It was one of the last games that I bought the additional compendium guide or whatever they were called. It was like $20 or something and broke down every little nuance of the game and the possible builds that you could have.

I also hated the subscription model but it was kind of all we knew at the time, right? Prior to this I was only aware of 2 other MMO's that even existed and that was Anarchy Online and Everquest.