Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "dexhunterz;508659"

Screw it. I say that Frogster/RW should just do all this for free. Noone should have to pay and whoever can spend the most time online can become the OP toons in game. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe for some, paying for power is exactly why they are here? If it wasnt for those people that drop hundreds or even thousands a month, F2P wouldnt be POSSIBLE. Yet, for someone who spent all this money, to charge people mucho gold in game for gear is "greedy". The OP has a very valid point. Frogster can't just let eveyone and their mom become endgame for free, or what point IS there to buy dias.

I never said that, but IMHO, few should not pay for a ride of everyone. Just take a sample of F2P players, who don't find prices in CS ridiculous, because they are not spending RL money on the game, but without realizing that someone else is spending RL money for them.

Quoted from "aardvark3;508653"

The price of an item is decided not by what an item is worth but what a person is willing to pay.
Yes the game is worth $5 or $10 a month and even more but the vast majority of the F2P players will never pay anything on a monthly basis so the game will vanish. The number of people who are only P2P wouldn't be great enough to make the game an enjoyable experience. There are other F2P games that are nowhere as good that the F2P people will migrate to. A lot of F2P players just hate the thought of the monthly subscription and even buy diamonds on rare occasions but for the most part remain F2P.

Are you sure? I would really ask everyone who purchased pet growth potion to PM me, just to tell me why did they get it at that 'sale' price of 119 dias for 5 pots. And we have that more then once in past 3 month period. IMHO WAY overpriced item, that does not sell well, but we still get it as 'deal'.

Quoted from "keymakr;508676"

@RoMage correct, your either going to have few who pay alot, or alot who pay little. However its called MICROtransactions for a reason. Lets do a little math:

Lets take a very small game, only 100 users. I'll assume 10% are big buyers, who pay $10 per month on in game money, and the other 90% are f2p:
profits/month= 10 [$/paying user] * 100 [users]*1/10[paying user/user] = $100 per month.

if instead you have 90% paying $2 per month microtransactions you have
profits/month = 2[$/paying user * 100 [users]*9/10[paying user/user] = $180 per month.

The difference in these numbers only gets bigger when you increase the population size. Obviously you could change around the numbers and say 'oh, but what if the microtransactions were only paying $1! then the macro model would be better!' But why evaluate how one model is better when you make all the others worse, when you can evaluate how great a model is when you push it to its potential. Put in 5000 people with the same $ and %s, now it comes out to $5000 macro and $9000 micro. The difference in those numbers got bigger. Now imagine this with the active population of runes of magic....yeah...

This is exactly what I have in mind. More people will play if prices are more reasonable, more people meaning, more money in end. I can see a lot o F2P move toward purchase of some DIAS if they figure out that little cash is not worth all the trouble to find DIAS seller and deal with it.

Will this model drive some users out of game, sure. But game would gain more users, as you will not get hit with statement similar to what I (and everyone else) got when we started to play: game is F2P, but heavily P2W (wolf's signature comes to mind again).

Another thing that blows my mind, is % of success of jewels you pay with RLM. Does it really have to be that bad? Should GOLD jewels now have better rate, since we have +16 instead of original +6??

There is so many things that can be 'improved' in game, to offer more play for your money, that will generate more interest in game. ( not free, dexhunterz, no one suggested that) This game has huge potential, but from what I see, company that owns the rights to distribute the game does not see it and/or is not aware of it. They rather relay on 'few' extreme DIAS buyer, rather then make steady paying player base.

my 2 cents...

Ok, here is the straightford answers:

FA close from lack of profit; here is why.
1. The 2 year anniversary fiasco caused many of their diamond buyers to quit or go F2P
2. less diamond buyer=less profit
3. Since FA's blatent cash grab would not be fogotten or forgiven any time soon, it closed.
4. FA brought their failure on themselves. Remember, they knew about the "mistake sale" within the first hour, but let it run for a full day and THEN took the diamonds back.

Why I do not buy diamonds anymore.
1. When the game ran smoothly and prices were not too bad I did buy diamonds. Not much, just $20 every 3-4 months.
2. After the fiasco, I swore to never buy diamonds again because I could not trust them.
3. After several months I was finally starting to consider buying diamonds again and then the game started falling apart.
4. Around the same time customer service decreased and has since disappeared.
5. Now I just play 1-2 hours a day for my dailies and minigames. It is posible for me to return this game to top of my list, but I think it is much more likely that they will close the game entirely.
6. Personally I am hoping they just shut down the game. They have been spamming diamond sales down our throat constantly for weeks. That looks a lot like a money grab before the pull the plug. Already half my friends are playing with me on another game and I have them on facebook in case the game closes.
7. I still play on the slim hope that RW will fix the game and frogster will seriously drop their prices. The hope is fading though and I doubt I will be here more than a month or so until I give up entirely and uninstall the game.

