This is a fairly important post. I'm doing a breakdown of the new event, because there's a lot to talk about here. How you take it is up to you. Yes, those sachets - I knew about them back in Zayne's patch, and I assumed they'd bring this event out alongside the new multi-banner in September, because my hypothesis was that the multi itself had been moved from Qixi to September. The event falls into the same category, so they'd go out as a pair, the way it usually works. Even if that doesn't seem entirely fitting at first glance. But what I saw today? That's a warning sign, I'll say that upfront. The section was added to the client in full during Zayne's patch. On 30.08 - 344 entries all at once, zero before that. The only change in two weeks is one added icon, icon_06, in patch 1553; what it depicts can't be verified, since the file isn't in the client. The sets are built for five, perfectly symmetrical. 44 entries each: three sachet bases, patterns in three render variants, portraits, chibi heads. The numbering scheme is identical for all of them down to the last digit. For Valko - zero across all seven positions. The event mechanic is sewing sachets, which we already saw in the trailer. And in that same patch, the chibi scene Loop_Idle_Sew_01 - sewing - appeared for the first time. Before 28.08 it didn't exist for anyone. It was later added for all seven (the six boys and MC), including QXL. In Valko's chibi layer there are two scenes total, across all time. A standard idle and sewing. Nothing else. Everyone else has 30-45 scenes; the heroine has around forty. Half of everything he has in the chibi layer is an animation tied to the mechanic of an event he isn't in. If anyone doubts this, you can check these files yourself, I've given the names in the photo. Now my analysis. This is a hypothesis, not data. He was cancelled, so emptiness in the files isn't news - we already know his assets were stripped out and only integrations were left. What matters isn't what's missing, it's what survived. And what survived is the sewing animation, tied to the mechanic of this exact event, for a character who has nothing else left. And here's what I think happens next. There hasn't been a OG5 multi-banner in a long time - not a single new one in three months, only reruns. It's the most visible format there is: the absence of a sixth is noticed instantly and by everyone at once. An event mechanic built for five is quieter. You can ship it, keep your content schedule intact, and see what happens. I think this is a test of how the first event where he's simply absent goes, with nobody saying it out loud. Yes, we'll draw him in and add him ourselves, the way we have many times. But that won't make the noise a multi would - the noise there should be right now. If it passes quietly, Infold's next step will be bigger. Notice the pattern: first they gave us a branch, which frankly is survivable, and we comfort ourselves with the thought that the story text doesn't have to be changed, it can be delivered as is, and Valko can be added later as though he were part of that story with no content lost. Today they gave us an event he SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN. And people calmly exhale: "Well, it's not a multi-banner! This is a good sign!" And that's how we get to the point where even a multi without Valko is just a "necessity, so that later he can be released without trouble, just a bit later". Because competitors. Because sentiment in China is somehow off. NO. This will go on forever, until most of us leave the boycott or return to the game and start spending again. Have the antis calmed down in this time? They'll sit exactly as we do, so what public calming are we even talking about? Or maybe Infold is waiting for us to go quiet, don't you think? We haven't gotten a single letter or explanation. Valko's materials were removed far too early, and there's still no sign of his debut. None of this is being done to release Valko; it's being done so they can go back to earning quietly without that reminder of their disgrace. So we can't sit around feeding on hopium right now. They'll keep feeding it to us, and the accounts that are still playing and actively spending will keep feeding it to you too, talking about competition. Competition exists everywhere! Without competition games don't develop (a Genshin moment). Even if competitors did wreck things for them, that doesn't justify ignoring and staying silent toward the audience that has been feeding them all this time. This has been dragging on since July 9. If at first it might have looked like they were genuinely being careful and delaying in order to think through how to bring Valko back, we're now in the third month of the boycott. And out of everything they do, all they're doing is trying to make money and satisfy the antis. The antis, who did this to their own business. They're waiting for us to get tired and go quiet, so they can lure back the ones who are already wavering. You can keep sitting and believing, of course - they'll bring him back later. Or maybe not. It's calmer for them, scandal-free, to keep the five. And if they do bring back a sixth, they'll do it as a favor to us, not as their obligation or because their game starts to stagnate, since every new guy (Sylus and Caleb) boosted the game, made it more popular, expanded the global market once China had already hit its ceiling, and they'll simply be left with no choice but to pull him out. And there's no guarantee his cards won't come out less often or at lower quality. Infold has already started pushing OG5 in small steps, and they'll only reinforce it further. What does this mean for us? We need to get more active: louder, push the tags, flood them with letters even harder, stop being sweet and understanding with them. Are they concerned about our wellbeing? We have the right to be angry, within reason - at the very least to tell them how wrong they are to think we'll just let this go and swallow it. Most important: uninstall the game with every action of theirs where Valko is absent. We already aren't spending money, so the only way left to make it clear we're unhappy and won't accept this is uninstalling the game. I'd be happy to be wrong, but as always, I'm only saying what I see in the data. #NoValkoNoLogin #Reject5LiMulti #ValkoWasPromised #ReinstateValkoNow

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