VentureBeat Previews Amazon's MMO

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Amazon's CryEngine Derived, AWS powered New World MMO has mostly been shrouded in mystery, but the tech giant recently gave the press a hands on preview of the game. VentureBeat just posted their take on the game, along with about 20 minutes off footage, and it looks like they were impressed. Dean Takahashi said "The landscape was beautiful, with some very pretty graphics and ambient life in the world. It made me feel like I was in Red Dead Redemption 2, except the world was graphically better looking but less alive." Meanwhile, the gameplay itself appears to be relatively open ended, and Amazon's engine theoretically allows "hundreds of thousands of players" to inhabit the world at the same time.

Check out the footage here.

So the directed part of the sandbox MMO seemed to be the most fun, but this is something that Gilmore said was not the highest priority for the studio. The developers made the world with interlocking systems so that you could do anything in it. But you have consequences to deal with. I would much rather have a list of tasks to choose from, so that I could feel like I was on a path through the world. Having a purpose, like finding the way to more turkeys and the way to avoid bears, would be a good thing to have in this world. "Play the way you want to play," Gilmore said. I sincerely hope that means with a lot more structure, if we want it.
 
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Hadn't heard of this until now. Personally I find that great atmosphere ruined by everyone else making fires and running around doing the same thing.

Gameplay looks a little bland too but I'm not much into survival games.
 
That part where he was running into the tree.....was gripping
I was thinking...how will he get past it...will he chop it down....jump over it...what
Then he RAN AROUND IT...amazing

It does look fancy though. I presume its got some ways to go yet, but for now it looks good.
 
Hadn't heard of this until now. Personally I find that great atmosphere ruined by everyone else making fires and running around doing the same thing.

Gameplay looks a little bland too but I'm not much into survival games.

Yeah, I don't feel compelled to try the game after watching. But low-fantasy sword swinging isn't my cup of tea, and I'm not a survival crafting fan either.

Still, plenty of people are into that kind of thing.
 
I didn't see much of the, 'Play the way you want to play.' It looks like the standard, join a big guild, or get constantly raided by big guilds, simulator 2019.

It looks less like a traditional mmo and more like Rust on a big server. I guess big server is the key to the mmo title so it technically counts.
 
Yeah, I don't feel compelled to try the game after watching. But low-fantasy sword swinging isn't my cup of tea, and I'm not a survival crafting fan either.

Still, plenty of people are into that kind of thing.
Definitely. I feel like I'd be more into the crafting and survival aspect were it a single player RPG to help the immersion.
 
They're going to need to either add quests, or even better, allow players to create their own quests with rewards. Otherwise I see this turning into another Conan or Ark, sans dinos.
 
Meh...maybe if it came free with Prime I might give it a try but I am not paying extra for it.
 
I will never understand the appeal of storyless (questless) games like this. Why will so many people willingly wander around "gathering" rocks and twigs in a virtual world for hours/weeks/years but as soon as you ask them to go mow the lawn (a real world quest, right?) they complain? Must be all the muscle atrophy.
 
I played the beta and it felt like someone said "hey, you know how Ark is super fun with all those dinosaurs and shit? What if we make Ark but take out the dinosaurs... and replace them with muskets!!". Then nobody bothered to tell them muskets just aren't as cool as velociraptors and pterodactyls.
 
graphics look interesting, the issue with open "sandbox" style gameplay is the fact..people get bored, there is a reason why most sandbox style mmo's were not successful.

people LIKE direction, like quests, players not given direction, lose interest relatively fast. be interesting as to what amazon comes up with though.

i might give this a shot if i have a chance.

i've played a ton of mmo's over the years.
ultima online
FF IV
everquest- played on the nameless- did the world first avatar of war kill with legacy of steel(using charmed giants(2x-well first time we charmed one of the named giants and then the dev's made them uncharmable, then we found other giants that were- tons of fun dragging giants one after the other and haivng ~4 enchanters charming them to take AOW) and then missed the WF kill with players only by ~20 minutes (afterlife beat us if i remember correctly) the day before planes of power opened. my monk STILL (provided the monk still exists on a server i have not played in about a decade) has the leggings from the AOW on(i got the 3rd set that dropped)
everquest 2
world of warcraft- i have one of the oldest active accounts in the game, the account was started in F&F Alpha-heck i still have the printed NDA i signed and faxed to Blizzard to join the alpha.
anarchy online
dark age of camelot
planetside- i suck at "fps" style games
eve
star wars
the matrix online
mechwarrior online
etc.

mostly i played Everquest and wow though- tried the rest either in release or beta

i still play wow.
 
I will never understand the appeal of storyless (questless) games like this. Why will so many people willingly wander around "gathering" rocks and twigs in a virtual world for hours/weeks/years but as soon as you ask them to go mow the lawn (a real world quest, right?) they complain? Must be all the muscle atrophy.

It's a progression addiction thing. Similar to how people will grind to paragon 1000+ on diablo even tho its just a crap ton of grinding the same mobs in pretty much the same few dungeons. All to get that next shiny or level.

