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Personally, I rather a pay-for-perks system. In my experience it makes for a more enjoyable experience for me, as I have complete control over how my contributions effect my play, and I have a choice to buy nice new things when I can afford it yet still play when I'm flat broke. I also feel I should mention that you can buy every perk in the game I play with gold, one way or another, and I've done so with several major things my character owns.
Also, I'm going to throw a comment out there that will no doubt illicit some rather angry comments.. but this goes a long way to why I like pay for perks:
I find the top end players on pay-for-perks muds to be more mature and level headed. I assume this is because mostly they're older and more mature.
Now, before a 13 year old uber-mudder indignantly defends all his fellow pubescent kind, I would like to point out that my statement is very general. I have known 13 year old players of great worth and merit, and ones in their mid 30s with the maturity of a half eaten banana. Even with these points taken into account, there is a definate bias towards the older player.
Back on topic, I don't really think having pay zones would work. Having a sense of equality between paying and non-paying customers is important to the success of a healthy playerbase, largely because people expect their potential to be the same as every other player out there. Many often get disenfranchised when they find out that it isn't. Perhaps its just me, but that'd cheese me off. My MUDding past has almost entirely been pay-for-perks, but even when I used to interact with much bigger people than myself I never felt cheaated or sour about the situation.
I assume certain people are suited to certain models, be they free, pay to play or pay for perks. That doesn't make any model more or less correct or applicable.
-H
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