What has hurt the "Bottom Line" of this game is a long list of un-fixed issues with new ones piled on top. Then there are situations that ocurred that left the client base feeling ripped off. I consider myself a F2P with a limited or casual CS useage. I don't buy dias off other players other than once in a while from a guildie for something small. My gear is statted with the dia cards I have bought for personal use......not to sell other than small items to a guildie once in awhile. What I spend per year is what some spend per month and I still spend more than most P2P games for the year.

With that said I've basically went pure F2P in the last few months I'm not one of the Play all day and buy off P2Pers. So I'm pretty much done progressing because I have a job and can't invest the amount of time needed to be F2P, but I'm not willing to Pay for this game any more. Swag told us Siege is never going to be fixed...ever. I'm still waiting on the Final "Knight Balance" and I don't see that in the works and think it has been dumped.

Let's get to the core of the Diamond Trade shall we? Why are we still "Gifting for Gold" when it was a "Temp" solution while RW/FA came up with a new method? Diamond Trade is still in Beta like Siege and they have no plans to fix it either. They won't even make a C.O.D feature for "Gifting" and just admit that players solved the issue for them. No they won't....they just let the players take the risk and sit back and say...."it's not something we support". So dia sellers get scammed enough times they quit doing it and leave the game.

FAI can't seem to understand that volume is where the money is at.....I work in retail and the common saying is "Stack them high and sell them cheep"! Look at Wal*Mart ......they killed a couple electronics stores because they sold so many TVs at rock bottom prices. They nearly sold them for cost and sold enough to still make a big profit. FAI could cut the prices in the CS and actually get more players buying Dias.......More players buying makes more money. The higher prices they are trying to charge in the CS for the "Deals" is not going to work. The Euro to USD exchange or Bonus % on Dias means jack to a consumer, Higher cost on the item is still a higher price.

Quoted from "regentego;508670"

BJ your logic is massive epic fail quadruple face palm, dude FA shut down for lack of profit...now we're FEU sloppy seconds and people are raging. Oh wait yeah great business model where people lose jobs and families are hurt. Oh but you got your freedom, to cost people their livelihood.

Dude! I'm not responsible for other people's livelihood. I've given most of my adult life to charity, but Frogster is a business, not a charity. If they want my money, they need to provide a service that I want to buy. You seem to be suggesting that I should just give out money to businesses in hopes that they will eventually give me something I want. You're saying that supply should generate demand, which is a blatant reversal of THE most fundamental law of economics.

Quoted from "xanth444;508686"

Ok, here is the straightford answers:

FA close from lack of profit; here is why.
1. The 2 year anniversary fiasco caused many of their diamond buyers to quit or go F2P
2. less diamond buyer=less profit
3. Since FA's blatent cash grab would not be fogotten or forgiven any time soon, it closed.
4. FA brought their failure on themselves. Remember, they knew about the "mistake sale" within the first hour, but let it run for a full day and THEN took the diamonds back.

While I try not to call people out when I generally agree with their sentiment, I have to say something here. FA did *not* close due to a lack of profitability. Based on earnings reporting, several press releases, and industry reporting at the time of the merger, it was actually FA that was in the black and FE that was down. This is fact. From here it is fairly easy to suppose that, while profitable as it was, it was inefficient to maintain the overhead for a separate branch. I am sure that the leadership assumed that they could maintain the revenue and reduce overhead by consolidating the branches.

What the problem that there have been numerous changes besides a simple relocation; and nearly all of them have resulted in lower quality and efficiency from the customer's perspective (i.e. the "improved" ticketing system with no in-game option...etc...).


In any case, FA did not close because they were loosing money. Rather, it was thought that the switch would make this market *more* profitable.

Quoted from "squirrlee;508691"

I work in retail and the common saying is "Stack them high and sell them cheep"! Look at Wal*Mart ......they killed a couple electronics stores because they sold so many TVs at rock bottom prices. They nearly sold them for cost and sold enough to still make a big profit.

