I get why the player base is upset. The game I played that closed here in North America is still online in Korea and it had stuff our version never got for the same exact reason: Shitty management by the publisher that literally broke the game beyond repair and the Korean developer refused to issue patches for what wasn't simply an unpopular game feature, we're talking full bore account exploits where players had their entire account hacked and yea we were pissed beyond belief that this publisher broke the game, essentially, by it's mismanagement. I even tried to play the KR version (which is near impossible because KR games require a KR SSN and cell number but we got around that) until they banned us, not because they got us by IP address but, rather, because we were the only 20 or so players that spoke English so that gave us away.

I guess that's my message in a very long-winded roundabout way. We can't control the publisher and we can try to campaign for what we want but at the end of the day when it comes to games from Japan, Korea, or any other non-localized home-grown version, we're at the mercy of the publisher. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's feelings about their time investment in the game because, hey, be honest, your online time is worth something. You can choose to spend it on youtube, your preferred news/entertainment source, or even Nutaku games. The problem, inherently, is that game publishers in general, don't give a shit about your time. They care about $. No more, no less. Because with no $, there aren't any games. There has to be a balance and THAT, I think is part of the issue here. Balance of whales vs F2P, balance of original JP version and localized, balance of, well, the bottom line business balance to pay the bills, keep the servers running without chasing away customers. And of course, the whole point of this thread, balance between useful and disadvantageous features.