed those.

The only turn-off i have experienced so far is all the toxic behavior in chat. Seems to be at a new level this time around.

Slapshot1188 · October 17

lotrlore said:

vanderghast said:

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

If you're on PC, try turning off FSR, which is now on by default. FSR makes this game look like it's been smeared with vasoline.

Yes! It took me awhile to figure that out. I could t understand why the game didn’t look as good as I remembered.

lotrlore · October 17

Slapshot1188 said:

lotrlore said:

vanderghast said:

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

If you're on PC, try turning off FSR, which is now on by default. FSR makes this game look like it's been smeared with vasoline.

Yes! It took me awhile to figure that out. I could t understand why the game didn’t look as good as I remembered.

I'm doing my review of Aeternum on Xbox since console is such a huge part of this relaunch, and on a stream last night I kept complaining about the FSR implementation. I think so many people talking about the downgrade are experiencing this too: it's not necessarily a graphical downgrade, I don't think. I just think people are realizing AMD's FSR is, to put it bluntly, shit. And when it's being implemented as a way to potentially replace anti-aliasing (which FSR is wholly dependent on the engine's built-in AA tools to look good), as well as a dynamic resolution scale to keep performance consistent, it's going to look terrible in spots.

FSR really has set both AMD GPUs and consoles back a generation by not including AI upscaling like DLSS or XeSS, and we're seeing that on full display here now.

Elidien_ga · October 17

Germzypie said:

The game we got 3 days ago, is the game we should have had at release. I have only had a server que a couple times, and only very briefly (like 2 or 3 minutes). Lvl 63 now and still have not encountered a single bug. I am still waiting for the hammer to drop though. AGS track record is always lingering in the back of my mind while playing. "When is the thing going to happen?"

They did encounter some issues like Legacy players being able to transfer to new xplay servers in some regions. But looks like they quickly addressed those.

The only turn-off i have experienced so far is all the toxic behavior in chat. Seems to be at a new level this time around.

That (I had to turn chat off except for three channels) and so many people sped leveled (is that a thing?) to max level within a few hours. I mean they can play how they want but they obviously sped through content and I am afraid they will be the first ones bored and complain there is nothing to do.

ValdemarJ · October 17

lotrlore said:

Belgaraath said:

I'm strongly considering giving this a go since I haven't really played any MMORPG over the last two years after leaving ESO for good. Huge single player games like the Horizon series, Cyperpunk, Ghost of Tsushima, Baldur's Gate 3, and Elden Ring have taken me away from online games because they are just so fantastic to play solo. With the upcoming DragonAge game and Kingdom Come II, I'm not sure I have the bandwidth.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing more reviews of New World as someone who never played it to begin with. It seems from the little I've read that it is perfect for someone like me who likes to play solo and occasionally coop or group up, I love exploring, I like collecting for crafting, and I like story based games with questing.

The only thing that I find very annoying is that this would have been the perfect game for cross saves between the PC and PS5. I like to sometimes play in my office on my PC with its 4080 super and other times in front of the big screen TV. Thats a lot of money to pay for two copies without cross save. Oh well, if I go that route, I guess I will just level up two different characters which I normally don't do as I like to play one character at a time.

The lack of cross progression is one of my biggest gripes, and I have to wonder if this was solely an Amazon decision to sell more copies, or if Microsoft and Sony wouldn't allow it on a game like this.

Either way, it really sucks having a high-level PC character and being unable to swap to him when I want to sit on my couch and play this on the Xbox. Just needless friction.

This certainly can't be on Microsoft, unless they're pushing for it behind the scenes because so many other games offer cross progression out of the box. Ark: Ascended has cloud sync between Xbox for PC and Xbox Console versions and a single purchase activates the license on both platforms.

There is a lack of cross progression and content licensing for Bethesda games too, both online and single player. I really wanted to play FO76 on my Series X. It's mostly where I game now. Nothing I bought or unlocked on PC syncs with Xbox, while Xbox and Steam versions do sync. So, I've skipped playing ESO or FO76 on Xbox.

New World is a great game, but the lack of account syncing and them leaning so heavily back into open world PvP means this is a hard pass for me.

Ginaz · October 18

lotrlore said:

vanderghast said:

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

If you're on PC, try turning off FSR, which is now on by default. FSR makes this game look like it's been smeared with vasoline.

