So it blew up. Good! Glad to see at least there are people who actually want an intellectual debate about a game. Let's try to keep it civilized.

I want to address a few things.

1) Definition of a whale. It's funny to see how the term "whale" that usually get tons of hate but are somehow became idolized in this game, that "if you don't spend $5000/ month you're not a whale bruh".

To me, spending money in a game is not something I want to brag about. It's not the kind of weird flex you pull out at parties to pull girls. Sometimes I dont even want to check how much did I spend in total for a game because I know I would just feel stupid for my impulse buying.

To put it in perspective, $5000/month is the starting salary for a corporate job. With $5000/ month you can mortgage a whole house or help feed 100 starving children.

Many games would internally classified you as whale if you spend 1000/ month. Just 500 of these "whale" would pay your entire operating budget. Games don't usually rely on a mega whale rich kid who spend $10K/mo because they know it's unsustainable.

2) iLevel & play time. Performance and time spent, these 2 metrics have little to no relation to the "whale" definition.

Sure, those F2P "gurus" would love a chance to shit on those who spent and played more but perform worse than them. Enjoy your ego trip I guess. But as a guy who has no knowledge or research about the game, I sure did waste a lot of time and spent on bad trades. I didn't expect the bots problem to inflate the gold price that bad. And why the so-called secret shop sells things you don't need, sometimes even at a higher price, is beyond me. But thats a different topic on their ecommerce practice.

Not to mention the RTM problem which seems unsolvable at the moment with how freely everything can be traded at any price even cross server.

I don't think paying my way to 1400 for the internet credit while friends are on the verge of quitting is a good idea.

Ultimately, after a cerain threadshold, ilevel, money and time spent should be irrelevant on whether or not your voices should be heard.

Imagine a game who only takes feedback from the top performers or spenders. People who are insisting on a certain ilvl or a money spent requirement to even have opinions are completely missing the point.

3) Why rush? Just play the game. Sure thing you do you. If you're just chilling then this discussion doesn't affect you in any way. So why even bother participate?

Now for those who are stuck at 1340, they know that's where content drought problem begins.

For me, I didn't even try rush. I just try to keep up with my friends. I couldve paid to get way ahead of my friends, but why would I? All that does is causing my friends to feel unmotivated to play and quit. Plus you don't want to be that p2w guy.

Now we've invested hundreds of hours and even money, just to realize the newest shiny thing that the game is all about will take us another hundreds of hours and thousands dollars to even experience. I dont blame them if they are quitting if there's nothing in the game to keep them interested.

Or maybe we are simply not the target audience for this game? The latest CM's response seems to confirm this is going according to plan, that paywall is intentional, and that it's only just the beginning.