Hmmm,
If anything, it makes me realise/remember just how much coin I've thrown at this game....
Just for that, screw it, despite the aircon (and the gamecon?).

I'm going to a pool party/BBQ and will be back after I drown myself.

How is this any different from what apple or microsoft do? It's the same shit. They're playing the game and making you play their game.

How is it a scam, and why is it even relevant that the parent company is from Belarus?It's just regionalised pricing, the same as the rest, and at least here it seems somewhat transparent, and avoidable if you want to just play on the servers in another region.I'm just speculating here, but it could even be somewhat justifiable as the SEA located servers possibly cost more than the US servers, so if you choose to use them, there's a higher price of admission.

You only glossed over my post.

NA server population is about 20k, EU server population is about 60k, SEA server population is about 10k. But it's the EU who pays more;

If the price was standardised based on USD 99.95 per 25000 gold then;

NA server = USD 99.95
EU server = EUR 73.96 or GBP 61
SEA server = AUD 94

But the EU server is paying EUR 99.95, GBP 84.95 (EU Server)

If you want to see a scam in a game, try Sim City Social. Quests and building upgrades require you to collect certain numbers of rare items which are dropped from interacting with buildings. And you would think that every item would drop with the same random rate at all times. But no, that's not the case.

Let's say the drop rate from Attractions for an Architectural Pizzaz is 8%. When none of your buildings require you to have one of these to upgrade, you'll receive, on average, 8 for every 100 interactions.
But what happens when suddenly your scenic pond requires 5 Pizzaz to upgrade?
Well, the drop rate is massively reduced. As soon as you require that item, the drop rate becomes more like 0.8%.

As soon as you complete that upgrade or quest, and the item is no longer required, the drop rate returns to the standard figure.

Oh wait, it gets better:
You don't have to wait for them to drop though - you can buy them with diamonds.

But wait, 'buy' you say?
Well, yes - Diamonds are what you trade for real money.

Basically they've rigged the game so that in order to progress, your progress is either artificially slow when you need those items.

Free-to-play you say? Fine, I won't play. I'll instead buy a game that isn't gimped.

I'm finding that this is essentially where 90% of F2P games are.

I've seen worse...

300,000 Reputation (108 Gold)
19 Medals of Glory (380 Gold)
205 General Summer's Tokens (1025 Gold)
1513 Gold - That is United States Dollars. Everyone who has that set of armor has paid something along the lines somewhere.

http://pwi-wiki.perfectworld.com/index.php/Rank_and_Reputation/RankIX

That is just the outlay cost and expensive [as fuck] to upgrade the items. Seen other games where you can 'rent weapons' (Blacklight Retribution and War Inc) for ingame currency, but it is expensive to own them permanently, but those ones aren't as bad as buying power & pimping the armor. But what can you expect from small F[r]ee-to-play operations or some of the more asianatic business models. They know how to do business.

Better examples I've seen probably yet:

Team Fortress 2 - Hats (Cosmetic), don't need to say more than that and the hat trading that has sprung up around it. I've got a friend who runs 'clients' on VMs to get hats. Suppose Valve subsidizes it by selling other titles in its' back catalog.

Tribes Ascend - When Hi-Rez entertainment made the weapons level up by just using them in-game or you could pay to unlock them, that was a good business move. Even though it took a long time, it was still worth it and they've done voice packs and models as far as I've seen so far.

Guild Wars 2 - (buy the box) and everything in the shop is mostly cosmetic and convenience and I'll stick to my guns on that department. But we'll see as time goes on.

Super Monday Night Combat / League of Legends - selling cosmetic items and heroes

Interesting buy to play award goes to:
Killing Floor (Tripwire Interactive) - For making 5 dollar DLC Skin packs for 4 years and only branching out into weapon DLCs very recently. Interesting download model in that department. Oh and continually having a special event every Halloween and Xmas.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/1250/

Potential up and coming interest games:
Firefall, Hawken, Warframe, Warface, Planetside 2 and possibly The Secret World with its "Issue download" addon.

Do I believe the subscription model for gaming is dead? Possibly but then again, probably not. Servers need to be paid for. Content needs to be created, Houses and food needs to be paid for and that's how life goes and with the recent closing of things like Cities of Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies