Yeah, the F2P thing is a warning flag for me too, but I loved CoH, and was a shame to see it go away...
GW and GW2 are the ones that started it that way. Diablo 3 followed suit, and The Secret World went that way recently. Pay2Play is dead for the most part, WoW, Rift and Eve are the only ones left on that model. Everything else has gone with a F2P option, though many remain Pay2Win.
Actually, there were many large and successful MMOs prior to WoW. Right now a crap comp can run WoW, but not at launch.
Yes there have been successful mmo's but not on WoW's level and this is why companies keep thinking about making mmo's to try become the next big thing. People don't want to pay for subs anymore like they use to. there are more gamers but they are very cheap nowadays.
I think it depends on the game. The games that you have a sub to pay, should be on the higher end of the MMO spectrum. The MMO's you buy, then with the microtransactions within the game, appear to be where a lot of games are headed, but that also can generate pay 2 win folks. Then there are the F2P games with microtransactions, where pay 2 winners are everywhere.
Yeah, its a line to walk with microtransactions. In my opinion, GW2 has done the best job of it. Cosmetic and extra storage or char slots is what makes up the buying options. No gear that will influence play. Compared to EQ and EQ2 where there are huge chunks of content inaccessible without paying a monthly fee. P2Win are games that I would never touch.
Sub bases mmo's are going the way of the dodo. swtor did a poll and found out people just don't want to pay a sub anymore and they would play if it was free. they started preferred where you pay when you want to pay. $15 a month isn't that much and when people are complaining they have to pay then you know you have new gamers that are cheap and aren't hardcore gamers.
It wasn't the sub that was killing SWTOR, it was the lack of end game content. There wasn't any reason to bust your a$$ to get to 50. Once you got there, you ran what, the same couple raids over and over, and maybe some PvP. The game was great up until you got into the 40's then lost me...
At least WoW was cognisant about adding content, where SWTOR didn't really do anything or make you think that they were pushing the envelope. It was almost as if once they'd released the game, they all went for pizza and beers and thought the game would run itself...
You can't really compare a new game vs a game that has been out and the developers know how to make the content and what works. vanilla WoW there was nothing when the game came out and had to wait 2 years for an expansion. Yes they came out with additional raids but not enough in where there would be months of no new content. It takes time to develop especially for a new game where they don't have all the glitches worked out like blizzard can with WoW.