Let's preface this with why NCWest/NCSoft are crippled in response time. I will refrain from describing the exploit in order for this post to stay up.
It doesn't seem like a particularly hard thing to fix in fast response, however, the large scale implications on economy are not that easy to make undone and those already reached critical mass like 10 hours ago.
NCWest report those issues to NCSoft and the latter come up with solutions, usually. From the looks of it, I would guess, NCWest are forbidden to touch matters like these. NCSoft is probably not very able to respond to these things quickly, especially with the timing. They have been slow in the past, often taking 2-3 days for a "emergency" bug fix. Now, the issue was acknowledged about 13 hours ago, that's 7am in South Korea on a Saturday during a pandemic. Throw in that the issue does not happen on your own server but only on the "western" realms and any hint of a fast response goes out the window.
With a fast response not being possible, where just a little fix would have been needed, they will have to look at a wider spectrum of solutions. A couple examples:
"Fix it". Change the price of [redacted item] to be in line with others , punish worst offenders, probably the people who bought the most [redacted item]. Try to roll back the server up until wednesday. Simply rolling back costumes seems like an easy fix, but the costumes are not even part of the problem.
"Accept irrepairability". Change the price, like above. Accept everyone is going to have those outfits now, that pet pods are going to be super easy to come by. The market will adapt. Do nothing and the issue will fix itself. Surprisingly, not a bad solution. Some people will be butthurt about everyone having X costumes, but that is just entitlement.
"Punishment". Hand out bans to everyone buying [redacted item] and accept the stab to the playerbase.
"Embrace it". Change the price of all those items from the vendor to Naryu Coins and Gold. The problem will fix itself, accept that pet pods will be largely available.
What are your thoughts?