I've been a Star Trek Online player for a while. I'm a huge Trek nerd, and just a huge nerd in general. I genuinely enjoyed it for the several months that it took to get my Federation character to level 50. That all came to a crashing halt last night when I ran into the level 50 pay wall. You see, up until now, a new ship was provided for free every ten levels. It was a pretty cool incentive, and it made me want to keep pushing to the next milestone. When you hit level 50, though, you run headlong into a wall of greed. Free ships end at level 40. If you want a level 50 ship, it'll cost you $25. Oh, there's one you can get if you've been an uninterrupted subscriber for nearly four years. Or you can join a fleet and grind. And grind, and grind. Of course, you can't just buy $25 worth of Zen (Perfect World's version of Microsoft Points). No, you have to buy at least $30 worth to cover it.
I have never been slapped so hard by the greed of an MMO's publisher. Granted, I haven't made it to the level cap in Old Republic yet, so I can only imagine what's in store there. I uninstalled Star Trek Online about 20 minutes after hitting level 50. I won't be back. Greed like this needs to be punished, severely. This kind of crap perpetuates itself because idiots are willing to pay it. Then they complain about it. Publishers don't give a crap if you complain about it... you're still paying them money, so they're going to keep doing it. STOP. PAYING. THEM.
