Surviving a Shutdown: Practical Steps New World Players Should Take Before Servers Close

Surviving a Shutdown: Practical Steps New World Players Should Take Before Servers Close

Hook: If you play New World, the 2026 shutdown announcement is more than a headline — it’s a ticking clock. Whether you’ve led a guild for years, flipped resources on the trading post, or just want to preserve screenshots of your favorite island home, this guide gives you a clear, prioritized player checklist to archive memories, preserve communities, and salvage what value you can before the servers go dark.

Why this matters now (2026 context)

Late 2025 and early 2026 saw several high-profile MMOs face sunsetting or major service changes, and the industry response has shifted: communities, preservationists, and platform holders increasingly expect a formal migration window and tooling. Public debate — including voices like the Rust exec who said, “games should never die” — has amplified calls for better data portability and community handoffs. As of January 2026 Amazon confirmed New World will enter scheduled shutdown procedures with roughly a year’s notice. Use that window to act deliberately.

“Games should never die.” — public reaction to New World’s shutdown announcement (Kotaku, Jan 2026)

High-level priorities (what to do first)

1. Back up irreplaceable memories — screenshots, videos, house interiors, trophies, and avatars.
2. Preserve your social graph — guild rosters, Discord/Forum archives, friend lists, and contact info.
3. Archive economic data — trading post prices, crafting recipes, guild bank ledgers.
4. Plan community migration — decide where the guild and friends will regroup (Discord, Matrix, forums, or a new game).
5. Protect digital assets legally — understand Terms of Service and avoid RMT that could flag accounts.

Deep-dive checklist: Archive screenshots & video

Most players’ first instinct is to hit F12 and keep everything in Steam’s screenshot manager. That’s a start — but you want organized, redundant, and portable copies.

Step-by-step: Screenshots

• Centralize storage: Create a folder structure: /NewWorld-Archive/{year}/{character-name}/{screenshots}.
• Pull Steam screenshots to disk: Open Steam > View > Screenshots > Show on Disk for New World (AppID 1063730) and copy images to your archive folder. If you used the in-game screenshot key, they still appear in Steam.
• Use ShareX or Greenshot for timed, high-res shots: set up hotkeys and auto-save to the archive folder for consistent filenames and metadata.
• Embed metadata: Rename files with a schema: YYYYMMDD_server_character_location_description.jpg. Add a companion .txt or JSON with context (who is in the photo, why it matters).
• Cloud backups: Upload a copy to Google Drive, OneDrive, or a dedicated S3 bucket. Consider an encrypted archive if privacy is a concern.
• Public archival: For community-access, upload a curated selection to the Internet Archive or a shared Flickr/Imgur album and include creator credits and dates.

Step-by-step: Video captures

• Record with OBS: Use OBS Studio. Recommended encoder settings: H.264 (x264), CRF 18–22 for a balance of quality and file size; set a preset of 'veryfast' or 'faster' for most PCs.
• Capture events: Record major guild events, trades, housing tours, battles, and rare spawns. Keep clips focused (5–20 minutes) for easier cataloging.
• Save project notes: For each clip, store a text file detailing participants, time, server, and context.
• Backup and transcode: Keep a master file and create lower-resolution copies for sharing. Use HandBrake or FFmpeg for batch processing.

Deep-dive checklist: Preserve your community

Community is the core value in any MMO. When servers close, the social fabric is what players want to keep.

Export chats and forum threads

• Discord: Use DiscordChatExporter (open-source) to export full channel history and attachments to HTML or JSON. Export roles and member lists to CSV using bots or server settings.
• Official forums/wikis: If you run a guild forum, export posts (look for a platform export function). If not available, use HTTrack or wget --mirror to scrape content for archival — respect forum rules and copyrights.
• Reddit and social: Use Pushshift/Reddit API to archive threads and comments relevant to your guild or server.

Set up migration targets

• Discord template + invites: Create a server template (Server Settings > Server Template) for your new home and share 'permanent' invite links. Pin a migration guide.
• Matrix (Element client + Synapse server) for longevity: Consider Matrix for decentralized permanence. It’s federated and community-friendly; provide a guide and hosted invitation links.
• Mailing lists and contact lists: Build a CSV of active members with consent (email, Discord tag, timezone, role). Use Mailchimp or a simple Google Sheet for coordination.
• Create a canonical website: Spin up a lightweight site (Netlify + Hugo, WordPress) hosting archives, event recordings, and a roster. Host a central link tree for all assets.

Plan final events strategically

• Quarterly to final-week sequence: Plan a 12-month schedule: reunions, screenshot days, market benchmarking streams, then escalations in the last month and final 72-hour celebratory events.
• Awards & memorabilia: Create digital certificates or printable 'memories' (high-res screenshots, character bios) and distribute them to members.
• Record oral histories: Host interviews with long-time officers and stream them; archive on your website and YouTube.

Deep-dive checklist: Salvage the economy (guild banks & market data)

You cannot legally convert in-game gold into guaranteed real-world value, and attempting RMT risks account bans. But you can preserve economic data and convert ephemeral value into portable in-game artifacts.

Immediate actions for guilds

• Inventory audit: Export or screenshot every guild bank page. If the UI doesn't support export, take systematic screenshots: page_01_slot01.jpg …
• Liquidation plan: Decide whether to distribute items to active members, convert wealth into rare cosmetics or trophies that are visually preserved, or craft unique items for screenshots.
• Distribute leader roles: If you plan to preserve guild identity on another platform, export the officer roster and transfer ranks to members who will maintain the archive.

