Day 1: Rise of the Angry Earth

Read about all of my Rise of the Angry Earth experiences here.

 Day 1 for New World's first expansion was 10/3 but for me my first steps were on 10/4 and really today 10/5 for the full plunge.  So what did I do with my first day?

 First I started out by salvaging stuff that was clogging up my inventory and town storage in key towns.  I have a long, long way to go on salvaging all my 625 and below gear, but I got through salvaging all the perk mods, umbral shards, and other items that were deprecated.  I am now over 1,000 dark matter, made 10,000+ gold, and have thousands of attribute perk mods.

 

Look at all them attribute perk mods!

 Next I hit the trading post and started posting my horde of items I bought to flip.  I am NOT sharing my secrets but lets just say it is going well and I am closing in on 200,000+ gold!  The one dud I will share is golden scarabs and I'm glad I didn't overinvest here.  They are NOT going up in price; they are cratering! 

 A few other progress notes:

• Refining skills are all over 205
• Gathering skills are over 205
• Level is 64 (just from doing mount quests and a ton of refining)
• 50% done with the new faction tier
  

 I also made my way through the mount questline up to unlocking my wolf mount.  I am taking a break there and headed towards the new Edengrove settlement to start the quest line to enter the new Elysian Wilds zone.  Note: I tried to go directly to the Elysian Wilds and failed to read the prompt that you will be killed by the spores if you don't do the questline.

 I ended with this screenshot outside of Edengrove.  Check back in for more fun in the following days!

New Edengrove!

Charts! Successful launch for Rise of the Angry Earth

 Rise of the Angry Earth launched yesterday and minus some server queues it seems like it is a resounding success.  Some charts to go with it!

 First we have active players on Steam DB showing a peak concurrent player count of 55,000+ players.  This is short of what we saw with Brimstone Sands, but still a solid uptick in players.

 Secondly we have the Steam's Top Sellers with New World and Rise of the Angry Earth at spot 2 and 3 respectively with only Counter Strike 2 ahead of it at 1.  This is a good sign of both returning players and new players picking the game up.

 Both of these tell a good story for New World and it's first expansion.

Launch day! Rise of the Angry Earth

 Today is the day!  New World's first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, launches at 12 noon eastern!  Downtime starts at 9 AM.  I won't be able to join the fun today so will see everyone online later this week.

Final Prep: Rise of the Angry Earth

 New World's first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, launches tomorrow 10/3 at 12 noon ET!  There will be lengthy downtime ahead of the launch and players will need to re-download the entire game.  This leaves today as our final prep day before the expansion!

 For anyone interested in my larger plans; I documented that here: New World Rise of the Angry Earth Preperation Checklist .  This post will be more about; did I get it my prep done and are there any final adjustments to make?

 The big answer is: no.  No, I did not get my prep done.  Real life is busy and I ended up camping and fishing this weekend with friends so I'll be rolling into the expansion with little in the way of raw materials and completed quests.

 So what adjustments am I making because of this?  None.  I am going to just enjoy the game and play at my own pace as I have always done.  My original prep list was all about getting stuff done fast to be on the cutting edge and I should have known that wasn't going to happen.  That is not my style.  

 I am still a completionist so getting all my crafting and refining skills to 250 will be a goal.  Getting faction levels and to 65 will be a goal.  Getting my mount and getting that leveled up will be a goal.  I will just take it all at my own pace.

 And my pace is going to be behind the curve because I won't be available for the launch due to work.  I will maybe get to log in late on 10/3 but won't have time until 10/4 and realistically 10/5 is when I'll get a good chunk of play time.  I am hoping this means I miss out on launch day headaches but get in on some of the launch-related shenanigans.

 What are your plans for launch?

9/28/2023 Thursday Post

Ya... ya... I got it.  Here it is.  Packers got smacked... hard.  Hopefully the young team learns from this and can start putting together complete games.

New World: Eggs For Breakfast

 Mmm... tasty eggs for breakfast this morning in New World.  The screenshot is from the Siege of Sulfur event.

New World Expansion Disappointing?

 There are rumblings in the New World community that the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion and Season 3 changes will ultimately be disappointing for players.  Videos such as the one below from DukeSloth are contributing to the concerns.

 I don't want to get lost in DukeSloth's specific feedback (my comments are on the video if you are interested), but wanted to hit the high (low?) points I'm seeing across the community.

 We've waited a long time for the territory control rework and what we've gotten is a few new "basic" control points in each zone and time-locked windows (sucks to be you if you can't play during those times) to push influence to declare war.  The current system is boring and the new system, other than encouraging players to be in the same zone, still seems like a lot of running from A to B instead of encouraging PvP combat.  The "basic" control points are a far cry from what most imagined when "control towers" were announced.

 Territory control: possible disappointment.

 The expansion is adding one new zone which I've covered before.  The zone is smaller than other end game zones we've seen such as Brimstone Sands.  The main quest line on PTR only took a couple hours to work through.  There is only one new expedition.  Over all there is not a lot of content to go with this "expansion" which is not what many players are used to when an MMORPG says it is launching an "expansion".

 Expansion size and scope: possible disappointment.

 Crafting rework is promising but not promising.  Players can now craft specific best-in-slot gear but it will require a pile of time-gated materials so will take time and effort to craft.  However, all the crafts were raised to 250 (from 200) but only some gained the new crafting targets so it feels like grind added for no other reason than to grind to 250.

