Whoa, this is bad. But, I think I’ve figured some of it out. In a word: China. In another word: NCSoft. At least it fits all the clues.
Think about how as one player put it “… Game has changed direction in the last 6 months…” Specifically:
o NPE – Who are these “New Players?” NA/EU is pretty well tapped. China is new.
o Common Code Tree – Why? To piggyback on the China devs work. Confirmed.
o Feature Patch – Leftovers from China rollout. Confirmed.
o Gem Store UI – " Make it easier to understand." For China.
o The Delay – Anet was freaked out by the China drop as well.
o Cmrd Tags – “Horrible version of the CDI!” China devs didn’t read it.
o Projected Profit – An after thought poorly integrated. China does not want it.
o Female Idle Animations – Breaks a Rule under China game codes.
o Repeated Content – Not to China.
o No Communication – Anet is in the dark too.At least it makes a lot more sense. Anet isn’t that stoopid to make so many errors in design as have been rolled out the discussed timeframe. And if you think about it, it’s a pretty savvy business plan: NCSoft eats X% of NA/EU rage quitters but we were pretty tapped out anyway. They gain Y% of new China players they can re-sell old content to and get access to cheap China Devs who never see our forums. Result: Z% Won increased profit. The main purpose of a business is to return value to it’s shareholders. Bingo!
Then after NCSoft realizes they will lose more than X% of the NA/EU players they green light a fix by Anet. Once again there is Joy in Whoville.
I’m not sure of how I feel about it all. When the China roll out was announced I was kinda excited to think we’d all be in the same World game. Looks like we are and that comes with a cost.
I know everybody is pretty upset right now but again we’ll get a little tweak to make things right. I’d expect more of this in the future. Looking forward this means more resources resulting in a healthier game. Meanwhile, Anet mostly in the form of Gaile are left to scramble dealing with a fire that could have been avoided.
The deal is if we knew about it we might say “Yea.” We have had a lot of good things happen lately. Welcome to 21st century gaming… Smile and be as Happy as You Can.
Of course their metrics are based on the Chinese market, and guess what: they played the game because they had no other option, and if there happen to be more players in China than in NA/EU, it’s normal we get screwed.
Everything buggy we’ve had so far is a copy of the Chinese game, the “metrics”… That’s how I understand it, due to the lack of transparency.
So, as many said, subscription fee coming in Nov., and by 2015 you’ll only have access to the warrior class, and each class should be unlocked for 401 gems each.
Tbh, if a sub/vip thing does so up (and at this point yeah, I fully expect) we all may as well move to FF14. I hear they give a kitten about their player base.

