I've been playing this game for well over 500 days now, only knowing because they added a fancy stats screen to it just recently.

Being a pay-to-win game with resources like energy, stamina and honor, all regenerating over time, it's pretty tough to get a quick or even decent start as a beginner. The gaps between old whales - the payers, and new players are incredible huge. Everyknow and then, that gap is being reduced by handing out items that are close to equivilant of the best items available to purchase. One such example is a mount called 'Steed of Western Wold'. Before that mounts release, the #1 oh-god-I'm-strong mount was a two-headed unicorn. Awfully expensive to max out. Then the Steed came. It took 101 Steeds to max it out, but that was easily and quickly farmed. So all of the sudden, free players, especially the lower level ones, had a chance to catch up to the stronger players. Or at least get into higher tiers at the frequent World Raids and Event Raids.

What makes the game so addictive, I have no clue.. I would guess it's the story, if anyone cares for that, the new content every now and then, achievement system, daily log-in rewards and such. Even guilds used to be useless except of a few raids. Now, although a bit old, another system has spiced that up. Guild levels, personal guild reputation and buyable rewards depending ong your personal reputation and the guilds level. Guild campaigns to show which guild spends the most money on pots and stuff like that.

The artwork in raids are really great too. The new world-chat can sometimes be great too, but sadly exposes you to the vast amount of fools which were harder to spot before, due to different chat rooms.

Have no doubt the company, 5PG, wants your money. But with time, you can catch up and become quite strong for free. Worth a shot, if not only for the badges. They're somewhat quick to get.