Twitch streamer Shroud recently discussed the upcoming server merges in New World and how to handle them without causing too much economic chaos.
New World had a tumultuous launch, one that stands out even among the many tumultuous MMO launches. A surge of players during New World’s launch window coincides with this, but they fade out over time, leaving a solid community of core players. Now Amazon must figure out how to deal with New World, with server mergers a foregone conclusion but uncertainty over how the mergers will affect the game. Shroud, a Twitch streamer, is concerned about the potential consequences of mergers.
During a recent stream, Shroud, who has become Twitch’s most popular New World streamer, spoke candidly about the MMO’s upcoming server merges. Part of the discussion focused on how to best combine servers to prevent one from dominating the other. Due to the competitive nature of New World, Shroud believes that combining different server sizes could throw economies into disarray.
After all, the companies on a small server would have better access to resources than those on a medium-sized server, which would be much more competitive.
Shroud’s first conclusion is that small servers should only be merged with other small servers, and medium-sized servers should only be merged with other medium-sized New World servers. That way, each server’s players are at the very least on an equal footing.
To earn their rewards, they’ll have had comparable access to resources and loot, as well as faced comparable levels of danger. When the goal is to integrate servers with the least amount of economic disruption as possible, this is a reasonable approach but that was just Shroud’s first thought. His final conclusion involved more hand-wringing, as he admits that combining two small servers will almost certainly result in an abundance of items, which will create its own kind of chaos.
Regardless of how players feel about server merges, they are coming to New World. They are still “on the horizon,” as Amazon promised when it first promised server transfers. The company still has a long way to go before it can execute server merges efficiently and without any problems. That means that server mergers could take weeks or months.
Even though Amazon is unlikely to discuss its server merge policy with Shroud or others, it’s still worth thinking about how the mergers will affect players and the community.
On PC, New World is now available.