This is also not what happened. I worked in AV for many years and made a fine living at it. There were plenty of years where discount places and electronics stores coexisted (not that I would call Wal*Mart a discount place) typically, if you compare like products, they are not so cheap. They tend to have "one off" SKUs that are like the normal products but are of slightly less quality... anyway, I digress...). The drop in margin and move to volume selling was initiated buy the manufacturers, specifically Panasonic circa fall 2006. In one model swap they broght thier TVs from 37 - 35 points down to 20 points. Nearly any store needs to sell a set at 20 points to make a profit. Sony quickly followed with sets that had 18.5 points of margin on them. Basically there was a classic "race to the bottom" which was great for the consumer and Sony but eliminated all profitablity inbetween. This hasn't stopped and I assure you that Wal*mart doesn't make anything on TVs. Like everyone else, they make the money on accessories. It doesn't matter if you sell 2 TVs or 2,000,000 TVs at cost, you make the same amount... 0.

@Stagger,

thank you for pointing that out. I remember reading that FA actually made money, where FEU lost money, and we had those public reports to support those facts. Now that we have FEU cash shop prices and their 'sense' of business, I can see why they were not profitable like FA.

More expensive means people will spend less, stability of game IMHO did improve even when FA was here, but constant problems since then (SW, instances, etc.) and low bonuses with nothing special for holiday made profit suffer even more.

IMHO, FEU had bad start with NA, and is not doing enough to keep customers happy.

Will new management change anything? I really hope, but I doubt it will.

Seems the OP, through his rash statements and belittling of those in RL who do need assistance is actually asking for RoM to go to a different system.

Which honestly, would create backlash by the completely f2p. A lot will leave. Some will stay. There will be cries of "Frogster hates f2p" and that this game is unplayable.

Before they change anything though, fix things up. Make things more appealing.

To be honest however, dont see them implementing anything of the sort any time soon. Its not the right time.

Quoted from "regentego;508706"

But you are playing the game? And have been playing the game? Wait you use their business? So are they a charity? So you will play but you won't pay? Hmm k you win BJ, I thought basic economics is you pay for a service you use or you don't use it at all. Gosh, I've been wrong all this time...

-sigh-

rom is a f2p model game. This type of game allows for people to play without playing. this was RW's decision when they designed the game this way.

now, one might ask: "Why would a game company design a f2p game? Why not just make a subscription based game?" That is because subscription based games have capped profits depending on how many people play the game, and this model completely prevents the game from being played by someone who doesnt have a credit card, or doesnt have a predictable income every month. (notice here I say they dont have a PREDICTABLE income, not that they dont have an income)

f2p models, however, do not have a limited profit based on the number of players. Any one player can pay well over the monthly price for a subscription game. However, this comes with people who are not paying. f2p models, however, use the people who are not paying in other ways (again...look at the video, i'm sorry if it seems like im pushing this, but its really informative on this topic).

so, people not paying for the game comes with the territory of a f2p game, and if RW/frogster realize this, they in no way resent the f2p population.

Quoted from "Stagg3r;508695"

While I try not to call people out when I generally agree with their sentiment, I have to say something here. FA did *not* close due to a lack of profitability. Based on earnings reporting, several press releases, and industry reporting at the time of the merger, it was actually FA that was in the black and FE that was down. This is fact. From here it is fairly easy to suppose that, while profitable as it was, it was inefficient to maintain the overhead for a separate branch. I am sure that the leadership assumed that they could maintain the revenue and reduce overhead by consolidating the branches.

What the problem that there have been numerous changes besides a simple relocation; and nearly all of them have resulted in lower quality and efficiency from the customer's perspective (i.e. the "improved" ticketing system with no in-game option...etc...).


In any case, FA did not close because they were loosing money. Rather, it was thought that the switch would make this market *more* profitable.





This is also not what happened. I worked in AV for many years and made a fine living at it. There were plenty of years where discount places and electronics stores coexisted (not that I would call Wal*Mart a discount place) typically, if you compare like products, they are not so cheap. They tend to have "one off" SKUs that are like the normal products but are of slightly less quality... anyway, I digress...). The drop in margin and move to volume selling was initiated buy the manufacturers, specifically Panasonic circa fall 2006. In one model swap they broght thier TVs from 37 - 35 points down to 20 points. Nearly any store needs to sell a set at 20 points to make a profit. Sony quickly followed with sets that had 18.5 points of margin on them. Basically there was a classic "race to the bottom" which was great for the consumer and Sony but eliminated all profitablity inbetween. This hasn't stopped and I assure you that Wal*mart doesn't make anything on TVs. Like everyone else, they make the money on accessories. It doesn't matter if you sell 2 TVs or 2,000,000 TVs at cost, you make the same amount... 0.

