Korea has stated they want all regions similar. The only problem is all other regions dont milk their customer's with insane prices. Korea, Core, Japan - they all give out items way more often then here. Japan is the only regions similar to us in that they have cloaks and god jewels. but everyone there has top items because they have korea's cost model, not ncwest's cost model. Japan looks like a illegal server it glows so much.
I think this item register book is the beginning tip of the iceberg on how our cost model is going to change to allow more oe'd gear easier.
But, it is ncsoft, and this version of Lineage 2 is a joke compared to all other regions when it comes to what your money gets you.
edit: to put kore/japan events into perspective. A chest simialr to our current event chest gives stacks of gold/black tickets as a low end reward. People in korea make +40/50/60 weps bc they literally have 1000s of gold tickets available to use for cheap.
i think our version will slowly become that. shiny weps sell and attract new customers, and theres a major gear seperation from f2p and p2w players. making armor/weps more easy to enchant will do alot to aid in how these 2 player types compete.
This update just turned Dragon Shirt, Kaliel Bracelet, Artifact Book, and a few other items that were strictly p2w only into no longer p2w items (all upgrades are drops from mobs).
People are completely passing up on how major that change is from a cost model standpoint for ncwest and what it may mean for our future game experience.