One character is all you need to play this game. You want more - pay for it. It's optional. And it's very fair. They are not selling any exp or drop rates increasing runes or materia or any things like that in cash shop. It's only glamours, minions, retainers, extra character slots, etc... things that are not really essential for this game. As for those extra character slots, I don't even concern myself with it. Have one character and totally happy with it. And if i ever want to make alt - it's not forbidden to make characters on different servers.