This is not good business sense. From what I understand they had planned 2 plans in advance. They say they plan no more. But still this is bad marketing I think.
Actually it’s more like good marketing gone awry. They have developed a way to keep people interested in paying without keeping them or paying members interested in the game - so in the sense that they may be able to get more people to pay or some people to pay again they have something. In the sense that it mostly sucks for everyone but them and for the time being new founding members. I am not real surprised and felt this may have been what someone alluded to without describing what was known. I wondered if anyone but members would ever be able to have a horse.
I think the biggest issue is, they have not delivered on the first one-time only founding membership things. They are well aware that most of the buyers will be people that are currently members, question here is does the 3 months add on to your already paid time? And will they still be around in 6 months. They promised horses weeks ago, now they have new horses they won't deliver anytime soon either - and now to find out certain horses will only be good for certain things - only we really don't know what that means yet either.
I had no issue paying to play this or any other game if that’s what you want to do, I think most agree that it is not a finished product but many of us paid to help support the development. I would hope that members would have had access to all new items – not just select new items. Also this seems to set a pattern that could become a regular thing – if you want this item pay this, again if that was how it appeared to be set up that might be ok but it was indicated members would get early access to new items.
I think many of us that did pay will look at this as we decide if we will pay again in the future. They clearly need money to operate and they put in a lot of work but they need to get their act together – get a plan and stick to it. Many of the details remain unclear and will require calls to them where everyone gets a different happy story.