First of all, it's not selfish. Any and every well maintained MMORPG requires a monthly fee mainly for upkeep of the servers and obviously profit. I think I've said this in two other threads now, but whatever. $12.95 a month, first month free, for one content ID. You get one character per content ID. You pay an extra $1.00 for Tetra Master and $1.00 for each additional content ID (additional characters.) A hefty sum of these fees are put towards the maintanence of the servers. This keeps the game functioning well and running smoothly. Such fees also ward off most hackers, and also, through mainanence, is used to prevent other hackers and other things like that.

You cannot play the game on your own, and it wouldn't really be possible to do so anyways. Even if you could play the game offline, you wouldn't have a chance against almost any monster beyond the first ten levels.

Flat monthly fee, unlimited gaming.

As I'm sure many will say, the game is well worth the price. It's one of best MMORPGs out there and I'm sure many will agree. I've only met a handful of people who disliked it, and that was mainly because it takes a great deal of time to do certain things. If you don't have time to play for a couple hours to do certain missions or quests, this game is not for you. But if you've got the time, it's awesome. Very easy to get hooked though.