A recent update introduced the above cash shop item which allows boosting a character to the current max level (50). The “royal” gem currency itself is purchased via real money (very roughly speaking, it converts to around $70 and $50 USD). The more expensive one is time-limited (purchasable from May 15th until June 12th) and provides starter level 50 gear as well as additional rewards as you hit specific item levels (300-440 at every 20 item level intervals).
While I haven’t touched the game in several months now (and likely won’t bother until the housing system is implemented), I don’t see anything wrong with this type of boost since it’s mainly a convenience item (it doesn’t outright buy actual power at end game; it just gets a character to the start of the end game progression treadmill). The item level where the rewards end isn’t even close to the upper limits of most end game players (for those who may be concerned about the fact that the expensive one includes some starter level 50 gear).
Furthermore, the ability to use these vouchers requires that there is at least one character on the account that has played through the story/hit level 50 once. IMHO, it is costly for sure but I believe that like other MMO’s that also have something similar, is similarly priced to dissuade players from simply using these sort of solutions as a cheap no brainer to create a bunch of max level characters since there is still value in leveling characters yourself (you get used to their play style plus also acquire materials and currency; in Lost Ark’s case, shilling is character bound and you aren’t going to be getting the amount you would normally get from questing).
What I won’t deny is that other publishers (once the game is published in other regions) may choose to implement this sort of cash shop solution in different ways. Smilegate however has rightfully made it to be more of a convenience item meant to also address some of the criticism from veteran players who are maybe tired of leveling yet another character class (and wanting to see the leveling process from 1-50 streamlined from what currently exists). In some other games, I would be a proponent for that (so long as done correctly) but for Lost Ark, the hard work that was put into that part of the game by the prior (original) development team, would really devalue the game (since much of the serious production work was put into the 1-50 questing content).
