New World Has A Problem

 New World has a problem.  This weekend is a free weekend for the game, but it doesn't seem anyone cares.  Based on player activity on nwdb.info and Steam charts, other than the highlighted "Free Weekend" note on Steam charts, you would not know anything was happening.  There is no discernible bump in player populations.  This was the case the last time a free weekend was tried.  Why is this the case?

 I think the main reason on the lack of interest for the free weekend was New World's massive success at launch when we saw a peak of 900,000+ concurrent players.  Most gamers that wanted to try the game bought it and tried it already.  As there is no subscription cost for the game players can return at any time "for free"; they don't need a free weekend.

 And what brings back players to New World?  New content.  Brimstone Sands and the fresh start servers were hockey stick charts for the game.  Players returned in droves, consumed the content, and now are settling back out to wherever the came from.  I am sure the next big content drop will see the same sort of bump and settle.  That is where resources need to focus; not free weekends.

 The question is what level of resources does the free weekend cost?  And what is the loss to other development efforts?  Nothing ever happens in the world of software development free of cost; there is always a trade off.  Only AGS can answer this so I don't want to dwell on it and I hope AGS is considering it when planning these events.

 At least with this free weekend they didn't create 70+ new servers (yes, they literally had 70+ dead servers for the last free event and none of the servers hit more than a small handful of players).  This free weekend players just play on the existing servers.

 What do you think?  Leave a comment.

My Twitch 2022 Recap (lulz)

 Twitch has their 2022 recap posted.  You can check yours out here. Here is my recap:

 I lulz over this because I'll be honest I had no idea who my third most watched streamer, Mukluk, was until I looked him up.  My guess is I watched him for a Guild Wars 2 drop which goes into why I even have 500+ hours watched on Twitch: drops.  That is basically the only reason I am there outside of dropping off my Amazon Prime sub to a streamer in need.  And let's be honest; I am not watching actively 99% of the time... it's buried in a muted browser tab somewhere.

 Also lulz is BagginsTV.  Not that I don't like him or that he is not a good streamer, but the only reason I think I have hours watched there is because his stream is embedded and auto-plays on the New World Database website.

 Anyways, like my Reddit recap, 2022 was the year of New World!  

 What does your recap look like? Drop a comment.

How I Reorganized My Storage in New World

 It's not quite spring, but my New World storage couldn't wait!  I worked on and off the last few days to devise a way to best organize my storage in a way that would make it easier to find what I was looking for.  The main target was to make my various piles of gear more easily accessible to fit into different slots in my build.  Below I've outlined my thought process and where I've landed.

Some data points I had in mind as I worked through this:

• There are 20 town storages available (three were added in Brimstone Sands)
• There are 13 weapons
• There are 3 armor weights (light/medium/heavy) with 5 pieces each; total of 15
  
• There are 3 accessory slots (amulet/ring/earring)
• You can own 3 houses
• A tier 4 house can have 4x storage chests

We'll start with the towns where I have houses.  After paying up for cursed storage chests and paying for a Tier 4 house I was able to jam all crafting materials (except cooking) into my Windsward storage.  I then used a second town where I had  a Tier 1 house for all cooking supplies and some misc gathering/crafting gear.  My third house is Tier 3 and is the town I do my trading post flipping in so it is off limits for this exercise as its regularly maxed out on weight.

 This left me with 17 town storages to sort gear into.  At first I went with putting all light gloves into one storage and down the line with each armor slot/weight getting its own town (15 total).  This actually turned out to be a little annoying so I collapsed all light armor into one town, all medium into another, and all heavy into another.  Less searching over all for gear pieces and you can sort storage by weight of each item to neatly organize gloves by gloves, etc because the slot all have the same weight (note: this is not true of weapons; some rapiers were heavier than others as an example).

