I believe the reason that Nexon did this is because they don't want you just farming symbols to max in a few days. They want you logging in every day for the dailies, growth in small spurts at a time, over a span of months. It looks better for login statistics. I see a lot of the changes doing this, and many of the events now. The server population bars on Reboot have been sitting at 50%+ on every channel 24/7 since dragon pops started. Clever.
My big question is this- if it was a "packet hack" then why was EVERYONE affected by it? How does a packet hack include even people who do not use hacks? Did someone hack the actual computers that run the game program?
I logged in shortly before the emergency maintenance hit, saw ALL my characters burning, and said "nope nope nope", turned around immediately, closed the game, waited to hear news. I know way better by now than to log in when I see something that looks this screwy, and I'm still concerned about getting somehow banned just for even witnessing this from login screen.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. When it comes to Nexon, it's all or nothing.
This whole situation reminds me of that movie Bedazzled. Careful what you wish for...
Look, it's really simple. If this goes uncontested, it will be a segue in to more p2w releases in future Reboot events. We know how Nexon thinks.
First off, it's pretty obvious that they hate Reboot in its current state and highly regret putting it in, because now people who want to actually play for free, or as minimal as possible, mind you (pets are pretty much a must have if you want to keep up with your peers) have a place to do that, and a couple bucks every 3 months to maintain that isn't much to ask. There's always Hilla's pet Blackheart option for those who want to play entirely for free. The majority of today's MMO players flock to Reboot because of this.
Secondly, They make key decisions and changes to the game with very little player approval, or surveys, questionnaires, etc. and you have to raise untold amounts of hell and ruckus before they even begin to consider taking a different course of action than they have already cemented. In my opinion, from what I see and know, they are trying to slip this one by and test the waters. If it gets accepted with minimal resistance and they keep enough paying players from it, they WILL turn Reboot in to another cash cow.