[Baram]

All IRE games are essentially free until you pay to advance faster.

I personally was never a big spender, only in one of the three IRE games did I ever spend anything, yet in all three games my characters were of equal strength (the 3rd one, whom I spent no money on, was actually the biggest).

I would suggest you do even a little research before you go making such claims, as obviously you haven't spent any time looking at ToP. For example, our is different from the standard IRE model, giving players more freedom in what they learn and actually reducing the need to spend RL money. Also our system gives players another way to gain the most powerful items, without the need to spend RL money or gain credits from other players. In fact our whole is designed to increase the need for player skill and reduce the need for external money.