I didn't say at cost I said nearly at cost....meaning a very low profit margin. Reguardless of what the quality of said products was they sold and other companies went bankrupt. Wal*Mart still made a profit off the TVs and they are still doing it because they don't have to profit off just TVs.

The difference is the cost of the virtual Items in the CS are Paid off......they are coded and designed and are costing nothing to ship or create. Some of them don't even do what they are intended to in the area of Random success. Every Plussing Gem sold is pure profit the development cost is paid for when the dev completes the item and gets his/her pay check. It was Paid for In Radiant Arcana the version of the game that is chapters ahead of our version.

Forgster NA was closed for not hitting the "Projected Profit" they were intended to......yes they made a profit but not the goal set for them. Now FAI is looking at two new games about to launch and we have no idea what their intentions or contract with RW hold for RoM once those games launch. I'm betting that they will not keep RoM once the contract completes. I'm not sure when that is but I'm betting it's not far off....March 19th seems to be a good bet. Then a new game lanches for FAI on May 1. Call this tin foil hat land if you wish but it sounds rather realistic.

Quoted from "regentego;508713"

Trust me I get RoMs f2p model, please if you know of any other F2P that gives 100% of its items, and game content away please feel free to PM me, I will DL it tonight and try it.

You'll start to wonder how RoM is still alive at all. None give away 100% of their items, of course, but they do not sell power.

@ squirrlee - even if they plan to close RoM, current situation in game will ensure that most everybody opt for different publisher rather then for another form of fail.

IMHO, march for some other reason is going to be one of hard months for RoM to survive...

And I personally would hate the game to close.

RoM is not the only F2P MMO that I know of that has a 'all the content free' model. There are others. I beta tested one a while ago. Last I heard, it was doing fine, and it really only had convenience and vanity items in its cash shop. Yes, they had 'jellies' that prevented damage from failed item enhancements, but with luck some people got their gear to +12 without them. It is doable. The point is there was nothing in the cash shop that gave away power or unbalanced the strength of characters.

This is RoM's fatal flaw - the game sells power, as the PATV clip referred to. I honestly prefer the subscription game model of progression, as grindy as it is. In one of the games I'm playing now, they can reforge gear to optimise stats, and now they can transmogrify (re-skin) items since a recent patch. However, the dungeons in that game are tuned to the gear level, not the $500 worth of stats on that set of Holy Source gear you're wearing.

Having a game where you have to buy a lot of very expensive items to give your character the power to be able to compete in anything is sure to alienate a lot of people. Some people love it because they have the disposable income to do it, and they enjoy being able to enhance their character so quickly and so powerfully. The problem is that it creates an imbalance between various categories of players and creates a forced segregation. I, in my 15k HP Priest, even with a T8 staff that lets me 3-shot mobs my level, cannot run with my friends/guildies with 50k+ HP, even though I'm the same level as them. Why? Because I don't have the HP to survive any of the dungeons they can run.

At least with sub games you don't have that problem. Questing gives you gear to clear normal dungeons, normals give you the gear to clear heroics, heroics give you the gear to clear raids... raids to hard-modes, and so on. The difference is that the gap between gear levels is small enough that your friends / guild can still drag you through a dungeon you're not quite geared for. There isn't that massive divide between gear levels.

---

Okay, yes there are some people out there with a F2P welfare mentality and sense of entitlement... but they are not the majority of F2P players. Each player in the game will either be F2P, casual P2P or hardcore P2P, each for their own reason. The teenager with no outside income, dependent upon parents... the handicapped or severely injured who really don't have access to much else... the player already subscribed to several games and playing RoM on the side... there are so many different reasons.

Maybe what we need to do is recognise a 3rd class of player in this game right now - the 'refuse2pay' player that I mentioned in my previous post. If the CS was balanced, then RoM would function fine with the balance of P2P and F2P players that it has. It's worked in the past, so what has changed?

I think we need to look to these R2Pers - of which I am one. Why are they refusing to pay? I don't think it's necessarily a sense of entitlement. I think it's more along the lines of the busted coffee machine. We know it's broken, the owner knows it's broken, it's been broken for months and the owner hasn't fixed it, and yet he keeps asking us to buy more coffee from him so he can afford to fix it... There are some serious issues there.

