The problem with "Free To Play" games is that they rapidly turn into "Pay for everything" and "Pay to win" games. The "FTP" model is attractive because it's a way of suckering people into paying more money for a game than a subscription would cost if they want to remain competitive.
A lot of the market research done on these things that points to Asian games neglects the differances between the Asian market and the Western one. If you take a look at the pricing differances for how MMOs are sold over there you'll notice some substantial differances. It's also important to note that in Asia while personal computers on are on the rise, a lot of the gaming takes place in things like "Bangs" which are bars and coffeehouses with computers that connect to the internet to game. Given that people pop in and out for a few hours when they can afford to hit a "Bang" a subscription fee isn't really viable, however charging people for personal content tied to their account that is there whenever they login is.
LOTRO has the advantage of being tied to a massive liscence itself, and having launched with a substantial amount of content. The same is true of "Champions Online" (the Champions PnP game has been around for ages). Having been subscription based games providing the base experience for free after they charged a subscription and recouped their losses made them a fairly good deal, as opposed to games that are designed for F2P and need to gouge users right off the bat, with a way of making a few bucks off of everything in the game having been conceived right from the beginning.
To be brutally honest, if MMO games move away from the subscription model, I'm going to stop playing them. I can neither afford, nor desire to tolerate, "pay for everything" gaming. I don't mind the sale of purely cosmetic items as long as the range of options in the base game is substantial to begin with (ie not looking like a clone unless you pay). For example WoW's sale of static pets and mounts doesn't bug me because there is no advantage to them, and there are already hundreds of differant mounts and static pets in the game. If you collect them you could probably ride a differant mount and have a differant pet out every day of the month and still have plenty of them left you never use, without having to pay a dime. In that case if you REALLY want to pay for more of these, more power to you.
I'll also warn you, like a lot of the "FTP" browser based games, there is a glass ceiling. Game developers are masters of that. Playing a game right now and thinking "oh yeah, I can have a great time with this without paying a dime" can be deceptive as the timers for things steadily increase to the point of the game being unplayable... unless of course you buy items to lower timers, or increase exps gain, or remove level differances (like in Allods), and by that point you've invested so much time it seems increasingly reasonable. After a while your paying more than a subscription would ever cost.
Don't forget that there have been articles about some of the bills people have run up playing games like "Farmville", not to mention some kid spending like $1500.00 on Smurfberries without realizing it. It hits both kids and adults, which is why there is a
push (quiet, but building) to have this model regulated as being addictive and predatory.
As I said above, I'll stick with my subscription model or leave, thanks.
