Being the GW junkie of the site, I have to say GW1 is not a true MMO. It's an Online RPG. Groups support 4-12 people  depending on the area, and only 2 areas support 12; most areas support 8-player groups. D2 was the same way. Having centralized hubs for communication (chat rooms in D2 or cities/guilds in GW) does not make a game MMO. MMO = MASSIVELY multiplayer online. Keyword, massive[ly].

That said, GW2 will be a true MMO with a persistent world. No word on server size, but there will be 100s or 1000s of players in the same area/world at the same time. Also, you don't have to expect GW2 to be free, it definitely will be, they have been clear about that from the start.

All of that said, there are plenty of F2P MMOs, and there are plenty of P2P MMOs. Paying $30-60 up front then $10-15 a month is completely normal.

Bottom line, there are successful F2P MMOs and successful P2P MMOs (including one of, if not the most successful games of all time, WoW); and there are unsuccessful games of both types. If you don't like that a game is P2P, then just ignore it.

if it was free to play I would have still considered buying it.....

I used to not get MMO's at all. Because it's the same game, I'd think you'd get tired of it. Then I realized I play basketball constantly. Outside from maybe some football on the beach in the summer I don't play any other sports anymore and I'm fine with that, because I love playing basketball. If it meant paying $15 a month to play basketball or $60 every few months to play a new sport, I'd take basketball anyday. 

1. 15GB is nothing lol. Anyone that doesn't have 120gb of space needs to buy one already. They are super cheap.

2. You get the first month free. 

3. 15$ is also nothing for an MMO that gives you countless hours of play.

4. On PC you can get a lifetime membership for 200$

That's a lie! I just deleted the Beta from my HDD and it was 17GB

Anyway, that is how MMO's work. you need to have the whole assets on HDD so they can update and expand on it easily.

its standard for MMO's

nothing unusual here

DC UNIVERSE is a great game

yup, i think my WoW Folder is 40GB big, 15GB is actually something acceptable, but be prepared to save another 20GB if this game has good legs xD (Addon's n stuff)

@RVDonda:

the thing about MMO(RPG)s is, that it has to be a game you actually like in the first place. After it, there is the socialising aspect, youre in steady contact to other players, and you'll of course make new friends.and once you have a nice ammount, you start compairing Achievements/Gear/progress. then you want to be better than them. (or successful by playing with them). and since there always will be someone who is better than you, youre trying to catch up .. all the time. (or simply stay up to date.) .. and then you become slightly addicted.. like .. addicted to the internetz xD you could live without it, but you see no reason in not using it, because you.. wanna stay up to date. :>

@Costs:

The Dev-team aswell as an Support team will continue their work for this one title, and those serverfarms (do they have their own or are they using sony's? nevertheless, both is costly for sure) have to be kept healthy too. thats a huge ammount of money that will go to waste every month, so the most MMORPGs wouldnt be any success if they wouldnt take a monthly fee. (F2P Games are different story, their quality sucks and they sell you single items.. oh and guild wars? they ARE taking a fee. in Korea. and the game is still nothing compared to other MMORPGs. but no, i am not talking about GW2.)

Even with these negatives, I heard that it was a fantastic game....I'd be all over it if I could afford $15 a month.

First month is free. If you don't like it, return it.

not all mmos require you to pay, but most of them require you to pay something.  someone earlier mentioned maplestory as being free.  what they dont charge upfront they charge in other ways.  in most free mmos like maplestory they let you get healing potions that heal 50 hp and make you buy the healing potions that heal 5000 hp for real money.  or they sell items that give you an experience boost of 10000% for an hour.

anyone who plays those games regularly has to buy these things if they want to play the game for any extended amount of time and not kill the same thing for a month.  guild wars didnt use their own servers to run the game very much, the same as diablo 2.  you host a game and others join it.  their server cost is way less than other mmos.

essentially what youre paying for are the developers time to create updates to the game, making more content for the users to play through.  DCUO is the same and SoE isnt new to this, theyve had houndreds of thousands (probably in the millions) of people (using very similar payment plans) playing their online games for over ten years.  people pay for it because its worth it.