The Daily Grind: Do players ask for too much free in a free-to-play game?

In a couple of decades, I imagine that telling people that playing an online game used to cost money will be met with some strange looks. These days everything is going free-to-play, with only a few games holding on to the traditional subscription model. As a result, though, I can't help but find more people complaining about how much a game gives you for free and what things should never exist in a free-to-play game, despite the fact that as little as three years ago the business model in its entirety was considered an also-ran.

On the one hand, this is totally reasonable -- companies have found a lot of ways to monetize games of late, and some of those have become both ubiquitous and incredibly annoying. On the other hand, it's increasingly difficult to establish a baseline of what anyone "should" get for free in a game when the concept of "games are free to start playing" is fairly new. So what do you think? Do players expect more to be free in a free-to-play game than is realistic?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!