People probably would be way more into RL if we took the China social monitoring system and added stat tracking, levels, and leaderboards.
 
graphics look interesting, the issue with open "sandbox" style gameplay is the fact..people get bored, there is a reason why most sandbox style mmo's were not successful.

people LIKE direction, like quests, players not given direction, lose interest relatively fast. be interesting as to what amazon comes up with though.

i might give this a shot if i have a chance.

i've played a ton of mmo's over the years.
ultima online
FF IV
everquest- played on the nameless- did the world first avatar of war kill with legacy of steel(using charmed giants(2x-well first time we charmed one of the named giants and then the dev's made them uncharmable, then we found other giants that were- tons of fun dragging giants one after the other and haivng ~4 enchanters charming them to take AOW) and then missed the WF kill with players only by ~20 minutes (afterlife beat us if i remember correctly) the day before planes of power opened. my monk STILL (provided the monk still exists on a server i have not played in about a decade) has the leggings from the AOW on(i got the 3rd set that dropped)
everquest 2
world of warcraft- i have one of the oldest active accounts in the game, the account was started in F&F Alpha-heck i still have the printed NDA i signed and faxed to Blizzard to join the alpha.
anarchy online
dark age of camelot
planetside- i suck at "fps" style games
eve
star wars
the matrix online
mechwarrior online
etc.

mostly i played Everquest and wow though- tried the rest either in release or beta

i still play wow.


At the risk of going slightly off topic, if you're interested in sandbox MMOs, Dual Universe is the most promising one I've seen. It's basically EVE with gameplay that's closer to high-res Minecraft mixed with Kerbal Space Program.

I'm in the Alpha... but specifics are under NDA.

I'm into sci fi, factory builders and driving/flying games more than fantasy MMOs or Rust-likes though, hence I'd never be caught dead playing WoW or FF IV (or New Worlds). Not that they're bad games, but they're totally different things despite being under the same "MMO" label.
 
It looks like Ark, without dinosaurs. I saw some magic, but they need more than that to tempt people bored with Ark.

How about the fact that it can handle 300+ people engaged in an actual active battle without issue.
 
I played the beta and it felt like someone said "hey, you know how Ark is super fun with all those dinosaurs and shit? What if we make Ark but take out the dinosaurs... and replace them with muskets!!". Then nobody bothered to tell them muskets just aren't as cool as velociraptors and pterodactyls.

Except that Ark falls over and dies with 20 people in a zone where this can actually handle the player counts that Ark always wanted.
 
Do you trust Amazon to not data mine the crap out of you while you play this? Just wait until you have to agree to their "anti-cheat" ToS.
 
Do you trust Amazon to not data mine the crap out of you while you play this? Just wait until you have to agree to their "anti-cheat" ToS.

That's an interesting point. I bet there's lots of interesting data to be pulled from user's ingame behavior, especially when combined with the viewing habits, purchases, Alexa spy data, etc Amazon already has.
 
Good luck with it. Most MMO's fail cause they get too greedy. Look at Blizzard with World of Warcraft falling apart, but yet have time to make a pig mount that costs $25. If you're going to have microtransactions then at least have the decency to make the game free. If you're going to charge money for the game and include a microtransaction store then be prepared to fail horribly.

 
Do you trust Amazon to not data mine the crap out of you while you play this? Just wait until you have to agree to their "anti-cheat" ToS.

That goes for pretty much every MMO. When you're playing on someone else's servers, they're going to log tons of data, both for internal development and other purposes.

That being said, I wouldn't really care if Amazon knows how many trees I chop down or finds that I'm running Dropbox in the background. I guess they could infer some personality traits or mine chat between friends though.
 
pig is optional, i do not have it, in fact i do not use any of the wow microtransactions besides the sub fee.

my WIFE on the other hand..

well lets say blizzard knows their audience.

she COLLECTS mounts and pets... (as well as being a damn good hunter) thus...she got one.
she also got a plushie, and ....pretty much every other pet avail to buy.
 
I hate third person, and if it has no first person, I won't play it. What is the attraction of watching your stupid ass when you could be looking out of your eyes. I don't get it.

I tried to play Heretic but I could not stand the third person game. ;)
 
Do you trust Amazon to not data mine the crap out of you while you play this? Just wait until you have to agree to their "anti-cheat" ToS.

LOL. What is this data mine you speak of? You think a connection to their servers opens up your computer to whatever they want. Now I have very little respect for windose, but I seriously doubt its that bad.
 
That goes for pretty much every MMO. When you're playing on someone else's servers, they're going to log tons of data, both for internal development and other purposes.

That being said, I wouldn't really care if Amazon knows how many trees I chop down or finds that I'm running Dropbox in the background. I guess they could infer some personality traits or mine chat between friends though.

I was thinking more about logging your chats, process names running, all key strokes while the game is running, even in the background, screen shots, screen shots even if the game is minimized, scanning all of your hard drive file names, etc.
 