 Next that left me with the 13 weapons.  For this I just put one weapon in each of the first 13 storage available.  The exception is sword and shield which are together (not sure I like this since there are three sizes of shields but leaving it for now).  This makes it easy to peruse my collection of weapons I'll never use but am too afraid to salvage because I might think about using them.

 I then put all accessories into a single storage.  That was a mess as visually it is impossible to figure out an earring vs an amulet.  Then I mixed them with armor, but they get mixed together in the armor section.  So I ended up putting rings, earrings, and amulets each in their own storage opposite a weapon.  This worked out very well.

 I was left then with two empty storage units which is useful for making bulk transfers.  A note as well is I keep all consumables in my active inventory (potions, food, buffs) so that does not require a separate storage.  I use one town for miscellaneous storage for things like extra recipes and piles of fishing bait I own for some unkown reason.

 In the end here is what storage looks like:

Town Storage	Category 1	Category 2
Brightwood	All Cooking	Crafting/Gathering Gear
Brimstone Sands	Blunderbuss	Light Armor
Cleave's Point	Bow	Medium Armor
Cutlass Keys	Firestaff	Heavy Armor
Eastburn	Greataxe	Ring
Ebonscale Reach	Trading Post
Everfall	Greatsword	Earring
First Light	Hatchet	Amulet
Last Stand	Ice Gauntlet
Monarch's Bluff	Life Staff
Mountainhome	Musket
Mountainrise	Rapier
Mourningdale	Sword and Shield
Reekwater	Spear
Restless Shore	Void Gauntlet
Taberna Mercatus	Warhammer
Valor Hold	Extra Recipes/Songs	Fishing Bait
Weaver's Fen	NOT USED
Wikala al-Waha	NOT USED
Windsward	All Crafting

 

New Map Coming Dec 15th for Call of the Wild: The Angler

 

Call of the Wild: The Angler has a new reserve (map) releasing Dec 15th and it's FREE until Jan 5th.  

Trollsporet: A Gorgeous New Setting

The Norway Reserve, or Trollsporet as the locals call it, is 37 square miles (96 square kilometers) and features three distinct biomes: Nøkkensjøen, Huldraskogen, and Fossegrimfjorden. Full of opportunities for exploration, You’ll find idyllic villages, hidden paths to secret fishing spots, and astonishing views from the tops of its towering mountains. As a perk of the region, you’ll also get to enjoy the midnight sun and the Northern Lights as you explore the wilderness.

 Most importantly the new Reserve will feature 14 fish (13 new species and Northern Pike from the original map).  This is not the hundreds of species that can be found in other fishing games such as Russian Fishing 4, but its a step forward.  With that said some early comments based on the teaser trailer cast worry that the "new" species are just slightly modified versions of existing (for example: European Perch indistinguishable from Yellow Perch that exist on the current map).  I am hopeful there is some behavior and other changes that will separate the new species out.

 Also with the new map comes a bunch of open world quests and places to explore.  I am still not convinced this is a selling point for the game.  Before launch I thought it would be but having played a good bit of the first reserve, Golden Ridge, the open world aspects sort of fall flat.  They have zero hook into fishing and are very basic "find this thing".  I'd prefer the development effort going into the open world go into some form of progression system for fishing (perk, skill, don't care - something more than what is there today).

 I will give the new map a try on the 15th as it's been a bit since I went digital fishing.  Hope you enjoyed my cleverly hidden puns in the post.  Leave a comment if you found them.

Boring Final Fantasy 16 Trailer

 The Final Fantasy XVI (16) trailer has hit the web and I have some thoughts on it.  First go ahead and watch it and then read on for my commentary.

 

Sunday 12/11/2022 Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

40% chance to make the play offs if we win out!

Interesting Vampire Tank Build (New World)

Busy day so just going to share this interesting New World Vampire Tank build I saw on Reddit.  Enjoy!

I was surprised by my Reddit Recap for 2022!

 Reddit has posted it's 2022 Recap for users and I wanted to share some of my cards.  It's funny and a bit freaky how much a site like Reddit gets to know about you simply be keeping track of what you do.

