[Threshold]

The things you pay for in Threshold do not make your character more powerful. They are customization, cosmetic, and convenience stuff mostly, like player owned housing, more item storage (but everyone gets some storage for free), etc.

One of our biggest mottos is "Players ARE content", and what that means to us is that even people who play for free are extremely valuable to the game and the community. Even if they don't spend money on the game, they might still enhance the experience of people who do, which means they do indeed have a real value to the game.

We have 15 years of experience in improving and enhancing the system so people who want to pay get things they like, but people who don't want to pay can still have a blast but are not unbalancing at all. Managing this type of "free to play" business model is not easy, and that's where the experience, practice, and tons of player feedback comes in.

In the IRE games, you actually need credits to advance your character. I don't want to go into much detail, since they aren't my games and I don't want to speak for them. But to advance your character beyond a certain point you must have credits either by buying them or trading with another PC who bought them. I think there's a significant difference between IRE's system and ours, though both systems have their merits imho.

I also believe NW is now pay for perks as well, but again its not my game so I don't want to speak for them.