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How to Preserve a Dead MMO: A Playbook After New World’s Shutdown

UUnknown

2026-02-26

8 min read

Concrete, legal steps to preserve New World assets, guild histories, and mods before server shutdown — a 2026 playbook for communities.

When an MMO dies, months of raids, economics, mods and friendships can vanish overnight — here’s the playbook to save them.

If you’re reading this because New World is scheduled for shutdown, you already feel the squeeze: limited time, unclear company plans, and a mountain of digital history to preserve. This guide gives concrete, prioritized steps you and your community can take in the next 12 months to preserve assets, guild histories, and modded experiences — legally, reliably, and with reproducible workflows.

Why preservation matters in 2026 (and why your clock is ticking)

Late 2025 and early 2026 set a new precedent: major studios are sunsetting live games faster, and community buyouts or third-party rescues (like the publicized Rust dev offer to acquire New World) are more common. But even when an IP transfer happens, data access and mod compatibility aren’t guaranteed.

Preserving a game means more than saving textures: it means saving the social fabric — guild rosters, raid logs, economy snapshots, community mods, and the oral histories that make the world matter. The more organized your preservation project is now, the higher the chance future developers, historians, or hobbyist server admins can reconstruct Aeternum’s living history.

Top-priority actions to run in the next 30 days

Start with things that are fast, low-risk, and require no special permissions. These actions protect the social record and give you time to plan deeper technical work.

Collect visual records: Capture high-resolution screenshots of your character pages, inventory, house, guildhall, trophies, and event photos. Use OBS to record highlight reels of raids, town events, and PvP tournaments. Save raw files and compressed copies.
Export chat & community logs: Export Discord/Twitch chat logs, forum threads, and Steam group posts. Encourage guild officers to download member lists and role histories from in-game tools if available.
Archive media: Download Twitch VODs and YouTube clips. Use platform tools or services like yt-dlp and the Twitch export feature. Keep both original clips and edited compilations with context notes.
Snapshot the economy: Start auction-house crawlers or run daily economic snapshots (CSV). Track item IDs, prices, and volumes for a final economy ledger. If APIs exist, document endpoints and rate limits.
Request account & guild data from the company: File formal requests asking Amazon for export tools, guild dumps, or a preservation API. Be polite and public — a visible petition increases pressure and helps others coordinate.

Quick checklist to distribute to guilds

Export Discord server: Server Settings > Overview > Download Data
Download Twitch VODs: Creator Dashboard > Content > Video Producer
Take character screenshots: 3 angles — front, back, gear sheet
Save a roster CSV: name, join date, rank, notable events

How to extract client-side assets (models, textures, audio)

Client assets are your best chance to recreate visuals and create single-player viewers or offline showcases. New World was built on Amazon’s Lumberyard lineage (now connected to the Open 3D Engine evolution), so tools used by the community for similar engines help — but each game is different. Do not break EULAs: always prefer cooperation with Amazon where possible.

Tools and general workflow

Inventory files: Identify installation directories and archive files (pak, .cache, .pak). Make a checksumed backup before touching anything.
Use safe, read-only unpackers: Tools like QuickBMS or engine-specific unpackers can list and extract assets without modifying game files. Always run on copies of the files.
Mesh and texture extraction: NinjaRipper can capture models/textures at runtime. For file-based extraction, try general unpackers and then import textures into Photoshop or GIMP for lossless copies.
Audio: Game audio often uses container formats (FSB, Wwise). VGMToolbox or fsbext extractors can pull raw audio; convert to WAV/FLAC for archiving. Tag files with metadata about context (e.g., zone, event).
Convert and catalog: Import models into Blender using appropriate importers or intermediate formats (OBJ, FBX). Keep original files and converted files, and document conversion steps for reproducibility.

Pro tip: Always keep raw, unedited copies of any extracted asset; future tools will be better at converting them. Record your exact tool versions and commands in a preservation log.

Capturing server-side truth: economy, guild DBs, and raid logs

Server-side data is the hardest to preserve because it usually lives in vendor-controlled databases. You have two realistic paths: partner with the publisher, or capture-as-you-go.