 The neatest part is the card they put together for you.  I cracked up at mine and my special +0 power.  Also surprised by my karma performance this year.  I had not realized I had gained so much! 

 So to recap:

• In Top 1% of karma farmers earners
• I live in the New World sub reddit
• I like my memes (of course the entire Green Bay Packers season is a meme!)
• Also 2022 a year for politics and world events
  

Go me!

And I was entertained!

tuck frump and puck futin

 

An Issue With Skins

 I was thinking about skins in games and wanted to talk about one of the things that annoys me.

TF2 Silhouettes

 First I want to get nostalgic about Team Fortress 2.  One of the things that I felt the game got perfect (at least at launch, not sure about current state) was the visual feedback about what class a player was playing.  The heavy was very distinct compared to the scout who was distinct compared to the sniper/medic/etc.  Every class was visibly identifiable the moment you came across them unlike other FPS games of the time where it was very difficult to get a sense of your opponents capabilities at a glance.

 Fast forward to the modern age and the explosion of skins as a key revenue stream for online games and the one thing that annoys me about skins: skins obfuscate a characters role in the game.  For example I will use my current game of choice, New World, and how it uses skins.  

 Skins are available and can then be applied to any equipment slot for a player.  The problem is skins are not visually tied to armor weights so a heavy armor user can apply a skin that looks like light armor and vice versa a light armor user can dress up in heavy plate armor skins.  Most annoying is shield skins where players can use the skin for a small round shield while using a big ole' tower shield.  

 This means I lose out visually on clues about my opponent.  A character running around with a small round shield should be indicative of a light armor load.  If I jump in to attack them thinking that and end up hitting a wall because the player is actually a heavy armor tank with a tower shield (more damage reduction) it is a "feel bad" moment. And I will admit I've used to this my benefit by being that heavy tank with a round shield skin baiting in attackers thinking I was a light weight.

 Even though I've benefited from this skins situation it still annoys me.  Skins in games should not change the visual distinction needed for the game to give good feedback to the user.  In New World's case it is as simple as making skins require specific armor weight to apply (i.e. can't apply a round shield skin to a tower shield, can't apply a light armor skin to a heavy armor piece).

 So I plead with game developers: please don't sacrifice visual feedback to players during game play in the favor of giving more skins to players.  Please make skins as minimally impacting on playing the game as possible. 

 Thank you for listening to my rant.  Agree?  Disagree?  Leave some comments.

Cool Stuff in New World Update 1.8

 New World Update 1.8 has arrived and with it some cool stuff!  Full release notes here.

 First up is a return of the Winter Convergence festival.  Last year's festival was a resounding success; gleamite meteors shocking the MMORPG world and showing how open world content can surprise and delight players!  The meteors are back (along with the videos with "whoa this is cool" reactions).

 New this year with the festival is an open world boss; the Winter Warrior.  Similar to the Halloween event boss the Winter Warrior will appear in the open world and require a zerg of players to take down.  Initial reports are the fight is fun and has healers running for their lives.

 The update also brings a new mutated expedition that combines Starstone Barrows and Amrine.  It will be cool to revisit these two early game expeditions.  Most players likely gave Amrine a spin in their early teens of leveling but many have never stepped foot into Starstone Barrows as it is easy to leap frog leveling right past it.  Personally I've never done Starstone so looking forward to giving it a whirl.

 The most newsworthy part of the update is the shell company mitigation which will restrict how players can hop companies and how war rosters have to come together.  This should hopefully help reduce single companies, who were creating multiple shell companies, from dominating the map.  End goal is to get more players into war because more companies can participate.  This is a watch and see change, but on paper it makes sense to have the intended effect.

 I didn't get a chance to try the patch out yesterday, but will be jumping in today.  Are you out hunting meteor showers?  If so leave a comment!

 And oooohhh pretty!