The game is great, you don't need to spend money to be good but it does help get you up there way faster than normal. You get to meet great people in servers if you get lucky as well since it is very interactive. Only downsides is that server longevity isn't great. If you get money spending people who are bad guys, you will dislike the server over time and people will become inactive. Second downside is that events get repetitive but it helps grow a good amount. They are adding more content pretty consistently but they need to be quicker if not they'll lose way more players and old servers will get more stale as well