Best way to move forward with a game thats struggled heavily since launch?
Split the playerbase up even more.
Make sure to not draw any attention to the RMT aspects of the game that THRIVE with new/extra servers.
Give up when Alpha 2 for AoC gets announced,
BUT have a behind the scenes deal with Steven Sharif to sell them the twitch integration.
I think you have to understand just how grossly PvPers exploited and wrecked servers. And how AGS basically just let it happen. Way back then they were already calling for not just rollbacks but full server wipes.
FSS was a long time coming. But too little too late, really.
This is what Iāve been saying as well. They clearly wanted a re-launch and try to wipe the slate. Why else have a massive hype campaign with streamers and events?
But they arenāt done using players as beta testers. Only with FSS can they properly test the new territory revenue model. Legacy servers are established economies so thereās no way to know if the system would work organically from a new server.
I suspect thatās another reason to do FSS especially since they held off for so long.
After the massive exploitation that went around in the first months of launch, there were calls to wipe all the servers ā basically do a Fresh Start. It actually made sense to do it early, before people got dug in with hundreds of hours on their accounts. But AGS didnāt want to and just let all the exploiters and cheaters keep their gains.
So why do FSS now? Clearly for more reasons than just to give players a āfresh startā.
Weāll see how well that goes now that they are merging some Legacy servers and basically reducing the room available to go back.
Many us tried to warn people this was going to happen.
ābut but butā¦itās because of the gold dupesā¦ā
Nope. Itās players with experience and knowledge of every possible advantageā¦that make use of them allā¦in a coordinated wayā¦against much less experienced players.
Other than those with zero experience, I have no idea how people did not see this comingā¦especially since it was pointed out BEFORE the FSS opened.
When I first saw āFSSāā¦I immediately imagined that the āFā was for āFarmedā.
What i see is economy stable, prices low and great. Pace of the game really steady in FSS.
And alot of legacy players trying to ruin the FSS because of territory tax and not wanting to invest, but wanting to receive money from taxes.
So many perspectives right? really nice.
Yeah this update was terrible. It basically screwed over and killed the servers of the people who never quit the game. The only players who didnāt mind this were the hardcore PVE grinders who are willing to go do the grind all over again.
Why these servers are permanently blocked off from transfers from ālegacyā is very confusing to me. The fact AGS even calls the older servers ālegacyā is a slap in the face. Why would a new player ever want to join a ālegacyā server? I understand the desire for a āfresh startā, but to stay forked forever just seems like complete nonsense to me.
We could have had a large influx of new players and competition into the ālegacyā servers but instead all these players who will quit again have been forked into their own community. I actually canāt think of something worse for the long term health of the game.
This is false, the ālegacyā servers had been gaining PCU and players for month after month prior to FSS.
And to me this was most of the veterans players concerns - They were sold wolf tickets to a new and special place that surely would be better because there was no scary dupes and definitely had nothing to do with lack of skillā¦
Well guess what, you have successfully fractured the player base, reality checks are being handed out like the 1st and 15th, AGS knew this - I know there was a lot of us vocal about it beforehand so there is no excuse.
They should be called āthe only reason AGS has a jobā Servers - Imagine?
Cause people were waiting for FSS. Half of my chat on Aaru was about how theyāre just dabbling in before the fss release
But Iāve said it a ton of times, obviously it werenāt just FSS that brought players back.
It was a bunch of reasons. Aaru is still more populated than before. But so is the entire game lol
But trying to downplay the importance of the fss event is weird. Since it literally brought more players to the game than the whole Brimstone expansion itself lol
You are conflating the RTA event and the FSS event. I am not saying the FSS servers werenāt good, but if you think they are mostly responsible for having 120K concurrent players instead of paying all the top streamers to play new world and give out codes for their viewers to play with them and hype the game idk what to say. Streamers drive traffic to games. If it was the FSS servers and not the RTA we should not be seeing the PCU drop once the RTA ends.
Also my point about FSS servers is that they shouldnāt be locked for ever, not that they should have never happened. It should have always been a 3 month event and then they are normal servers that anyone can transfer into or out of. The idea that duping ruined legacy servers is a fallacy espoused by players who quit the game early on. FSS will soon be in the same state as legacy servers, BIS items are the same cost there, and veteran players who never quit are dominating them.
