Shards or Megaserver?

No shards, no megaservers.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Servers

We have not received permission from Vraak to share the quoted post.

There's no connection between different servers. You have a server and that's its own entity. That's it. No server transfers either (at least so far). So if you want to play with your friends - choose the same server.

We have not received permission from Happymeal2415 to share the quoted post.

It's just the reality of mmos though. Especially in current times. In other words, this particular crystal ball is sold in every general store around.

We have not received permission from Vraak to share the quoted post.

You are contradicting yourself. You say that people have many options for entertainment and then immediately say that mmos can't have the same variety of options. I want a non-p2w owpvp mmo, but outside of 2 full loot games which are also fps and isometric - there's nothing else. Well, there's NW of course, but that I do not consider opt-in pvp "owpvp".

So even if AoC does lose 80+% of its release playrbase, as long as those remaining 20% stay and keep their sub (with a few cosmetics here and there) I think the game can survive just fine and be one of those "many options for entertainment".

We have not received permission from Strevi to share the quoted post.

Alpha will supposedly show only half of the world. Now imagine that Intrepid manage to work amazingly with their community (kinda have been doing that already), develop a great game during that alpha2 and then have some nice advertisement before the release.

Don't you think that "a good game with great devs that's about to get twice as big with fresh servers" would get a shitton of people?