Capture market data

• Daily snapshots: At least weekly (increase frequency in last 3 months), capture trading post prices for a curated list of goods. Capture screenshots and a CSV with columns: date, server, item, lowest_price, highest_price, volume (if visible).
• Tools: If your community has a market-tracking bot or third-party site, coordinate exports. If not, create a simple Google Form and have community price-check volunteers submit data.
• Publish datasets: Release the dataset with clear metadata on GitHub or Zenodo so hobbyist economists and researchers can analyse the economy post-shutdown.

Convert intangible value into tangible artifacts

• Craft and stash: Purchase or craft rare housing items, trophies, or unique skins and photograph them in your home or on characters. Those images are the lasting artifacts.
• Make a museum: Build an in-game ‘museum’ before shutdown and host tours. Record and archive the entire run to preserve the display.

Legal & Terms of Service (ToS) considerations

Before you scrape, export, or redistribute content, check Amazon Games’ official guidance on the sunsetting process. Common rules:

• Don’t break client-side security: Memory inspection, reverse engineering, or using tools that modify the client can violate ToS.
• Avoid real-money trading: Converting in-game assets to cash can trigger bans and legal risks even during a shutdown window.
• Ask for permissions: If you plan a public archive that includes other players’ creations (house designs, player-made art), request consent or anonymize contributors.

Technical appendix: Tools & commands

Practical tools the community has used successfully (2025–2026 vintage):

• Screenshot tools: Steam (F12), ShareX, Greenshot.
• Video recorders/transcoders: OBS Studio, HandBrake, FFmpeg (ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -crf 20 -preset veryfast output.mp4).
• Chat exports: DiscordChatExporter (export to HTML/JSON), bots for role/member lists (e.g., YAGPDB or custom scripts).
• Site archiving: HTTrack, wget --mirror, or the Internet Archive’s Save Page Now API for static pages.
• Data hosting & preservation: GitHub for datasets, Internet Archive for media, Zenodo for DOI-backed research data.

Timeline: What to do and when

Assuming Amazon gave ~12 months notice (public announcements in Jan 2026), here’s a practical timeline. Adapt it to the actual shutdown date.

12–6 months out

• Start centralizing screenshots and videos.
• Begin market snapshotting weekly; establish a small analyst team.
• Export Discord and forum history; set up new migration servers and templates.
• Communicate the plan to your guild and confirm who will steward archives.

6–3 months out

• Ramp up content capture frequency (market daily if possible).
• Organize mid-size community events and record them.
• Finalize migration targets and test workflows (invite links, bot exports).

3–1 month out

• Do final inventory audits and distribute or craft memorable items.
• Host a preservation weekend: screenshot marathons, housing tours, last raids.
• Create a consolidated archive and publish initial datasets and recordings.

Final week & last 72 hours

• Record final events in high quality and stream them publicly.
• Take final friends/farewell screenshots and exchange contact info.
• Make sure all exports are saved in at least two locations (local + cloud) and verify checksums.

Case studies & examples

Look to past game shutdowns for what worked:

• City of Heroes (2012): Player-run archives and fan-maintained wikis preserved lore and fan art long after the servers closed.
• Final Fantasy XIV (server mergers): Communities used staggered migration events, spreadsheets, and Discord templates to keep social groups intact.
• Smaller indie MMOs (2024–2025): Many projects moved assets to open-source archives and used community-hosted servers where allowed — an important model if Amazon permits private community hosting.

Advanced strategies & futureproofing (2026 trends)

As of 2026, preservation workflows are getting professionalized. Here are advanced strategies you can adopt:

• Package datasets for research: Release market and activity logs with metadata and license terms so economists and modders can study in-game economies.
• Host mirror projects: Set up GitHub repos for tools and datasets; add contributors and clear contribution guidelines so the project survives turnover.
• Leverage federated platforms: Matrix/ActivityPub-based communities are more resilient than single-vendor platforms. Consider running a Synapse instance or using hosted Element solutions.
• Seek rights where possible: If Amazon releases a preservation toolkit or grants permission for private servers, coordinate through centralized community leads to maximize impact.

Checklist summary (printable)

• Screenshots: Export from Steam, organize, add metadata, backup cloud + local.
• Video: Record key events with OBS, transcode masters + share copies.
• Chats: Export Discord/Forums, archive attachments; export member lists.
• Economy: Snapshot trading post prices; export guild bank inventory, craft trophies.
• Community: Create migration server templates, collect contact CSV, host a final website.
• Legal: Read ToS, avoid RMT, ask permission for third-party content.

Final thoughts

New World’s shutdown is a community moment — a chance to preserve what players built and to make those memories accessible to future fans and researchers. Your action plan should balance speed with documentation: quick screenshots are useful, but structured archives (with metadata, checksums, and published datasets) are what last.

If you start now and follow the checklists above, you’ll leave behind more than screenshots: you’ll preserve histories, friendships, and a living record of an MMO economy. Even if the servers go dark, the community doesn't have to.

Call to action

Start your archive today: pick one folder and move your top 50 screenshots into it. Then export your Discord channels and share this guide with your guild officers. If your group needs templates (Discord export script, OBS settings, or a dataset schema), sign up on gamereview.site to get our free preservation pack and join a community-run migration channel. Preserve now — so your story outlives the server.

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