First - it's flawed. The player from my FS is in ch.10, so he shouldn't appear there.
Second - it's useless.
Question - why new players are limited to participate in Spire until ch.3 and tourny in ch.4? In my mind, if they should be stopped from playing those, then it should be Tourny in ch.3 and Spire in 4.
The Spire is limited to ch3 since it's birth due to lack of number of resources in ch1&2 (in ch3 you get enough number of resources for the final boss (8 resources min)).
But there is no reason why new players should be prohibited for doing their 1-3 provinces in tournament.
I just checked in my FS in en2, I have a "baby" player, he's in ch.3 yet he contributed last week to the Tournament. So, what is with that text?
Thinking at what happened in Beta and what happens now in En server, those names are actually the players which weren't in the FS at the time when the tournament ended.
Seems they are going to speed up first chapters, created a new quest line for smooth game features introduction, and new tree with tourney tech is a part of upcoming changes. They just forgot that you can be not able to participate in tourney not only due to this tech, but also if you joined when tourney was already running. I guess they will just change the text to cover both causes.
So those ch3 cities will just move to ch4. No problem for them, just new normal players will by cut from tournament longer. And as a side effect they will have to solve all event quests asking for encounters/tourney encounters by encounters only - so even more push for overscouting in early chapters due to event quests.
Off course there not gonna consider looney accounts in there decision making.
What karvest said made sense. they will constantly try to improve the first chapters to get a better player retention rate.
I would not be suprised if players get locked out of events as for the first 2 chapters or whatnot (you are already locked out during the tutorail)
The first chapters have seen plenty of revisions.
It makes sense to have players focus on the chapters first instead of bombarding them with the tournament 2 min into there gameplay. they have nothing and throw it all in there while they need it to progress trough the chapters instead.
Those few units you get at start you really need them.