What's FSR? I can't find it in the options?

Slapshot1188 · October 18

Ginaz said:

lotrlore said:

vanderghast said:

i tried it yesterday and it's really not hooking me. Also don't remember it being as graphically ugly as it is. Looks like a much older MMO than i remembered it to be honestly. Don't think it will hook me in.

If you're on PC, try turning off FSR, which is now on by default. FSR makes this game look like it's been smeared with vasoline.

What's FSR? I can't find it in the options?

Settings. Video. Resolution Scaling. Its FSR or OFF. Turn it off!

achesoma · October 18

I do find it strange they STILL haven't added dual wielding or pistols up to this point. Especially since it's already in the game, just not for players.

I plan on jumping in again and giving it a try. Haven't played in a few years, and stopped playing well before the expansion. My main gripe was crafting felt very forced on the player and lack of content if you didn't pvp. Very rarely could i find a group for pve so i mostly soloed. And having to collect these stupid items just to run a regular dungeon was just awful. I'm really hoping all these things changed. The blunderbuss looks really fun to play.

Ginaz · October 18

Margrave said:

Still no dual wield dagger rogue build I see.

pass.

I'd love for there to be duel pistols. Vermintide 1 and 2 has them and it's fun as hell.

Ginaz · October 18

achesoma said:

I do find it strange they STILL haven't added dual wielding or pistols up to this point. Especially since it's already in the game, just not for players.

I plan on jumping in again and giving it a try. Haven't played in a few years, and stopped playing well before the expansion. My main gripe was crafting felt very forced on the player and lack of content if you didn't pvp. Very rarely could i find a group for pve so i mostly soloed. And having to collect these stupid items just to run a regular dungeon was just awful. I'm really hoping all these things changed. The blunderbuss looks really fun to play.

It's weird since a lot of enemies have duel pistols. A true pirate build with duel pistols and rapier or daggers would really fit the setting.

Asm0deus · October 18

The storyline and cutscenes are much better now and more coherent. Leveling up seems much faster than it was AND loot you get is better than it was for completing the MSQ.

Also and this is big IMO the mini bosses you encounter as you level up drop their rares much easier, so far I have been able to get a couple named rares to drop from them in under 5 kills where before you might have to farm them for hours which was stupid because by the time those rares dropped you would out level them if you didn't bother with farming them which made all these low leveled rare items useless.

Oh and like my son said OMG they finally added a basic feature like swimming!

lotrlore · October 18

Asm0deus said:

The storyline and cutscenes are much better now and more coherent. Leveling up seems much faster than it was AND loot you get is better than it was for completing the MSQ.

Also and this is big IMO the mini bosses you encounter as you level up drop their rares much easier, so far I have been able to get a couple named rares to drop from them in under 5 kills where before you might have to farm them for hours which was stupid because by the time those rares dropped you would out level them if you didn't bother with farming them which made all these low leveled rare items useless.

Oh and like my son said OMG they finally added a basic feature like swimming!

The loot being better might be attributed to updated loot tables, but also the loot biasing they added back with Rise of the Angry Earth. Things have gotten much, much more relevant from mob drops and chests, at least.

Belgaraath · October 18

When you do your review, can you please include how the coop experience is (with just one other person?). Can you do the main story together? The side quests? Does it make it too easy when coop'ing because the solo content was made not to coop? Is there content specifically for two people? Thank you.

Hengist · October 18

Sovrath said:

“I asked Game Director Scot Lane and Creative Director Dave Verfaillie if this was simply down to the fact that you have to own the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion to use the weapon, to which they confirmed that was the case and didn’t want to make anyone feel left out if it was included and they couldn’t use it.“

Perhaps make it so that pc players have access to it from the start without gating it behind an expansion.

It’s a simple thing but would engender good will.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but my honest thought about why the don't care about engendering good will, is that they don't give a damn about the PC players. This rebranding and launch seems to be about getting it on consoles, and opening up that player base and revenue stream. (It's a business, I don't blame them, or begrudge them that, they should make money). My issue is that it doesn't feel like the EVER gave a damn about the PC audience. That was simply a "paid beta experience"

Hengist · October 18

Asking for a friend....

Game has been up for 3 days so far. How many times have they had to shut the Auction House down for exploit fixes?

Ahhh, just reminiscing about the good old days!

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