past a certain level will allow you to “buy” ongoing time playing the game, to avoid subscription costs. There’s also still the initial cost of the game, but the subscription becomes not so much “optional”
Most of "teh l33t" kids give up at tutorial stage, so what remains is a wonderful community of people dedicated to the game. After leaving the station for the first time in my rookie ship, I was overwhelmed by the complex universe created there. Now I am doing agent missions, mining ...