The latest ArcheAge update is a limited one mostly concerned with bug fixes and a couple of quest glitches, but significantly it changes and updates the Fresh Start server content schedule to postpone it “until further notice”.
The team quietly updated plans recently to postpone the start of Fresh Start servers again in order to work on details. All Fresh Start servers that hadn't yet opened are now listed as TBD 2022. Since the publishing change happened at the beginning of December, plans for Fresh Start servers have been getting lots of community feedback to guard against powerleveling and exploits. One of the recent changes made was to remove the Double the Gain event from all servers not just Fresh Start servers as originally intended.
Kakao's team had made some tweaks to Fresh Start soon after the publishing handover, but what they were seeing was a lot of potential for abuse. Things like player trading, mail, and events were initially limited. Housing storage permission and other earlier awards were pushed back to later levels. Other access, like the ability to send mail and engage in private trades was set to level 10 in order to stop people from just creating an account and then spamming the chat for RMT ads or using progression bonuses to exploit.
Recently, the latest update shows that they have banned over 21,000 accounts for RMT and cheats. This is an ongoing process that has left some accounts suspended while they need time to complete the investigation at hand. The step to delay the progression and start of the Fresh Start servers that remain is an understandable consideration since the initial investigations are still ongoing. Even with some of the guardrails they already put in and with the team watching for potential cheating or spam, it gives them time to work through the backlog and plan things out to work towards their goal of providing a fairer game to all.
See the patch notes over at ArcheAge.
