Kickstarter is for developing and publishing products in mind. You can help fund a kickstarter without actually getting the product or service, depending on what you contribute.

Pre-order is with consumption primarily in mind.

Objectively, they are not comparable. However it's not uncommon for people to treat kickstarter as a pre-order, and in that case they are very much the same. This is a question less about where you spend your money, but rather what your motives are, your level entitlement as a result of your spending, and how much you bitch on internet forums as a result.

It can be a pain to die a lot, but it makes finding the correct strategy more rewarding. Personal stories in GW2 can be ridic, especially if you're soloing it, but when I get stuck, I just leave that part alone for a bit and think of a different way to try things. Or I just keep going at it until my armour all breaks and then take a break from it. Even if I don't feel like a genius for not knowing what approach is best right away, it feels good to figure it out in the end. It doesn't feel nearly so good to just spam a macro and steamroll through content.

Certain portions could definitely be tweaked not to be punishing to the point of discouraging further play, but I like it that the game respects me enough to expect more.

The idea of an MMO savior at all is pretty much ridiculous. Can't we just be satisfied with finding a game that we enjoy playing?

Ahahahaha ~ it was a good laugh indeed ~ it's nice to know that the more things change the more they stay the same. 

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/3907/How-many-of-you-are-like-me.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/4537/Am-I-in-the-minority.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/4282/Ive-lost-that-loving-feeling-.html

Whats interesting to see is how differently free to play was treated back before WoW ~

Rather than a bubble, I see the mmo industry as a tree. With its roots in tabletop games, adventure games, muds, and the like, and coming together in a few, very strong titles that created the main direction of the genre, but eventually branching out into smaller, more flexible and sustainable games that go in various other directions. Some of those branches don't survive, either for natural reasons or due to intentional actions. Over time, new branches take their place.

Lots of games have closed. Many more are about to launch or are in developement. It's normal and healthy.

Originally posted by maplestone

It's completely corrosive. The game ceases to be a game and decays towards simply being an advertising medium for microtransactions.

That's really melodramatic. A game is still a game. Microtransactions don't change that anymore than subs do (because if you haven't noticed companies pushing people to get friends to sub or to increase the length of their sub then you haven't been paying attention) ~ pretty much all games, both video games and irl, have their share of advertising being pushed on the public. But they're still games :/ 

Originally posted by Creslin321

Even fairly innocuous cash shops like purely cosmetic ones can take the fun out of working to achieve your gear, since you can just buy it instead.

Purely cosmetic gear doesnt have stats. So you'd still get the fun of working to achieve the real gear that turns you into a badass or w/e. 

But as far as your horizontal model goes? Players who don't like cash shops still wouldn't like cash shops. There's people complaining over GW2 "only" offering 5 default character slots and making player pay for more like its a heinous and unreasonable act. LoL heroes have a pokemon appeal, but real mmorpg characters and classes don't have that at all. You aren't picking just which hero you're going to play for this next game, you're picking a character that represents you in a persistant world for the next few weeks/months/or if you really like it: years. Not to mention the people who are unsure about what class they want to play, what if they decide midway that they don't like their class? Do they have to buy another slot or lose all their progress with this character? What if they don't really like the next class? If the player keeps finding situations full of lose/lose choices and buyer's remorse, how long are they going to stick with a game? 

Honestly? I really doubt there is any one-size-fits-all payment model that will suit every game and gamer, and so "best" is purely subjective and is only accurate on the individual level.