Returning Players Guide
Contents
The great thing about New World is that it’s a game you can take a break from and come back. Progression has been made relatively easy, so it won’t take long to catch up to your friends.
Should I start fresh or continue my old character?
I recommend starting a new character. The Main Story Quest has been revamped and the leveling experience will remind you how to play. Also, coming back to an inventory full of things you don’t know how to evaluate can be daunting.
Don’t delete your old character, just leave it while you start a new one, until you have a better understanding of the game. You can have up to 3 characters per server/region.
If you already have the game, it’s free to log in and see whether you want to play again. If you then decide to invest any hours into playing, I strongly recommend getting the expansion. Aside from the convenience of having a mount, your ability to engage in the game beyond the leveling experience is severely compromised by not having the expansion. It’s not just a mount, a weapon, and a zone; it is access to all the mutated dungeons, artifacts, top-level gear and crafting.
One option is to level your new character to 25, and then decide if you want to buy the expansion for a mount. If you decide not to, level up to 60 and re-evaluate.
This will depend on how long it’s been since you played. If you quit soon after release, a lot has changed. In October 2022, the New World team published this promotional video, which does a good job of illustrating some of the earlier changes.
The /neworldgame subreddit also has a good list with a slightly different focus than ours below. These are the some of the major changes as observed from our perspective, approximately but not exactly in timeline order:
- Azoth travel is cheap and not weight- or distance-related, plus the Azoth cap has been extended to 2500.
- Storage sheds from all settlements and outposts can be accessed from any of them, with no transfer costs or faction ownership restrictions.
- Added new weapon Void Gauntlet.
- Town boards are no longer a good way to gain XP and are only good for upgrading towns and earning Standing.
- Housing tax is now reasonable.
- Added new weapon Blunderbuss.
- New expedition Tempest’s Heart.
- New expedition Barnacles and Black Powder.
- No longer require an orb to enter an expedition – no more charging people to join dungeon runs.
- Brimstone Sands was added, along with a new Main Story Quest to explore it.
- New expedition The Ennead.
- Dungeon mutators were added, which is an increased difficulty level for expeditions. Note: you will need the expansion to enter these.
- Heartrunes, an extra ability, were added.
- Added new weapon Great Sword.
- 3×3 Arenas were added as an additional PVP mode
- There is now a PVP track where you can earn rewards.
- Leaderboards were added
- Season Passes were added
- Gear sets were added, so that you can change armor, weapons, heartrune, and consumables quickly.
- Transmog was added – the ability to turn any item appearance into a skin, and dye armour skins.
- Raid groups were added – up to four groups of 5 with visible health bars and raid chat.
- 20-player Trial of the Devourer raid added
- 10-player Hatchery raid added
- New expedition Empyrean Forge.
- The watermark/expertise system was replaced with a new, simpler way to Upgrade – the Gear Score of the item transfers directly to your Gear Score with no modifiers.
- Added new weapon Flail.
- First Light was removed and replaced with a non-player-owned territory – Elysian Wilds – note: you will need the expansion to enter.
- Edengrove was made into a player-owned territory with a new settlement
- The perk system was completely overhauled and a number of perks were removed, including Wards and Resilient; others reduced, including Banes and most damage-add perks; and new perks added.
- Gear biasing was added so that you are more likely to get drops of the type of gear you are wearing.
- Mounts were added, but only if you have the expansion.
- New unique items called Artifacts were added, for those who have the expansion.
- Crafting RNG was reduced significantly, with the option to choose every attribute and perk available at a high material cost.
- Increased level cap to 65, gear score cap to 700, trade skill cap to 250 – you will need the expansion to reach these.
- New expedition Savage Divide.
- New expedition Glacial Tarn.
- Salvage All was added to the inventory system.
- New Activities tab where you can enter Expeditions, Trials, OPR, and Arenas directly. You can queue solo or with up to 4 people and will be matched with others who make similar selections. Matchmaking is not included for PVP modes yet but there are hints that it will be coming.
- 10-player Winter Rune Forge raid added
- Combat code was reworked to make fixing bugs easier!
- Controller support added.
- Crossplay with console release announced. We will update this once changes are live, for now there’s a rundown here – New World: Aeternum.
As I mentioned above, starting a new character is a good way to get re-acquainted with the game. But if you’re attached to your existing character, here are some ways to continue it.
Below Level 60
If you left before completing the Main Story Quest, you’ll probably find yourself quite confused, as the questline was revamped and Yonas is no longer where you left him. There have been some known issues with returning players not being able to progress the MSQ, but I believe these have all been fixed now.
Look in your Journal for an entry under Main Story and make sure the quest is pinned. If there is nothing there, go to your Map and look for any main quest markers. Check the map Filters on the left side and make sure Objectives and Main Story are both ticked.
You should be able to pick up your main questline from there and earn your Azoth Staff.
Level 60 - Left Before Brimstone
If you left before the Brimstone Sands update, you’ll want to unlock your Heartrune slot and explore the zone for Golden Scarabs and rare furniture schematics.
- Complete the Brimstone Sands questline.
- To unlock your Heartrune slot, you’ll need to complete Past Prologue on the Brimstone MSQ and also the side quest The Antiquarian’s Dream in order to receive the Secrets of the Heartgem quest from Anna Rózsa.
- Find all 26 Glyphs for opening chests and doors.
Level 60 - Left after Brimstone
If you only left fairly recently and were max level before you stopped playing, you might want to have a look at our Rise of the Angry Earth Survival Guide and continue to the new max level.
- Level up to 65
- Complete the Elysian Wilds questline for the Attuned Leather Pants artifact
- Complete the Season Pass for Materia rewards (check our home page under Current Season for an article on how to do this)
- Raise Faction reputation to the new max level and complete the Faction advancement quest so that you can buy Chromatic Seals
- Get your Gear Score to 695+ by either:
- Buying from the Trading Post.
- Crafting with Materia at the Gypsum kiln (these roll 700 with 2 static perks and one random perk).
- Farming Named items and Artifacts.
- Crafting with 250 Trade skill
- Collecting loot-biased random drops from mutated dungeons; elite zones; PVP track; and OPR, Arena, Invasion, and Corruption portal caches.
Level 60 - Not buying the expansion
If you don’t want to buy the expansion, you’ll be locked at level 60 and be unable to enter mutations or the Elysian Wilds zone. You’ll have no mount, be unable to collect Artifacts or use a flail, and be capped at 200 on all trade skills. There are still things you can do, however, and these include:
- Play Outpost Rush (gear score scales up to 675)
- Run regular Expeditions. The new Improved Group Finder in the Activities tab makes this a smoother experience than it was in the past.
- Farm resources and sell them on the Trading Post.
- Help new players, chat with people, explore the world and take screenshots.
Level 65 - Left after Elysian Wilds
Not much has changed. The devs have been working on Console Release, so updates to the live game have been sparse. You could check out our guide for what to do at level 65.
When you don’t log on for 6 months, your character gets removed from the server. All you need to do is select the character and choose the server you want to play on. Due to server merges, your old server may not exist anymore. You can check NWDB Server Status to see population levels on different servers and help make your choice.
If you’re in AP Southeast, choose Delos!
Good Luck!
Whatever you end up doing, the important thing to remember is that New World is a multi-player game. Reach out to members of the community for help and company. You can join the official discord to find people on your server, and if you’re on Delos, you can always send Landi a message and say hi 🙂
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