I was thinking more about logging your chats, process names running, all key strokes while the game is running, even in the background, screen shots, screen shots even if the game is minimized, scanning all of your hard drive file names, etc.

Which is why I have a dedicated gaming rig with nothing but games on it. No chat nothing else.
 
Looks good maybe add some more fantasy elements reminds me of Conan.
Ambient sounds are top notch not sure if this will be on the Epic or Amazon Prime launcher though =)

16:23 fighting starts
 
Looks good maybe add some more fantasy elements reminds me of Conan.
Ambient sounds are top notch not sure if this will be on the Epic or Amazon Prime launcher though =)

16:23 fighting starts

The twitch store is what I'd bet on.
 
Good luck with it. Most MMO's fail cause they get too greedy. Look at Blizzard with World of Warcraft falling apart, but yet have time to make a pig mount that costs $25. If you're going to have microtransactions then at least have the decency to make the game free. If you're going to charge money for the game and include a microtransaction store then be prepared to fail horribly.



I read a review on Steam where a guy spent 3,999 Euros on Black Desert Online after he played the game for 4,000+ hours.
 
Have alpha access. It's another online survival game with nothing unique or particularly inspired about it. Was not impressed, but survival genre isn't my cup of tea either.

Granted, it's alpha, could change between now and release. Not holding my breath. Pretty sure by the time it does release it will have a Battle Royale mode.
 
Have alpha access. It's another online survival game with nothing unique or particularly inspired about it. Was not impressed, but survival genre isn't my cup of tea either.

Granted, it's alpha, could change between now and release. Not holding my breath. Pretty sure by the time it does release it will have a Battle Royale mode.

Maybe it's just a safe bet game we'll take Amazon's money make this game that isn't very inspiring as long as we get the job done.
 
graphics look interesting, the issue with open "sandbox" style gameplay is the fact..people get bored, there is a reason why most sandbox style mmo's were not successful.

people LIKE direction, like quests, players not given direction, lose interest relatively fast. be interesting as to what amazon comes up with though.

i might give this a shot if i have a chance.

i've played a ton of mmo's over the years.
ultima online
FF IV
everquest- played on the nameless- did the world first avatar of war kill with legacy of steel(using charmed giants(2x-well first time we charmed one of the named giants and then the dev's made them uncharmable, then we found other giants that were- tons of fun dragging giants one after the other and haivng ~4 enchanters charming them to take AOW) and then missed the WF kill with players only by ~20 minutes (afterlife beat us if i remember correctly) the day before planes of power opened. my monk STILL (provided the monk still exists on a server i have not played in about a decade) has the leggings from the AOW on(i got the 3rd set that dropped)
everquest 2
world of warcraft- i have one of the oldest active accounts in the game, the account was started in F&F Alpha-heck i still have the printed NDA i signed and faxed to Blizzard to join the alpha.
anarchy online
dark age of camelot
planetside- i suck at "fps" style games
eve
star wars
the matrix online
mechwarrior online
etc.

mostly i played Everquest and wow though- tried the rest either in release or beta

i still play wow.

At the risk of going slightly off topic, if you're interested in sandbox MMOs, Dual Universe is the most promising one I've seen. It's basically EVE with gameplay that's closer to high-res Minecraft mixed with Kerbal Space Program.

I'm in the Alpha... but specifics are under NDA.

I'm into sci fi, factory builders and driving/flying games more than fantasy MMOs or Rust-likes though, hence I'd never be caught dead playing WoW or FF IV (or New Worlds). Not that they're bad games, but they're totally different things despite being under the same "MMO" label.

FFIV (4)was not an MMO. FFXI (11) and FFXIV (14) are MMO's.
 
pig is optional, i do not have it, in fact i do not use any of the wow microtransactions besides the sub fee.

my WIFE on the other hand..

well lets say blizzard knows their audience.

she COLLECTS mounts and pets... (as well as being a damn good hunter) thus...she got one.
she also got a plushie, and ....pretty much every other pet avail to buy.
They knew their audience. There's like 1 million players left between US and EU and they aren't going anywhere ever. Meanwhile they only have 1 million active players, which means they lost a lot of money from game sales and monthly subscriptions. Have you seen the downvotes in that pig video? I'm amazed that Blizzard hasn't taken down the video.

I've not played WoW since Mists of Pandaria cause I saw the direction the game was going and it just wasn't for me. Technically I have played on Light's Hope Chapel the Vanilla WoW private server and raided all the way up to Naxx and farmed it for weeks, got the Corrupt Ashbringer too. I also paid zero for doing so, unlike Blizzards upcoming Classic service. Been over a year since I logged in cause there's nothing else to do. I can't see myself going back to Blizzard and paying $15 a month for a game I've already paid for 1000 times over. I buy the game, I own the game, I play the game and that's all it should be. The cost of playing WoW is too damn high. Angry Joe's reaction to WoW's subscription is exactly how I feel.

 
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