After Kakao Games took over the license for the ArcheAge franchise back in December, they relaunched the new servers, including some new Fresh Start servers. After the Fresh Start servers began to open after some delays, an incident happened that resulted in an exploit that many were able to take advantage of either accidentally or deliberately, and it is colloquially known as "panty gate". The Kakao Games team took a firm hand in issuing suspensions and many bans, as well as removing 229 billion in gold from the economy, but now they’ve reversed many of these bans with some new considerations.
The team investigated and then ran a review on the process, but have since reflected on the results.
“Whilst it was clear to us that this was an unintended use of mechanics and the steps involved in this process were obviously exploitative, we’ve been reviewing the stance that we took during that incident to determine if our actions were correct and in the best interests of the ArcheAge community.”
Their determination is that a permanent ban may be overly harsh this time. they acted quickly in the name of helping preserve the economy and a smoother transition, although this was one of the reasons why new Fresh Start servers and later Fresh Start content were delayed for a while.
Ultimately, since several months have passed and the economy has generally recovered with the series of suspensions, gold removal, and other balancing actions, they've decided to remove most of the permanent bans that were issued. Players those accounts were banned during that time will have them lifted, except for those accounts found to have been created to cheat and scam.
Affected players should be able to log in and find their accounts are now working again, but because there was still a violation of the terms of use committed, there will be no compensation if anyone lost play time or subscription time.
