Any Korean or Chinese readers here that can shed some light on their FFXIV versions?

[SaitoHikari]

Earlier today, I've learned offhand from friends who play another MMO developed by the same company that manages FFXIV in those regions, that FFXIV is actually in pretty big trouble in those regions, or at least in Korea. Of course, they're of the opinion that actually kind of want FFXIV to shut down in those regions so the host can get back to focusing all efforts on their original MMO (they only found out about the FFXIV situation because they were searching to find out if the company's ill-fated mobile branch even still exists, which apparently doesn't, good riddance), which is also in dire straits.

Specifically, they mentioned that the Korean service region recently had a server merge that left a lot of players upset - because (note that said friend had no former knowledge on how FFXIV servers/data are structured) 'the game apparently wasn't designed for server merges, a lot had to be destroyed to accommodate them, including housing data'. It does have interesting implications if true, notably that we shouldn't really expect merges here in the international client if they already outright failed in the Korean and Chinese versions.

I think it'd be worth a research trip to validate those claims, if we have some Chinese or Korean readers among us.