Chris Illingworth, our Swrod of the New World Correspondent, writes this new article reviewing some of the new features and tweaks to old features that come along with the game`Ncoturnal Sonata update.

Sword of the New World’s Multi-Character Control (MCC) system sets it apart from other massively multiplayer online games in a number of ways: firstly, a player must learn how to use his or her characters as a single unit, forgoing solo levelling in order to develop each family member’s individual skill set. This reliance on multiple characters allows for a unique approach to level design resulting in a complex and rewarding gaming experience. The Nocturnal Sonata patch (currently in its third stage) sought to add a whole new dimension to the game with new maps, a handful of unique player characters, and a host of new monsters.

Read the aritcle here.

While I commend them for the innovation of multiple npcs supporting the main character.  The theme of a MMO is to supposed to be about play with others.  Seems this game instead encourages solo play for the most part.  

Originally posted by Ozmodan

While I commend them for the innovation of multiple npcs supporting the main character.  The theme of a MMO is to supposed to be about play with others.  Seems this game instead encourages solo play for the most part.  

Contrary to popular belief Sword of the New World includes a plethora of team and raid based content. The general focus of the game is Faction Wars which is a weekly battle to claim Colonies around the New World.
 

There is also a ton of raids and raid bosses as well as group instances. In an upcoming patch we will be releasing even more of these and a more "traditional" dungeon crawl.

In addition to all that we have daily events like Faction Fight where players from both Factions race to finish a raid instance for a major Factional Buff. There are Clan Wars that can occur anytime between Clans of opposing Factions. There is Andre's Ultimately Fabulous Competition where players fight each other to gain the chance to concur massive raid bosses for excellent loot.

So while solo'ing is definately apart of the game, all of the above requires players to work together. The only difference is in Sword, players rarely need to spend an hour looking for a Tank and Healer. Chances are that if there are 5 people in a group at least ONE of them have one (or more) of each.

while there are some nice things to do post level 100... the majority of the early game where most of the players will burn out is mainly solo.

You can group... but your exp per hour goes down, and just isnt really that productive unless your fighting in an extremely difficult spot, which usually isnt worth it either.

Lack of a global chat system added on to a 7 day penalty for leaving a guild makes it extremely difficult to find active folks to play with, and if you happen to get in with the wrong group... your penalized for a week.  Guilds are hard to determine if they fit you as a whole with out playing with them... and you really cant do that in SOTNW untill you join. If you pick poorly... its a week turn around till you get another shot.

Raid content and faction wars. I agree this is the main focus of the game. Unfortunately... its also its downfall. Sotnw is EXTREMELY gear based. Someone with +8 gear  can take on 2 - 3 fresh vets with out breaking a sweat as the gear determins if you can hit someone, and how hard. They one shot you.... you can barely phase them if hit them at all.

This wouldnt be an issue, accept there pretty much are only 2 real clans on the server. Colony wars happen each week... and you can pretty much just watch those 2 clans take over the server.

They keep the raid bosses on lock down, gear up, and then once they are geared, sell of the spares at insane prices.... making it damn near impossible to compete with out joining one of the two "uber" guilds.

I like underdogs... I enjoy playing from the disadvantage... but when someone has 6-10 AR and DR on you... its not an underdog position, its a martial artist beating the hell out of a kinder garden class.

I really enjoyed SOTNW from 1 - 100... but once I saw how the end game played out, and the ones on top are pretty much guaranteed to stay there... pretty much killed it for me. Hopefully in later patches the designers will choose to add a global chat, reduce the penalty for leaving a clan, and come up with someone to let the lower end folks compete against the super guilds.

Game desperately needs some form of guild system similar to our antitrust laws for monopolies...

With the addition of the Ancestral Armor and the diminishing returns on AR/DR it really isn't as hard to compete than it used to be. Also as I said there are a number of new LOW LEVEL events being added before years end including several new low level instances.

In addition to that, Nocturnal Sonata Update #4 is going to include a new system that will give players a new way to level together, changes to the Colony Buffs and Faction Wars so that the underdogs get a chance (The King and Queen will be taking matters into her own hands... thats all I'll say about that) and even more server wide events (both PvE and PvP).

So again, we're looking at content from level 1 through 100 and beyond and adding a lot of stuff still :). That's the great thing about the game.

Well Mr Associate Producer, maybe it is time you and your staff go back and take basic MMO 1.01 again because I find it inexcusable that these exact same mistakes that have been made in prior pvp games time and time again are repeated in this game.  

In a pvp game it is MANDATORY to not have big differences between levels, even a basic pvper knows such,  you also need controls to prevent take over of the server by a one or two groups.  Doh, you should hang your head in shame for making such basic mistakes.  There is just no excuse for it whatsoever.

Next time play some of the other pvp games to understand the problems with the genre before embarking making the exact same mistakes.

Another case of clueless devs foundering their way through a game.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Well Mr Associate Producer, maybe it is time you and your staff go back and take basic MMO 1.01 again because I find it inexcusable that these exact same mistakes that have been made in prior pvp games time and time again are repeated in this game.  

In a pvp game it is MANDATORY to not have big differences between levels, even a basic pvper knows such,  you also need controls to prevent take over of the server by a one or two groups.  Doh, you should hang your head in shame for making such basic mistakes.  There is just no excuse for it whatsoever.

Next time play some of the other pvp games to understand the problems with the genre before embarking making the exact same mistakes.

Another case of clueless devs foundering their way through a game.

 

Why should he need to play other pvp game? We can all go over your post history, you hate EVERY game in existance, you never say anything positive about anything, so whats the point of trying to satisfy you when you're just looking for excuses to bash on it?

Gee, sorry I hit your sore spot.  This is actually a fun game, but I have not reached the end game either.  I was not bashing the game at all.  The point of the my complaint, since you seemed to miss it, you can look at any of the previous pvp MMO's and these mistakes are just blatantly obvious, yet here we are again looking at the same problems in a newer game. 

Just no excuse for repeating others mistakes, especially when they have been pointed out by the MMO community many times.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Gee, sorry I hit your sore spot.  This is actually a fun game, but I have not reached the end game either.  I was not bashing the game at all.  The point of the my complaint, since you seemed to miss it, you can look at any of the previous pvp MMO's and these mistakes are just blatantly obvious, yet here we are again looking at the same problems in a newer game. 

Just no excuse for repeating others mistakes, especially when they have been pointed out by the MMO community many times.

 

Well, we are the publisher, so unfortunately no matter how many times I say "that's not gonna work out right" the developer ends up with the final say. Fortunately, imcGAMES is VERY sensitive to it's player base and when something doesn't work they are more than willing to change. Unfortunately change usually ends with our team having to wait 4-6 months while they iron out bugs.

Ultimately, we agree with your statement. It's something I said MONTHS ago. In Update 4 there will be a major change occuring that will reduce the "power" of the dominate clans and level the playing field. If that doesn't work for us we have several other plans we can quickly roll out before the end of the year.