Is EA the future of The Realm?

First I want to start by saying I think the improvements done to this game are incredible. I would imagine that no money is being made on the game which means game staff are doing all the work for free. I also want to say this is not a rant I would just like to have an honest conversation about is EA the future of The Realm?

I understand holiday boosts are not a 100% thing. I was surprised when I logged in this morning to not find a holiday boost of some type. When I mentioned this in chat it sparked a conversation about EA being the future of The Realm.

I see EA getting a lot of work recently and EA gets an exp/loot boost every weekend. Given the old game mechanics of FF and some changes that were attempted in the past IE removing speed files it does make me wonder if the current vision for The Realm is embodied by EA.

There was also a mention of Gimli stating in the past he did not like mechanics like mana crystals, speed files, and cave/loot systems. Many of these things were changed on EA which also points to EA possibly being the future version of this game.

I think it is great you created a new server and gave people the opportunity to scratch the PVP itch. I personally enjoy FF but if there is no real future in FF in terms of updates etc. it would be nice to know.

Honestly if game staff said yeah EA is the future and FF will become a legacy server I doubt it would impact much. You might lose some fringe players but the core people who have been playing on and off for 20+ years will keep on playing.

EA was good. I ended up leveling 17 chars to level 100, tested most stats and builds and got to know it pretty well. I will say, wizzies need some love. their dps is good but their items are garbage. Their carry cap is such a huge limit that if you start swapping out mp for hp pieces you're gonna be over 50% easy even if you have a BoC or whatever. Also the Defender is a terrible weapon, maybe something with like a 10% sdm+ or something minor like that, considering hitters get access to weapons that can deal 5k+ dmg in a round easy.
Diablo style roll system is good but maybe tighten up the parameters in which stuff drops. I had gear with 140AR weighing 2 stones, and same piece with 60AR weighing 10 stones. Wraths with 110 dmg max and wraths chanted with 190dmg max. Its cool but it creates an imbalance within itself where not only do you need a wrath drop, you better hope its a good wrath drop lol.
Also i'm extremely disappointed that after all the leveling, endless slaying of world bosses, every banner available through the silver shop including multiple dragon ones on a few accounts, i did not find 1 single Illusion ring. Terrible lol