There's an interview on PCGamer.com which will allay some of these fears, at least insomuch as the developers are aware of the stigma associated with F2P:
http://www.pcgamer.c...s-the-series/2/
Quote
So you talk about upgrading skills, a leveling system, upgrading your Mech, and this is such a tricky area for F2P games. There are all these fears about pay-to-win games, and Mech aficianados, they know the specs on a Mech. They know what the Mech is capable of. How is progression going to work? It’s F2P, but obviously money comes into it somewhere. What does your money buy you?
BE: One of the most important things in any F2P games, in my opinion, is not allowing players to buy skill. The fastest way to destroy your game is to allow your players to buy something that gives them a tactical advantage over an enemy. So we’ve been very careful about what you can purchase and what you need to earn.
Can you get into items and upgrades yet?
BE: You’re going to to be able to purchase, using a variety of different methods, Mechs, Mech pieces, skills – but I’ll be careful with what i mean about skills.
When it comes to the pilot, you’ll be able to train your pilot to fit the role that you like. But you won’t be able to pay real cash for pilot training, for example. That would be through earned experience points or earned in-game cash. So you would actually have to play the game to upgrade your pilot. Anything that would affect or give your a tactical advantage, you can’t purchase with real cash. You have to earn that by playing the game.
So we have a pilot tree, a skill tree. As you level up you can unlock new features and new abilities. So if you want to be a scout, you would get skills related to information technology, or being able to move faster, hide, things like that. If you wanted to be more of an assault person, it would be more related to weapon control and such.
It's good to be aware of common marketing lies, but any hyperventilating commenter pretending to have solid knowledge of how things will turn out with this game can't be taken seriously. We just don't have enough information, and probably won't until people have been playing the actual game for months.
Edited by phytochrome, 31 October 2011 - 03:46 PM.