So I used to play a lot of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs), but they have all fallen to the wayside over the years. Sure, I still have “Neverwinter”, “Star Trek Online”, and “DC Universe” on my Xbox, with a smattering of other such games on my PC, but I haven’t played any of them in months, if not years. After over 20 years with that subgenre of video games, I’ve frankly lost interest in them.
But I just got new that saddened me quite a bit. “New World” was one of the few MMOs I played from Day One of release, and hearing that Amazon is finally killing the game off is just… depressing, to me.
Look, I get it. “New World” wasn’t ever the most popular game, but I blame Amazon Game Studios for that. AGS fell for the same bullshit that ruined “Wildstar”, which is focusing the game on Player vs Player combat first, and solo or cooperative gameplay second. AGS decided that players would provide enough content by fighting among themselves over various objectives, so the devs wouldn’t have to rush to get endgame content out right away.
They. Were. Wrong.
Dead wrong.
MMORPG players, whether they are into PvP or not, will always rush to endgame content first, and measure how good a game is by the quality and quantity of said endgame content. If there had been a bunch of elite raiding content for the Hardcores, even more dungeons and lesser raids for the players looking to work their way up, and also PvP content to enjoy on the side, then “New World” might have stood a chance.
But that wasn’t the case. Much like “Wildstar”, they thought players would ‘make their own fun’, and that’s not how most MMO players think. They want environmental challenges, epic loot, and maybe to be able to bash other players over the head on the side, but not as a primary focus of the game.
It was the lack of satisfying Player vs Environment (PvE) content that led to my walking away from “New World” in the first place. The PvP was okay, but it just wasn’t engaging enough to make up for “Go grind for crafting mat and fight undead” over and over and over again.
So anyway, another MMORPG bites the dust. I’ve seen so many come and go since 2003, when I started playing “Anarchy Online”, that it really doesn’t upset me any longer. Sure, I miss games like “Wildstar” and “Rift” (is that one still running somewhere?), and even “Lord of the Rings Online” a tad (although the company running it can kick rocks), but I don’t really miss the MMORPG genre anymore.
In the end, it is all just too many people running around killing each other’s characters, or fighting over resources. I’m happier playing my single-player RPGs (“Starfield”, “Avowed”, etc) and such. They hold up better, and no 12 year old kid camps your spawn point.