 Expansion crafting changes: possible disappointment (but also HYPE).

 Heartrunes upgrade to 700 GS now but require a ton of investment to upgrade.  It is not clear why this was added.  Heartrunes are a defining ability for players and gating players away from one of the few abilities they have in the game seems like an odd choice.  I didn't even realize this was a thing until I watched the DukeSloth video I linked.

 Expansion heartrune upgrades: possible disappointment.

 Stuff is just going to be silly and probably broken with all the changes.  Artifacts will lead to broken builds. Certain perk combinations feel really strong at first glance.  Whatever ends up being broken will probably be the flavor of the day and players are going to complain until the balance patches hit.  Current New World is in a good spot for balance (from my view anyways) so for some players going into a wild west period of builds will be frustrating.  Personally I find this time period fun; I like trying different builds!

 Silly broken builds: possible disappointment.

 Over all I am not worried in the slightest.  I love New World and will love it with all the changes even of some miss the mark or are underwhelming.  There are things I know for a fact that will just be better: the gear system is better, mounts are going to be awesome, and I am going to get to try all sorts of new things out with builds because of artifacts.  I agree that it doesn't feel "big" for an expansion but I didn't need it to be.  I am fine with just getting a bunch of new stuff to chew on.

New World Rise of the Angry Earth Preperation Checklist

 With the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion barreling towards New World players on October 3rd I figured it was time to share my checklist of items I am doing to prep for expansion.

 A few key items to keep in mind:

• Gear score max will change from 625 to 700; current 625 (and below) gear will become obsolete
• Note: save it to salvage after the patch
  
• Max level will be increasing from 60 to 65
• A new faction tier will be available with new faction store rewards
  
• Refining and crafting max level increases from 200 to 250
• There is a new set of time-gated refining materials

On with my "New World Rise of the Angry Earth Checklist" (more detailed comments below)

• Bank 10,000 of all raw materials (see below for full list) so that I can power through refining to 250
• Then will use this to work on crafting, but I have no plans on
  
• Bank 30 completed faction quests so that I can level up to the new faction tier
• Faction tokens around 100k (max is 150k, but you need room to get your rewards turning in your banked faction quests)
• Bank some completed town boards so that I can turn them in for level 60-65 progress
  
• PvP salt saved up (I am at 80k)
• PvP track ready to complete
• Do the "Siege of Sulfur" event for named items
  

Raw Materials

With the refining skills increasing to 250 and a new set of time-gated materials becoming available it will be important to get to 250 refining as soon as possible so you can start refining the cooldown materials.  So I am working through banking a large amount of the following raw materials:

• Weaving
  
• Fibers
• Silk Threads
• Wirefiber
• Logging
  
• Green Wood
• Aged Wood
• Wyrdwood
• Ironwood
• Mining
  
• Iron Ore
  
• Starmetal Ore
  
• Orichalcum ore
• Note: I don't pass up Silver, Gold, or Platinum but I am not banking them
• Leatherworking
• Rawhide
• Thick Hide
• Iron Hide

There are folks that have done the math for how much of each is needed to get to 250 but I'm just using a generic "10,000 of each" farming target.

Note: you can then funnel these refined materials into cooldown mats or pushing crafting levels. Or just sell for gold as the market will likely be elevated for a while by folks just buying their way ahead.

Faction Quests and Tokens

You can have a max of 30 faction quests  and since there is a new faction tier to level up with the expansion any completed, but not turned in, faction quests will net you experience towards that level.  I am going to try and get 30 completed and ready to go for day one; at minimum as many as possible in the towns I own houses in.

As a note I am also banking about 100,000 faction tokens to buy new faction shop items. The cap is 150,000; so a 50k buffer for all the faction quests I will be turning in.

Town Boards

With the level increase to 65 it will be possible to get a jump start by having town boards completed but not turned in.  Many of the town board items are very simple; just need to have a few items stashed in storage or craft something.  I am avoiding the "go kill X or collect X" town boards.

PvP salt and track 

The PvP tracks will be a key source for end game gear and it is possible to see 700 GS rewards on the track on day 1.  These rewards will cost a good amount of azoth salt (20,000 if it follows current reward cost).

You can also "store up" a completed PvP track.  Important to note that this will stop new PvP XP gain so time this for right before you log off the day before.  The theory here is two things:

• If the current track has Umbral Shards as a reward choice that will change to Dark Matter post patch; so leave the shards unselected and hope for the dark matter to select post patch
  
• Since you are completing the track once you login you will get an immediate fresh track with new rewards on the new GS scale up to 700; if enough PvP XP rolled over you may get to pick one right away
   

Siege of Sulfur

The current event, Siege of Sulfur, was extended due to bugs so is still active.  This event spits out current 590 GS named items which will upgrade to 625 with the expansion.  They then can possibly salvage into Dark Matter.  This event is worth doing.

At least Starfield looks good

 I haven't done anything in photo mode so need to give that a try but here are some shots from the adventure so far.

Shotguns out when exiting the ship!

The ring.

Sadly I am not actually flying the ship.

Oh. Ah.

Neon aka "loading screen town"

Sunday 9/24/2023 Post

 Like I said last week.  What-the-freaking-ever.  Mind blown the Packers won this one.