Revisiting Aura Kingdom

It's been about 3 years since I reviewed Aura Kingdom, and since then, it has changed hands in ownership from Aeria Games, to Gamigo Games, back to X-Legend, the original developers.  For a while I was unhappy with Gamigo, so I played Aura Kingdom on a private server, then I went back to the official server, then quit for a year because I had technical difficulty transferring my account to X-Legend.  Recently, I was able to overcome my technical difficulties and play again.  Much to my surprise, X-Legend has made several improvements since getting their game back.

For starters, auto-pathing had been improved.  You used to run through water and get dismounted.  Now the paths navigate the maps much more safely.  Also, apparently they've streamlined the leveling process to 99, because the game used to really drop off at 80.  Most specifically in my personal interest, they've rebalanced the classes, and Wizards are a lot more successful than they used to be.  Where I used to hit a wall and be unable to continue, now my current gear and stats are sufficient to complete story content.  And as an added bonus, they've increased the drop rates of gold and rewards in dungeons, so making money is easier too.

Much to my surprise, how heavily monetized the game is has changed too.  There is no web store, and the in game shop is mostly empty.  You can't buy eidolons or costumes directly from them anymore.  The Loyalty Point shop is still very robust, with eidolons and costumes and mounts, but you can't really get anything with cash anymore.  It makes me wonder how they're paying to keep the lights on.  Then I remembered the gambling mechanic.  You can still buy ruby coins to spend on the random prizes table.  Apparently, this is the sole income keeping the servers running.  Normally, I'd complain, but since my other game, Palia, is monetized in a less predatory way, may not live to see a full year or a full release, I guess I just need to accept some monetization is necessary for a game's survival, and costume sales alone won't suffice.