I think most of the item mall games can be played entirely without the item mall items.  Atlantica is no exception to that.  All of them incorporate little necessities that are hard to get by without  Like the example scrolls discussed in the article.

Atlantica is no different than it's competitors, no better, no worse. 

You can't be competitive with the players who do purchase from item malls unless you yourself also buy from item malls. That's a fact because of the way the item mall games are designed. Anyone who thinks the developers design these supposedly Free to play games to actually be played without ever having to purchase anything, is a fool.

I have to admit, in the case of Atlantica Online I have been playing it, having fun, and am so far impressed with the way NDoors is running the game and the way their Item Mall functions.

I will say that I have purchased some of their GCoins, and have used some of them in their mall. I did so because I I was enjoying the game and thought it was a good idea to support it so that it could continue to exist, not because of some need to HAVE to buy the items to be able to actually play the game. (Although it did make life a little easier... )

One of the previous commentors made a statement about having to buy items from the store to compete with other players. In the case of Atlantica I would have to disagree with that assessment. All of the scrolls that I have seen sold by the store so far are set so they can not be used during PvP battles, so they limit the advantage of these items for when you are questing. I personally thought that this was a nice touch to make the items helpful without unbalacing the PvP side of things just to force sales....

as said by Ozmodan, Atlantica can actually be played without the item mall. most of the licenses like health check and patrol are not really that necessary unless you're a really competitive gamer who likes winning in the free leagues or something like that. actually, for the health check license, you can use the cannoneers deep insight as a substitute.

besides, all you have to do is wait and eventually item mall items eventually become available at the ingame market though prices are usually high.

the guys behind Atlantica online are pure genius.

The mall is by no means game breaking for non users.

This is the most innovative, addictive, fun & complex mmo for a long long time.

I have been playing two f2p games for a couple of months now, Perfect World International, and Atlantica online.  I was able to play PWI without using the cash shop until I got to about level 20 (this is soloing, for the most part), and then I needed to buy Hit Point and Mana Charms to be able to continue to quest as a solo player (I'm now $40 into "Zen" on PWI...)  Atlantica has proven to be a deeper more interesting game to me than PWI, and I have yet to need something from the cash shop (although I have been gettling little teaser freebies that make the item mall tempting).  I really love the game (I seem to be really bad at the PVP aspect though), and will probably devote more of my limited gaming time to it, as opposed to PWI (At least their patching days are different!)

I think that the prices in the item mall are a little steep, though...you could spend $50.00 bucks a month on stuff to make life a little easier, makes WoW seem like a bargain....

The only objections I have with item malls is that it is like buying experience by making you level faster. Lets hope this isn't the case here.