I think the flak they are getting for the $450.00 Founders Package, from a Forbes Article is a bit deserved. The author of the article is right, too:

 

 Any company could try and make more money by selling exclusive content and “honors” at absurdly high prices, but most don’t. Video games are unique because superluxury items have little to no physical cost attached to them. The work and materials that go into making a Bugatti Veyron a million dollar car may very well be worth that price tag, but the same can’t be said for a $500 gold plated virtual robot, which requires developers to do little more than changing a six digit color code. At that point, you’re selling air, and your players will resent you for the attempt. This seems to be mostly an MMO issue, and one that only serves to contribute to the decline of the genre.

 

 

I understand things like the tiers of annual subscription packages, which we could drop $99.99 for on RuneScape, but I hope we don't see anything like the Cybernite packages elsewhere anytime soon. Because, knowing how much some of my friends and clanmates love this game, they might pay for it. But I don't think most gamers can afford that, and those who can are either rich or not able to sustain that sort of purchase for long. It drains goodwill. 

 

Edit: I just want to add that I'm looking at Transformers Universe for precedents it might set for other games Jagex is working on, mainly RuneScape, really 

Well said. If I had the money and how much I enjoy Runescape. I'd probably buy some kinda package like that. I know I shouldn't, but meh.... I really hope Runescape never receives something outside of the gold membersip they have done the past two Decembers.

TFU is also a freemium model game, while RS uses a monthly subscription model.

Gold membership did give some more small stuff compared to regular members, but nothing major.

"founder's packs" have been around for a while now....only a few of them have actually meant something, and even then, they're probably going to end up as some sort of farce anyway

I'd like to give it a try, but I can't log in...  Says my email/pw is invalid every time...

You have to have had an actual rs account that logs in with email (same account across all Jagex games, except it sounds like TFU only works with the accounts that log in with email, wouldn't let me log in with an account which logs in with username.)

It's too complex for me. Tried a few times. Managed to kill one person, died about 15.

Beta and taking cash.

No for me, somebody else can throw money at unfinished junk.

I already learned my lesson with "Towns".

Having given the beta a try I found it oddly enjoyable (since its not overly my sort of game), though for me a big flaw was the lack of introductory tutorial-esque ai based stuff. (kinda like how LoL and the like let you play vs ai to begin with) just because there are a lot of nuances to how the fighting works that they don't really explain before your just chucked in with other players and with even minimal level disparity there can be quite a skill difference that results in you just dying whilst mashing stuff trying to figure out why you can't do a much before you die.

it could be in the phase where the mechanics aren't entirely set in stone, and they're probably holding off (or too lazy) to put a tutorial in before they get a sense of what the focus should be on