most of the higher end MMOs are still pay to play, and 15 seems to be the norm. atm it isnt "unusual" however many games are moving towards f2p (or buy to play, paying for the game then playing free after). if you hit level 60 it takes maybe 2-3 hours worth of work to get the gold to buy chronoscrolls from AH which pay for your game time for a month.
if you play a month and stop playing for 2 your characters will still be there waiting on you when you up the account.
They do not delete characters, it's their hope you will come back.
As for subscription fees they need money to keep the servers going and to pay for the massive amount of bandwidth a mmo requires.
Even free to plays open massive cash shops to try and cover that expense.
It's not like most fps games where anyone with a computer can host a server.
Because if you want to use a product, guess what, you have to pay the people's wages who produce it.
We usually discover this strange concept when we live home to live in the big adult world.
I can understand today's Internet generation can't really get their heads round it. I wish they would.
You mean like the eu/jp/Korea versions that are still getting content and are still available to play?
Like those ones?
Actually do you know, I married somebody who grew up in the Internet generation of basically expecting games and other entertainment for free.
Now why he'd marry somebody a lot older and not somebody from his own generation of growing up with free downloaded music, games and movies should tell you a lot about how he feels about them.
When you break it down, compared to what games used to cost, games these days are an absolute bargain and yet still people complain that they have to pay at all. There's something wrong with that.