Partner path (recommended)

Open a public, documented request asking for guild exports, audit logs, and an AH dataset. Use a community petition and press attention to show organized demand.
Propose a legal framework: non-commercial preservation licenses, a read-only dataset, or a research-access agreement with redacted PII. Offer to host on community infrastructure under agreed terms.
Highlight precedents: cite community handovers and buyouts in late 2025 — studios were more likely to cooperate when a structured plan existed.

Capture path (if partnership isn’t possible)

Automated crawlers: run bots that sample the auction house hourly or daily and dump CSVs. Store item IDs, seller names, timestamps, and prices.
Event logging: designate players to run standardized event logs — e.g., raid outcomes, boss kills, loot drops — and submit them to a central sheet.
Privacy & legality: anonymize personal data where required. Don’t attempt to reverse-engineer network protocols in violation of the ToS; prefer passive scraping and client-side logs.

Guild identity is the emotional core people want to keep. Build a guild museum that combines data, media, and narrative.

Run oral histories: Record 20–60 minute interviews with founders, raid leaders, and event organizers. Store both raw recordings and edited transcripts.
Build timelines: Use a shared Google Sheet or Notion to log milestones: founding date, major raids, rivalries, awards, key member joins/exits.
Create a curated archive page: Host a static site (GitHub Pages, Netlify) with galleries, timelines, and downloadable data packs. Provide clear metadata for each item.
Document traditions and meta: list guild mottos, event rules, house layouts, ensigns, and screenshot serial numbers so others can re-create the experience.

Saving modded experiences and custom content

Mods are often the most fragile but most meaningful creative output. Treat mod preservation like open-source software packaging.

Package mods with dependencies: Create modpacks that include the mod, dependency versions, and the exact loader version. Add an installer script for ease of use.
Use version control: Host mods on GitHub or GitLab and use Git LFS for large binaries. Tag releases and create a release ZIP with a checksum.
Document installation & runtime: Record steps, loader versions, config files, and compatibility notes. Add a troubleshooting section with common errors and fixes.
Preserve mod dev tools: If modders used custom toolchains, archive those toolchains or include Docker containers that reproduce the environment.

Legal guardrails and ethics

Preservation must respect copyright, privacy, and EULAs. Here’s a short legal checklist:

Document and respect publisher policies; request written permission for hosting extracted assets.
Avoid distributing PII or user-identifying information without consent.
Prefer archival, non-commercial licenses (Creative Commons BY-NC or a research-only clause).
Seek community legal counsel for emulation or server recreation projects — many preservation projects operate in gray areas and need an expert opinion.

Archival best practices: how to store and index your corpus

Good preservation is an engineering problem. Design for redundancy, discoverability, and reproducibility.

Multiple backups: Keep at least 3 copies — local HDD/SSD, cloud (S3/Backblaze), and an offline cold copy.
Checksums: Generate SHA256 checksums for every file and store them alongside metadata.
Clear file names: Use a structured naming scheme: [YYYY-MM-DD]_[Guild]_[Type]_[ShortName].[ext].
Metadata: For each asset include: capture date, tool used, in-game coordinates (if relevant), owner, and context notes.
Decentralized archiving: Consider IPFS for immutable snapshots and Archive.org for public access. Zenodo can mint DOIs for major community datasets.

Community project playbook: roles, governance, and fundraising

Turn a scattered effort into a durable project. Use the following structure as a starting point:

Core team (3–7 people): project lead, technical lead, legal liaison, archivist, community coordinator.
Working groups: media & oral histories, technical extraction, mods & tooling, outreach & fundraising.
Governance: public charter, decision rules, and an archival policy that defines acceptable uses and takedown procedures.
Funding: crowdsource via Patreon/Ko-fi for hosting, legal fees, and storage. Offer recognition (museum pages, donor credits).

Private servers, emulators and the risk calculus

Community-run servers are the only way to preserve a living multiplayer experience — but they carry legal risk. Here’s how to evaluate options:

Seek a license or permission: The safest route is a publisher-sanctioned non-commercial server license or a sale of assets (as the Rust dev offer highlighted — another studio buying the IP can be a path to preservation).
Single-player viewers: If server code isn’t available, convert client assets into a single-player explorer/viewer app. This preserves visuals without replicating multiplayer state.
Private server projects: If you still consider an emulator, document everything publicly, engage legal counsel, and be prepared to take down or alter the project if asked.

Case study: a hypothetical New World guild archive (how it could look)

Three months after the shutdown announcement, the

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