Season 7: New World PvP Servers

 By the time you are reading this the New World season 7, Season of the Conqueror, will have launched and with it a new set of seasonal PvP servers.  These limited time seasonal servers feature accelerated leveling and a special ruleset that will change each season.  This season will focus on PvP with forced PvP flagging after level 15 and with new gear that drops on death.  Will the PvP crowd finally show up for a PvP focused update in New World?

 The New World team has a long post detailing the PvP servers, but for context here are the main points:

• PvP flagging is forced on at level 15
• Leveling speed is increased
• Special equipment can be crafted for reduced material costs that is stronger than normal equipment but the equipment drops on death and has durability so can break.

 This is basically as close as New World will have gotten to it's original intention to be a PvP focused sandbox with gear dropping on death.  The question is will this be enjoyable and worth the time?

 A big issue I have with the approach here is that these are seasonal servers where I need to start a new character from scratch.  I have 4,000 hours in this game, almost all of it on a single character, so my immediate interest in a new character is limited.  Throw in that the PvP server goes away at the end of the season in a couple months and the draw is even weaker.  Why get invested in something that is repeating what I've already done and that is going away?

 Also the more I looked at the details the more I wondered about the changes made to support PvP.  The main change is the introduction of the ethereal crafting and conqueror's gear.  I like that the gear will drop on death and can change hands, but the bonuses mentioned in the post seem questionable on whether its worth the hassle to obtain/keep.  Why deal with gear you can lose when all of the other gear in the game is going to be available?

 The main issue with the PvP-drop-on-death gear is that there are only a couple weapons and only heavy armor pieces at the end game.  So if you want to play a build that doesn't fit that criteria then you will use gear that doesn't come with the associated risk of being lost.  Add in the skill ceiling in New World's action combat I suspect we will see a lot of players taking zero risk with "no-drop builds" and letting their skill overcome the gap in gear.

 I do like that they are unlocking mounts and heartrunes without players needing to complete the quests, but it seems well short of the number of changes I'd of expected to foster PvP.  One of the big issues I've seen discussed is that instanced content such as expeditions, 3v3 arena, and outpost rush will all be available and be available as cross server to those on the PvP servers.  There will be players on PvP servers that sit in town doing instanced content on repeat, gaining gold and experience (PvE and PvP), and then maybe roll out to PvP when the itch strikes.  That seems like a huge miss on a PvP server where you want players out in the world.

 As a seasonal server it seems like a big miss to keep cross server activity and instanced content.  The focus would have been better on getting players into the open world and hitting points of interest to drive conflict.  Why not take the ethereal crafting concept and extend it to provide access to all the gear that drops in expeditions or other instanced content?  Why, why, why keep instanced content on the seasonal PvP server!?

 If New World gave me a PvP server that was just the normal game with always on PvP and let me transfer my character to that server I'd be all over it.  I think being PvP flagged adds a ton to the game.  But all of the adjustments to make these seasonal worlds "different" don't seem to drive much in the way of PvP and thus I question whether it's worth the effort.  I am on the fence and not sure I'll partake.