Sword of the New World takes a long long time

Sword of the New World takes a really long time to get the client.

A… really… long… time…

And I didn’t go about getting it the way some others have. Nope. Downloaded it. All 3.6G of it.

And let me tell you. It takes forever. Hours in fact.

By the time you’re finished with getting the game, you’ve probably bored yourself into the next century. If that doesn’t have you go and get the DVD version, then maybe this would. While you would have to download the patch just as anyone else, it’s just more time spent waiting. And waiting.

When the game starts though? It’s actually a very interesting game. The music is pretty good so far, and the graphics are based on some pretty detailed skinnings. I have to say that the overall is a bit daunting for a newbie trying to get a taste for MMORPGs. It’s not as intuitive as it would have you believe since it doesn’t tell you that the server you pick, is the one that you’ll be playing on (even though this is standard to most MMORPGs). Also, there is no way to change the hair color or what not of your characters, just their outfits and their jobs. That makes it easier in a way, but more difficult since you can’t have more unique type characters.

The version I have so far doesn’t let me full screen it. I’m not sure if you can since I haven’t found an options menu yet. All in all, it’s a pretty complex game with a complex HUD. The mouse controls movement and selection as well as right click controls camera rotation. Unfortunately, you can’t map your keys, nor can you use the arrow keys to move if you need to do so. Makes it a bit more difficult from a new player’s perspective to learn all of these different aspects of a game.

The quests starting out are pretty easy although it’s not very linear. So even though you were supposed to talk to this person or that person, you end up not really understanding what to do and how to do it and have to play with it mostly yourself.

I think that this game is absolutely gorgeous and the music is wonderful, but for a new player to MMORPGs, this could become a task in itself to learn everything without knowing where to look or how to do it. Sword of the New World is one hell of a game so far, but we’ll see if it’s worth the hours on end of nightmarish downloading.