2 weeks ago, today...

Hello, I would like to try something new today. Instead of talking about myself (too much), I'll talk about something that is on most NA PAD'er's minds. GungHo NA.

Yes, this is brought about by the whole v7.5 and Android 5.1 issue. This is because two weeks ago, today GungHo JP released the update that solved the Android 5.1 compatibility problem. Usually GungHo NA isn't this slow at re-releasing the update to fix the problems and that's why I'm here.

Now, it's not fair to say that "just because JP got it, NA should get it, too" since there are other things inside an update, and US is not near 7.5 in their client. But this post is going to be hitting a few points, such as why JP is superior (no offense, I'm not here to shit on your parade), why it will always be superior, and why other versions can only lag behind.

Okay, so let's start. JP is an event-driven server. There are almost always events in JP (remember that one month where you had back-to-back events in NA? Yeah, that's JP 80% of the time). Right now, we're in a "dead" week, where we're between events. But even with that, we still have a collab (Shinra Bansho + Shinra Bansho v2), a challenge (Yamato Challenge), and a special GungHo School Dungeon (equivalent to a collab, not like GungHo Collab Dungeon). We also have a Murakore, and the Shinra Bansho Egg Machine. And while we may not have the information on the next event, nor when it starts (the Egg Machine is going to rotate on Monday JST [Sunday for NA] and Shinra Bansho will leave, also Murakore ends tomorrow), but this is not what we have to deal with on a weekly basis, like in NA. Obviously, we're ahead and not because we're "the guinea pig" server, because we aren't. When they release updates in JP, they are extremely polished, and some things might need constant tweaking (Orb Enhance Awakenings come to mind), but when NA releases them, they don't even release the fully polished version. NA goes through every single patch that JP gets in exact order (with a special notation for compatibility updates).

The problem right now is that with the current setup NA has got going on, players might be afraid of updating their OS and that is absolutely never acceptable. Even in JP, it's wise to hold off on a new update (I ignore the pop-up every time iTunes tells me to update my iPod, just because the main reason for me having it is for PAD right now) until you get the thumbs up from GungHo. But 2 weeks is ridiculous (actually, 5.1 was officially released 8 days ago, but people have gotten it upwards of a month ago. I have a friend who mains NA and hasn't been able to play for roughly a month and that's unacceptable). And while it is unfair for a player to expect a company to sift through an update to find out a part of the patch they can isolate and ship elsewhere immediately, they've had over 2 weeks and it's been shipped in other regions that are on an extremely similar client.

So why will JP always be superior? This actually happens in many other mobile and non-mobile games. The initial server will always be the best. Why? Because they actually have room to grow and they have most of the data in addition to the, typically, larger playerbase. Examples of this include, but not are not limited to Maplestory, Ragnarok Online, Grand Chase, and nearly any other Free to Play game that has been ported elsewhere. If you've ever played Korean Maplestory, you could easily tell that it's extremely event driven (although in recent times, Global has also become slightly event driven, but it's more paywalled). One could argue that Japan Maplestory has gone and done their own thing (Kanna and Hayato), and so has Global (with the release of Jett, Nebulites?, and some other silly power creep), but they always go back to taking things from Korea, the initial server.

In Puzzle and Dragons, the same thing happens. NA, EU, and KR (am I missing anyone?) are all behind JP (the only exception is HK which is a different client and events but the same server/database. You can actually interchange your data bins between these two servers on iOS). Additionally, the events are always subpar. If you think about JP events like setting the bar for what an event should and could be, all the other servers have to be beneath that bar and can't outdo them. That means that whatever JP gets, everyone else will get less.

So why does everyone else get less, and why do updates come slow? In most mobile gaming companies, the branches of the companies are typically understaffed and underfunded. You'll have a few people working on a game, and it's typically just translations and gatcha/gambling being done. In a perfect world, this is all that has to be done (actually, the gatcha/gambling can be scrapped). If a company could release the same game across all it's servers and have them be the same game with a different client to denote different languages of users, that would be ideal. There are a ton of legal and logistical problems attached to this, but that's why it's a perfect world scenario.

This actually brings me to my next point about why JP will always get more. The reason why NA (and EU and KR and even HK) will never get as many collabs as JP is because of licensing. I don't know exactly what kind of deals are struck, but it usually always involves money and the concept of promoting a game. JP has the largest playerbase and makes the most money out of all the servers (NA's profit is chump change compared to the monstrosity that is PAD JP). Because of this, they're able to do things like rent out the stage of a mall as an event venue every week. Also Max Murai compared to Antonio is... who the heck is Antonio, anyways? Max Murai is a popular icon in JP and he was popular before he started streaming (he made youtube videos of him being silly/himself on PAD).

The simplest way to see if you're remotely able to get a collab is to see if that game is in your country. For example, NA is finally getting PAD Z, so there will most likely be PAD Z Collab (and guess what dungeon has become available in NA recently? PAD Z). NA will probably not get PAD BT Collab, however, since the industry for arcade machines is a dying one in NA. Yeah sure, tell me that you go to your local arcade every week and that Dave and Busters is all over the place. But how profitable are these venues. How profitable are the arcade machines? How much money do the companies make off them (are they able to constantly profit off them, or will they be one time purchases and then milked by the arcade?). PAD BT works because arcades are much, much more popular elsewhere. And while I'd love to have PAD BT, I know I wouldn't want to go around spending a few bucks to play PAD just to level up and progress. I'd want the arcade machine in my house, which is not the point of an arcade machine.

GungHo NA is actually stuck in a mini-catch 22. To get more collabs, they would need more players and more profit. But they won't get more players and more profit unless they get more collabs. How many people do you know would instantly play PAD and spend money if they released the DBZ Collab?

There are very few exceptions to the "lag behind" rule, which is where NA released Batman Collab and Hello Kitty Collab concurrently (did they release Hello Kitty concurrently or am I being crazy). Actually, NA was ahead of JP for Batman specifically since they got Batman v2 before JP.

Okay this is a bit longer than I expected and still didn't go over everything I wanted to go over, but I'll stop for now also because my brain is starting to die and I just want to sit down and watch Netflix. If you got here, thank you very much for reading this. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, feel free to post a reply to this and I will attempt to get back to you when I have time.