- Siege has been a bugbear for players for at least a year. I cannot remember a time I came on here and didn't see at least one post going off about siege.

- The cost of the cash shop and buying the power you need to succeed is so expensive, and so regularly required, that paying to play this game begins to verge on the ridiculous. Ebilone, as a business person, you'd understand the incredible selling power of perceived value for money. A lot of people don't see value for money in the current cash shop.

- There are many issues with the developer failing to deal with issues in the game. Bug fixes is another topic that has burned holes in the forums for as long as I've been around.

- Then there are the eye-gouging problems with the hosting and management of the game and the cash shop - again another topic that has plagued the forums for ever...

- Diamond sales, and the anniversary fiasco... whether people are wrong or right, many feel slighted by the decisions and actions of Frogster. The issue here (and with many other failures in management) is that players lose trust in the management of the game.

There are probably many other issues that I haven't written here as to why the Refuse2Pay people are boycotting the game. Why do they keep playing? I don't know. I personally don't at the moment, and I won't as long as the game keeps going along its current path - mainly because I just stopped enjoying it, and the issues with management/devs/cash shop/etc. just soured the experience so much that I didn't want to play the game any more.

Could I afford to pay a monthly amount for a gift package? Yes, I could. Would I pay a monthly amount for a gift package? No.

Why not? I don't like the state of the game; I don't like the state of the cash shop, and I don't trust the management and developers of the game to look after the game, and to look after me... It's as simple as that.

Fix the game, fix the management, fix the cash shop, and then let's talk about subscriptions/monthly gift packs.

---

TL;DR:
1. Selling 'Power' at such high prices makes the game unaffordable for many. Plus there are those who play RoM because it is F2P, and because for various reasons they have little to no disposable income, is their only option.

2. There are serious, serious issues with the game, cash shop and management that have people refusing to buy diamonds. These Refuse2Pay players could, but will not, buy diamonds. Fix the problems with the game, and address their grievances, and they will buy again... simple as that.

3. Fix the game, fix the cash shop, fix the management, then lets talk about subscriptions / gift packs.

Quoted from "regentego;508713"

Trust me I get RoMs f2p model, please if you know of any other F2P that gives 100% of its items, and game content away please feel free to PM me, I will DL it tonight and try it.

I know of one. But I think if I tell you, you won't take me seriously xD Since I saw a ton of posts get game titles edited out of them, I guess I can't call it by name... But it's the first MMORPG that I ever played, which was over 5 years ago now I think...and it's still going strong to this day.
The cash shop in that game is full of luxury items. It has a lot of stuff for appearance customization (the fluff) and it has stuff that can speed up enhancements. However, the items are not necessary. For example, you can go into that game and enhance your gear without using the cash shop at all; the difference would be that you spend more time at the NPC enhancing, whereas if you used the item shop you'd only have to be at the NPC for a minute or two. The end result is the same though, only the time is reduced.
On top of that, you can get a LOT of cash shop items for free. All you do is go to the cash shop and watch 5 advertisements each day (like ads you would see on tv). Then the site counts how many you have watched (you can save up) and you use those points to buy items. It's really easy, takes only 5 minutes of your time.
If you asked me how this game is still running and why it is so successful and where the revenue comes from, I would honestly tell you that I have no idea. xD I don't know how they can afford to run the game this way, but for them it works and works well. I assume the people in the game who spend money are doing so just to look pretty (which of course has nothing to do with whether they are a good player).
Do I think you would like this game? Eh...well... to be honest I'm not really sure, but the style doesn't seem like something you would like. Your son on the other hand might enjoy it XD And a lot of girls would probably like it... it's a little girly, imo. xD haha

But back to RoM, I highly doubt they would ever be able to swing this kind of a model. Truly f2p games do exist, as I have mentioned, but RoM is not one of them and I doubt it will ever be. I could see this as a sub-based game, but on the other hand because the US servers are in shambles right now I doubt that changing to sub-based now would benefit them. It would be like a company putting together a game console, then throwing it against the wall and running over it with a truck, then putting it in a box and asking people to buy it. I don't think anyone would. X_X;
I know what you're suggesting isn't really the common sub-based form, but it's very similar. I just don't think the quality of the game at this point could be enough to successfully implement it. Maybe if you had thought of this back in Chapter 2... maybe we'd be in a better place right now. But frankly the game would actually have to improve a great deal before it would be worth any kind of sub or flat charge.

