Amazon continues to work on New World's server issues. As reported, the game hit 900,000 concurrent players over the weekend after dozens of new servers were added late last week.
In addition to working on fulfilling a promise for free character transfers this week as an incentive for creating characters and starting a journey on one that's less populated, they've also added a better AFK detection. Most MMO players know that sometimes you're idle for a bit or you need to step away, but some just stay in to avoid requeuing. When there is so much demand, removing AFK players to free up server capacity is one way to help. Final Fantasy XIV also did the same, beefing up its AFK/idle detection and kicking characters due to heavy server demand. it's no wonder that not only did New World come with "automatic AFK mitigation", but that it's not only using it but strengthening it.
While Amazon didn't give any idea of just how the new system will work, which could open up a path to get around it, the update announcing the change did condemn the behavior from what it calls "bad faith" AFK players.
It is frustrating to not only face queues, and even if you're fortunate enough to not have to wait too long, to still not be able to play with friends or your guild right now. Even with character transfers promised to be announced soon, the closure of some servers to new characters might affect transfers as well. Amazon's decision to also close character creation down on full capacity servers for now is yet another way they're working to ultimately help everyone access the game. Some measures are likely to be temporary (but temporary could still mean a while - one third of North American Final Fantasy XIV servers have been closed to new characters since August) , but the community should remember to be patient.
