u mean u haven't bought your pally the death ray?
cheapskate!
thing is, there is a level where browser games cannot go beyond.
That being, they cannot charge the serious money like WOW or any of the games of that ilk because using a browser they can never be as good as a proper purpose - written game engine.
They are aiming for the very top end of the browser market, which means they have to have a good product. So far it looks good enough, translations, bugs etc. notwithstanding. A good idea, a well designed game and an experienced team. They can't charge as much for TW because, well... by comparison it's a weak game. We are lucky that we are in on this now so we can exert some kind of feedback to the producers. And right at this moment because of the sophistication and complexity of the game a player with premium doesn't have that big an advantage - because he doesn't necessarily know how to use it. Paying to finish buildings faster when you don't have the resources to build another for instance whilst the careful non-premium player plans his better.
There are certain makes and breaks for a game of this kind though. A less graphic version is a must - because (speaking as a member of that affluent market) if i can't connect with a hand held device and i'm paying that kind of cash then i may as well pay the few dollars more and go for a totally immersive game that actually uses the potential of my expensive gaming machine. Then there needs to be effective support (there is), and good servers and all that other stuff that the gamer with money demands for his dollars. It's not an easy market they are aiming for by any means, but they obviously believe they have a product that can compete. Right now - it looks like they do.
But you know what i say (and i hope this gets passed on)?
They need to get someone in the graphics dept to sort out the smileys in the forums!
Honestly - all those nasty white pixels around the edges - what did they do, cut them out of a scrapbook and paste them in?