So, How's It Going? Did You Get That House Yet?

A quick update on my progress in New World so far:

Time Played: 142 hours - Always assuming Steam's count is updating correctly. I'm playing exclusively through GeForce Now. The accounts are linked so it should be but you never know...

Character Level: 46 - That's just over three hours per level although it certainly hasn't been as evenly-paced as that. In the forties it's probably more like five or six hours per level. As I said in reply to Megson's comment a few days ago, if I could go faster, I would. Okay, no I wouldn't. I could but I'm not, that's the truth of it. I think that will become apparent soon enough.

Achievements: 28/133 - The latest couple I got pretty much sum up my progress so far. I got one for dying fifty times and another for killing a hundred rabbits. I'm not sure these are the kind of things you want to boast about. At least I didn't get one for being killed by a rabbit but it's early days...

Standing: Mourningdale 15 - Boy howdy, this is a tough one. I would have to choose the most forsaken, uninhabited outpost to live in, wouldn't I? I barely see anyone in town most of the time and whoever runs the place (Currently a Syndicate guild called Draconic Realm.) seems to be ideologically opposed to gentrification. The Town Project Board has been three-quarters empty ever since I got there, with only the basic Town Upkeep in progress. In every other town I've tried to raise Standing, Town Projects were by far the best option. Here I'm stuck with Faction missions alone. Well, that and killing mobs or crafting, neither of which add a huge amount. Added to that, Mourningdale is still slightly above my level so I can't always do all of those. I need to get my Standing to 20 to buy the next-to-top tier house and it's taking way too long. Everfall, where I got my Standing to 23 before I stoped working on it, was far easier to raise.

Weapon Skills: Hatchet maxed. Okay, melee hatchet maxed. There's a completely separate skill tree for ranged hatchet. I started out doing that one but very quickly realized I didn't understand how it worked so I swapped to melee and never went back. I was training Greataxe for a while and I still lug one around but I've barely used it for twenty levels. I stopped bothering with Life Staff when I figured out I'd need completely different stats. Other than that, nothing.  

Trade Skills - All over the place. As the screenshot shows, I have yet to settle on a career when it comes to crafting. I'm currently struggling to raise Armorcrafting to 100 for the sole reason that that's the level you get the recipe to make the big bags. I already bought the Greater Rune of Holding from the Faction vendor at exorbitant cost before I realized I didn't have the skill to use it. Great forward planning. Now I realize there's actualy a Grand Rune of Holding that makes even bigger bags and chances are I'll have the faction rank to buy that before I get to 100 in Armorsmithing, which is a royal pain to level.

Faction Rank - Destroyer - Faction ranks are weird. So far I've hit the cap of each of them long, long before the recommended level to do the trial for the next but with the exception of the second rank, Gladiator, the trials have been very easy even though I'm way below the level they supposedly require. I also hit the Token cap constantly, mostly because there is almost nothing I want to spend tokens on other than the runes for making bags. I assume the faction gear is supposed to be desirable but by the time I reach the minimum level required to equip most of it I'm already wearing something better from random drops. Maybe it makes sense at sixty because it for sure doesn't now.

Coin - 18,000 - Give or take. Enough to buy the house I want and still have plenty left, which is all I care about at the moment. I've done absolutely nothing to increase my earnings. I just do faction missions, town projects and the occasional side quest when I can find any and it seems to keep me solvent. I would be much richer (and much higher level) if I'd stayed in the earlier territories and mopped up all the quests thre because quests pay very well but my entire life has been nothing but Standing since I was about level fifteen. I am starting to question my life choices.

 Main Quest - Chapter Five - Of six, but Chapter Five is literally an introduction to a dungeon, a dungeon and a debriefing after a dungeon. And I haven't done the dungeon. I really ought to buckle down and get it done because Chapter Six is twenty-five quests long and MSQ quests give the biggest xp of anything. I am not keen, though, for various reasons, not least not being sure any PUG run I joined would get it done in the one hour window of a GeForce Now session. I have a feeling it might take longer than that and it would be extremely annoying to get to the final boss and then have my session time out.

What Next? - Something... different? - I'm getting a little hacked off with grinding Mourningdale Standing on the handful of missions available. I might go to another territory and level up a bit so that at least I could do the missions faster when I get back. Once I actually buy the house I can get on with decorating it, which should make a very welcome change, but that's starting to feel like jam tomorrow. My desire to log in and run around gathering and slaughtering is as strong as ever so perhaps I just need to freestyle more. This is what happens when you try to get a foot on the housing ladder. I should have realized that when I started. Not to mention if I'd known just how much it rains in Mourningdale I might have thought twice about living there in the first place.