I'll tell you what this core essence was: meaningful social interactions that have organically emerged from the framework of the game world and its structure. Being social means not only peace, but also conflict and takes up a lot of time. This also gave meaning to our progress.

This simply has to do with the fact that most MMORPG players today (be it because of job, family, etc.) have no time or no desire to socialize in this time-consuming way in MMORPGs anymore. They are older and have different life circumstances.

In all other aspects, BDO has become better.

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Just to give you an overview:

BDO used to be a much more social game simply because of the server structure. Each region had 3 servers, each with about 5 channels, on which all players were distributed. The population used to be much denser. How many channels do we have today?
In addition, the game world was much smaller than it is today, which increases the player density even more.

Then the grindspots were much harder than they are today. You had to grind as a group on many grindspots. Today, we even manage endgame grindspots solo. We've also leveled up a lot more together as a result.

Then there's the open world PvP aspect. There used to be only a few good grindspots and with the small game world and player density, the competition for the spots was much greater than it is today. In combination with XP loss during PvP death, this created very strong social contacts and guilds that protected each other. Today we have so many good grind spots, marins realm and a lot of channels to swap, etc.

Today, most of that is gone.

J has acted impulsively and exhibits no long range strategy.  I also think he committed a classic blunder in valuing new players over veterans - almost always a failed strategy.  I see no coherant plan or strategy, just lots of random stuff thrown at the wall and abandoned - War Of The Roses is one example.  

This games suffers from a lack of leadership and long term vision.

Agreed. Not saying you shouldn't try to appeal to new players, but not at the cost of your veteran players. And yeah, the game is going in several diferent directions now. Feels poorly thought out and random. They clearly don't know what they want to do with this game anymore. They've lost sight of what made this game special. I hope they can fix it (actually fix it, not make it worse or give out more band-aid solutions). Despite my misgivings I still love this game ( as well as my characters) and enjoy it. I really hope it doesn't die anytime soon. They really need to re-evaluate the current direction of the game and decide where to go from here, in a cohesive manner.

I've run several large businesses. It's standard understanding that new customers are far less profitable than are new ones.  I always focused ~75% or so of our focus on retaining customers and the balance on acquiring new ones.

Sadly though a lot of businesses (the ones I've dealt with anyway) always seem to value the new customers over their long term loyal customers. They do it for quick short-term money. Instant gratification. They take the easy short-sighted route. Rather than thinking long term and looking at the big picture; If you take care of your customers, they take care of you.

Yep.  new customers can create illusory, short term revenue spikes......not long term profits.

Upon the release of Land of Morning Light, there was a notable influx of new players, which presented an opportunity for recruitment within the guild. Initially, the guild was at full capacity and highly active for a period of approximately two weeks. However, there was a subsequent decline in active users, with only a mere 5 individuals out of a total of 100 remaining engaged. The remaining members primarily consisted of returning players or those with extensive experience in the game.

While true, if one side is extreme and lying it also alters the conversation.  We had one side lie that 1 sided decs were destroying the game and that red players were everywhere griefing non stop.  We now have a worse GvG and OW PvP system that protects the people who grief players while they grind with no recourse to stop the other players.  Organic GvGs that would spring up just stopped now because even if both guilds want to GvG unless both GMs of the guild are on they cannot even start one.

900 people saying don't do this, 90 people saying to keep it based on the like/dislike ratio.  That is 90% to 10%.  If you figure that 20% of people on a topic speak up on any topic, yeah 20 people were vocal about getting GvGs changed and got it changed for the worse.

What happened? Playing BDO has become pointless. But I've been saying it for a long time.

BDO was fun when players earned grunil tet or boss tet, and they could earn it in a reasonable amount of time through various in-game activities (no grinding mobs for trash).

Then season with tuvala gear appeared, the assumption of which was and is correct (quick access to the soft cap), but a typical new player finishes the season, plays for another month or two and disappears when he sees the futility of trying to get true end game gear.

Grind 1, 5, 10b for one item? OK, it's fun. Grind (and only from trash from mobs because all other activities in the game are outdated and do not generate profit) 100-150b for one item = zero fun, total absurdity.

Yes, today we can earn 10 times more from trash, but true end game gear costs 50 times more than before. Who wants to waste their life on something like this?

I will repeat what I wrote recently.

PA takes:

1 step forward: Jetina boss pen.
2 steps back: godr enchament with a lvl drop.
1 step forward: adding the Ancient Anvil system.
2 steps back: Ancient Anvil system costs 4 times more than the price of the item in the market.
1 step forward: adding pity for infinity potions
2 steps back: expressing reluctance to add pity for all treasures.
1 step forward: apparent moves to reduce toxic and unwanted open pvp.
2 steps back: reluctance to permanently remove open pvp from the game.
1 step forward: pseudo crystal protection.
2 steps back: adding additional psuedo protection in IS.
1 step forward: reducing the CP price of some nodes.
2 steps back: adding fields to IS instead of lowering their CP price.

Etc.
Conclusion: nothing changes and BDO is still stuck in vegetation.

So once again: without real changes to improve playability, nothing will change in BDO.

Let's not forget about that handful of toxic players who still want to spoil the fun for others and constantly create new threads titled: BDO no longer exists for me.