Starie

At the philosophical level, I think the answer comes down to the same reason why players can't be bothered to respect the IP themselves.

Artistic competency is hard work. It's in fact harder than the math that goes into combat systems. It requires creativity subject to the harsh demands of marketability. When people play what's "cool," and "cool" has no objective meaning, why aim for artistic excellence when your customers don't appreciate it?

Many players can't even respect the IP by naming their characters appropriately. They'll condemn artistically interesting content when it is as inconvenient or a waste of time ('questing efficiency').

In that culture of banality, it is rare that fidelity to the IP pays. Just throw the monkeys more gear porn and sparkleponies. Less effort, more cash.

From this customer's perspective, it is actually increasingly justifiable to spend $10-$15 a month for an 'all you can eat' subscription than be nickle-and-dime'd to death by microtransactions. For example, since LOTRO F2P came out, I'm spending on average $35 a month to buy Turbine Points.

An overwrought article for attacking such an easy group of idiots that can't tell the difference between cause and effect.

It would have been more interesting to attack the substantive lobby that have played and then dismissed WoW for its incontinent design, gear porn, dependence on addons, and absurd lore.

Players taking advantage of bad programming to do unintended integer sign extension is not exploiting? Sure. Spin away.

That's not capitalism. In a capitalism, theft of property would be crime taken seriously, subject to police intervention, not canned reproachment of victims to be more careful next time. EVE is a mongrel of anarchy and corporate feudalism. If CCP's marketting ever boasted of EVE being pure capitalism in action, their pride is misplaced.

The lack of burglar buffs do not annoy me as much as the hunters getting another burst corruption-removal-and-stun skill. Too much love for ranged clases right now, when they're already pushing melee classes out of raids

So, let's see. Fellowship Manuevers disabled; crowd-control in disregard; lots of melee-range damage-soaking going on. Leave the Champs and Burgs at home, stack up on Runekeepers and Hunters, take a safe, long-distance Loremaster to take care of debuffs.

Hunters getting our Startling Twist... it's just disgusting.

"However, right now the problem is that nobody can prove one way or the other whether the influx of free players will help or hinder the community"

What about the DDO community? What have they proven?

Absolutely nothing surprising about someone, "so close to their community," in finally assuming a hug opens the way for a grope.

Bioware's 'never' means nothing. An acquisition, an executive board change, or a shift in Conventional Wisdom about privacy; anything's possible. Turbine said never to LOTRO F2P, once. And here we are.

So the people who are opposed to F2P microtransactions might be hypocrites or rare, actually honest individuals.

Then I remember the Steam/Modern Warfare sales boycott surprise plot-twist, and know the more statistically probable answer.

/groan

:)