Even spending $300 on a F2P MMO is seldom enough to make you "1337." So many of the "must-have" items are consumables. Throw in some money for a skill reset or some other items, and you can easily rack up a tab of a few hundred dollars just to stay afloat.

If you truly are dedicated to an MMO, then a P2P is a much better choice. Because no matter how much you are willing to spend, you'll only have to spend $15 a month. Whereas with a F2P...well, there are stories of top players who have spent thousands of dollars on a game.
not every f2p game has this problem. Depending on the CS but yeah most of them have a bad CS. Like i said allready..playing mabi since the first kr version and the only thing where you need some money are mounts or perhaps some fashion things (if you really need them). The rest is not necessary because you can get all the things in game and even if you wanna rebirth more than every 3 weeks..its still not a high price...like a p2p one ^^