Tapping the Swamp

Good Morning Friends. I think we need to take a moment really quickly to appreciate just how damned good the atmosphere in New World is. In the above shot, I am sitting in Weavers Fen, which is on the Eastern edge of the landmass and is largely represented by bogs, mires, and other colorful terms for swampland. Were this Magic the Gathering, the Black Mana would be flowing freely… and to be honest given that the zone is heavily populated with ghosts and gravediggers… who is to say it already isn’t? What would a town look like in this region? A ramshackle series of buildings on stilts and boardwalks that are trying to sink into the ground of course. This looks like the town you would expect in that region and I greatly appreciate the little touches the wooden planks already half-submerged and buildings that have been lost to the swamp on the outskirts.

I am in Weavers Fen because quests sent me there, most specifically the level 30-40ish faction upgrade mission. Every so often you cap out your faction experience and have to perform a trial. The first of these sent me to fight through a town of ghosts that were level 27 and included fighting an elite one at the very end. This time around it sent me far to the north of the zone… to what I thought was a level 40 gold border champion area designed for five players. So after running Amrine my solemn crew agreed to head forth to help Omali and I complete this faction quest. I fully expect to be called upon to do the same when Vernie and Waren get to that level. The thing is… turns out the mobs that we actually needed to kill were not champions but were on the far side of that outdoor dungeon… with no clear path to them except for through.

We took it slow and steady as we crossed the zone and had to hunt drops at three different locations before finally being able to turn back in at the settlement in Weavers Fen. Originally I wanted to get this through because I noticed there were some level 35 equippable items on the faction vendor, and in Amrine I had just dinged that level. Unfortunately, I was not paying super close attention and it appears that almost all of the armor is level 40. However, that does give me time to do faction quests and earn the currency to pick up a set of gear waiting for me for that level range. I have mostly hit level 35 through crafting and completing quests in the starter zones, which means I have the vast majority of content in Brightwood, Cutlass Keys, and Weavers Fen to explore, and as a result I expect that hitting 40 won’t be terribly challenging.

My core focus of late has been being able to get up to level 100 in Engineering. This will ultimately allow me to craft Starmetal Tools, which is something that I want to accomplish before considering a jump to a lower population server. Essentially, I know that I would likely be losing access to a number of tier 4 crafting machinery, and instead of allowing that to delay my progress, I want to be able to take with me the resources that would ultimately give me the edge in the new environment. In theory, Starmetal tools should come with three traits on them, and I have enough of the material bank that I should be able to craft a few different versions of the key tools like Pickaxe and Logging Axe. So my goal is before the end of the day to have crafted a few of these. While I also cannot equip them until level 40, I can at least bank them for future use like I am going to start doing with my set of armor.

One of the things that drive me up a wall in New World is the fact that once you block someone… they will forever show up on your social list at the bottom. When you block or mute someone you want them to be whisked away from your sight, never to be noticed again. However, for some reason, Amazon devs thought it was a grand ole time to have these names constantly show up in your social feed. This is ultimately stopping me from going even more mute/block happy because I don’t want to keep clogging my screen and instead find it better just to completely ignore global chat. One thing that I did notice last night is that the queue times never really did get that insanely high. When I logged out around 9:30 CST the queue was reported to be only about 10 minutes. Not sure if players are giving up or simply rerolling like some of our crew has on a lower pop server. I think ultimately it is because of this that I want to see how the server transfers tilt the balance for a number of servers.

3 thoughts on “Tapping the Swamp”

  1. You have me thinking of how annoyed some low-pop server denizens are going to be by the transfers. Imagine being at the cresting edge of the crafting community on your low-pop, ‘behind the curve’ server and then a bunch of high level, high skilled players transfer in.

    I wonder how/if Amazon will mitigate hard feelings there. I mean server transfers have to happen, plus they’ve already promised that they’d have them but I just never considered what happens to the existing community.

    Unless they start FRESH servers and we can only transfer to those?

    • It is a double-edged sword, however. I would ultimately be transferring probably to a server that is less progressed which means while I might have tier 4 crafting skills… I wouldn’t have the ability to make any of those items because the machines in towns are not upgraded to that point yet. That was why I was focused on getting as high of crafting tools as I reasonably could because it will make harvesting faster/smoother even if I have to just rathole the materials for when the community catches up.

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