You are saying that people need to pay some money to help Frogster out and then maybe we'd have a better game. Maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't. Do we really know if our money is going towards eliminating bugs and improving server stability? Have we seen any statistics? I haven't. People stopping paying because the game's quality deteriorated. Had it not deteriorated I don't think people would have had a reason to stop paying (meaning a few years back and before the anniversary fiasco). Giving more money now could help in some ways, but at the same time it'd be hard to justify spending the money in the first place because of everything the buyers have to put up with right now. And how long would they have to spend money in order to see improvements? A week? A month? A few years?

This whole thing is a catch-22. =/

Really the only thing that would change the prices on the AH Ebilone is for the diamonds seller to stick to a certain amount per diamond at least on Artemis servers only then the people from the end game Guild might sell the unstated end game gear at a descent price. But that'll never happen since we have really dumb people on Artemis. But it Frogster would give the people buying the diamonds some type of discounts or something alone those lines im sure more people would buy the Diamonds

The other issue to consider, and EsxCape covered this nicely, is this:

How do we know Runewaker and Frogster are going to use the money we throw at them to fix the issues, and how long do we keep at it before we give up?

I think you'll find that many people kept throwing money at the game in the hope of fixes, but are already at the given up stage, because so far nothing has happened.

Swag, bless his soul, came out and openly said some things (siege specific) would NEVER be fixed. Period. The very things people had been complaining about... never to be fixed. This said something very profound about Runewaker, and opened the developers up to another question: What else will NEVER be fixed?

Again, it comes back to trust. People don't trust Frogster, and they don't trust Runewaker - and I think after watching the bumbling and stumbling for the past couple of years, they are justifed in their distrust.

The coffee machine has been broken for ages... and ages... and ages... people have come and gone, bought coffee, kept buying coffee in the hope of a new coffee machine... and finally given up in disgust when the taste just got too bad, and it became apparent that the owner had no intention of ever buying a new coffee machine. I mean, why would he need to when wood-ducks would keep coming in and buying coffee from his broken machine?

Runewakers been busy developing their new game... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFbfOsxH8Ts&feature=related that explains why nothing ever gets fixed in this game.

Oh and you realize that they have been making it harder for F2P to gear up right? it used to be a lot easier to gear up as a f2p, and back then there were lots more people playing and the game was more balanced. This games been pretty much going downhill since the lvl 55 cap. All the devs been doing since then is just recycling gear over and over with higher stats then the previous gear set while adding one instance every major patch. They never bother to balance their game so now pvp is a 1-shot fest.

In summary PVE is the same old stuff since chapter one(except a lot more boring since there are much less people running the latest instances, running with the same people over and over is boring), while pvp is broken beyond repair. Whats the point of playing this game? its only gonna get worst. Next chapter, nothings gonna change except there will be gear that's 20% better, and your skills will be a few % higher, bugs will still be there, more people will be gone while the amount of new players that come in are very low, the gear gap gets even bigger, pvp will be even worst(if that's even possible) then it is.

The system that they have is not sustainable for the well being of the game, it might make them money in the short run while requiring very little work. All they are doing really is make one instance every few months and up the values of armor,stats, and weapons by 10-15%. Just look at the lvl 75 gear its the exact same as the lvl 65, the only difference is the values.

What we are seeing now is a re-valutaion of a devalued currency. They made the game "so cheap to play" that nearly anyone could expect to get to the end and be totally FTP (using some poor guys bought diamonds who didn't know how to farm end-game gear).

Of course, long before this all happened we had 6 months of UBER SCOUT-NESS which consistantly and absolutely focussed the cash base in the game into a few people's hands and allowed a near monopoly of pricing policies for in-game end-game gear. That is where the whole system really started to break down, IMHO. These folks manipulated the market (as anyone with power is want to do) and when the new chapter came out, became the FTP top because they had all the cash. This further allowed them to set prices on end-game gear once again.

FA tried to correct with various sales and what have you, but FEU realized that de-valuing the currency only made it worse (because, I swear, nobody at FA ever studied economics). So FEU is trying to raise the value on its currency (diamonds) once again by limitting the supply until demand evens out.

In a nut shell, its Argentina all over again, and SOMEONE has to feel the pain of an attempted recovery... and that would be the folks who spend real money on the game. And just like Argentina, folks with money will leave rather than take the hit. And those who stay will see opportunities to make it all better.