If there is another dupe that happens would you change your mind and now say FSS is tainted and we need another set of new FSS that no one can transfer into? This would create a fork of 3 server types. Legacy, Legacy FSS, and FSS. Do you think that scenario would be good for the game? If not you need to evaluate your logic here.
But isnt the rta servers with the lowest amount of players? Nobody asked for rta event, and i would assume ppl are actually happy they did not have to be preoccupied that a streamer might play on their server.
So we actually had territory taxes change income + no streamers in any fss server then rta server 1 rocks with two birds or whatever is the saying.
The only advantage i see in playing RTA server is actually having free farm of anything and when the merge happensā¦ just be rich.
Actually people did specifically ask for this event,
and worked over like a 6 month period to make it a reality. (Some of the streamers)
Yeah they just keep taking all my subscription money with these attempts to get me to resub and umā¦
/shrug
ps: Next time they make me āresubā, they could at least give me a rainbow pony mount. Or was that the other MMO?
I personally donāt think the economy played a big of a role as many make it out to be.
People just like the IDEA or call it total illusion of a fresh playing ground. It doesnāt have be laid in cold facts and logic.
Youād have to be pretty stupid to belive āoh I can compete now with sweats as casualā.
But casuals have now an even playing ground vs other casuals. This is often moree than enough.
Sweats will always dominate. Bots will always be present where people are. Noone is suprised by people hitting 60 or having max GS within a week or two.
Yet people still enjoy FSS. The blockage was needed as a art of promise from AGS in a way of āhey weāre trying now, and weāre listening. Please give us another chanceā.
But by not letting FSS even transfer between themselves they are messing themselves over pretty hard. Especially as you say with the statement of āwe wonāt EVER merge with legacyā.
Itās a bold statement.
The idea to allow FSS to transfer into legacy is ok. But idk why they refuse now to let people transfer between themselves.
Itās gonna completely unnecessarily upset a pretty big group of players. And again cast shadow on AGS.
lol Congrats 
Have you even played on a FSS? Casuals competing with casuals is not what happened. Legacy players formed super companies which each went to their own FSS server. With them they brought a year of institutional war strategy knowledge, build knowledge, and mechanic practice. They are dominating the fresh start servers winning attack wars in under 4 minutes. These players got sold a pipe dream. NW is a skill based game. Yes gear matters and is extremely important, but it matters much less than a players skill. There is no competition as each legacy company typically picked their own server.
Every server in the game should become ālegacyā 2 months from now. Itās just shocking to me they are so bold to make such a hard line statement that legacy can never merge into FSS.
So? those same legacy are around forums whining about territory not being functional because they dont want to invest money to upgrade territory 
And actually want free money or revert of territory tax system back.
About skill in long term and if ppl actually care (since pvp isnāt the main factor of nw) it will be learnt, BUT THERE WILL NOT BE FREE MANEY FOR YOU MEGA COMPANIES BABIES huh. And brace yourselves for lame but at good intent anti shell companie update.
You missunderstand.
I ment casuals competing with casuals not over endgame content or wars.
I ment with basic gear progression between themselves.
Obviously itās not real competition, but the illusion is there that āhey here are more players with similar gear like me aroundā.
People with only 1 weapon maxed, or maybe one gear above 615gs. Or not having ward gear or pvp gear yet yadayada.
Iām a sweat. We dominated Windward and Everfall on release with other pvp sweats. Iām well aware how this looks on new releases of anything lol
And no, gear is pretty equal with skill in NW.
The weight of pvp gear(and pve) gear is insane. A mediocre pvpāer can shred in NW with good gear. But youāll also have the 40kill people who are actually good at pvp with their 3 friends who also rack in 30-40kills
Ah my mistake, I read that the wrong way. I agree with you one hundred percent. The gap between new players on FSS and experienced players on FSS is probably infinitely bigger than a new player on legacy to an experienced player. On legacy you can get a full 2 perk PVP set the second you hit 60 and be competitive. This isnāt the case in FSS.
Exactly. But the gap between the server community and the casual player is smaller.