New World server transfer info released, and players aren't happy

Amazon Games' New World, a new massively multiplayer online RPG, launched to huge numbers on Sept. 28. It was such a success that the developer had to makes dozens of servers to accommodate the more than 900,000 players who tried to play the game at the same time. Instead of waiting in long queues to join a particular server, players went to any server with the expectation of being able to transfer their characters later on, but that appears to not be the case. 

A thread on the New World forums went up Friday detailing how server transfers would work. One particular point that caused a backlash from players is limiting character transfers to certain regions. This means players who joined a US server but really wanted to be on a European Union server won't be able to move their characters over. It's also the same for US players on the West Coast who want to join a server on the East Coast, and vice versa. 

Players were upset because Amazon Games tweeted on launch day that they would be able to transfer characters to different regions. 

"Yes, you can move between regions if you want," the Amazon Games Twitter account said to one Twitter user on Sept. 28.

But Amazon Games later said that "the original information provided was incorrect."

Players have expressed their anger over this issue on social media. Multiple Reddit threads focused on this change, with some people saying they plan on leaving the game over this. 

"Well there goes 100 hrs spent on my character! I am EU player that went to US east because EU servers were all full and now this! Lost a player…. Really sad," one poster said. 

On Monday, Amazon Games explained the confusion on the matter, and what it plans on doing to try to rectify the problem. 

"As we worked quickly to explain our plans to players, we moved too fast and accidentally communicated inaccurate information. We initially told players that server transfers between regions would be possible," the developer said in a statement Monday. "Unfortunately, this is not currently the case. As a result, some players created a character in a different region than where they intended to play long term. This situation is our fault, and we both apologize and understand our responsibility to correct it." 

Amazon Games said it's looking into cross-region transfers, but it doesn't have a timeframe for when there will be a solution. It did advise players that, from now on, they should create characters on a server in the region where they want to play.