How is the game doing?

[Brannigan]

don't want to put down the money for the subscription if nothing much has changed.

They're not charging subscription fees until they feel the game is worth it. It's been free since release. If you stopped playing before the first month ended it's probably worth checking out. No real content has come in yet (that's coming in 1.18, which is coming up...soonish), but since release

-SP system has been changed
-Accuracy is better
-Max party size has been reduced
-Anima costs have been reduced
-Market Ward searching
-The horrific UI lag that was in for the first month or so of the game is (mostly) gone
-Battle Regimens work
-Puddings, goblins, and mites were added. Also some crappy NMs
-Sidequests with quest markers and guild tasks (both are a little basic right now though)
-Leveling pre-24 is insanely fast. After that it keeps a decent pace but gets boring (sup BW3)
-High Quality drops are now all +3 so it doesn't clutter inv as much (inventory size was increased too I think)
-Gear doesn't decay as quickly
-Crafting is a lot better in general (I don't craft so I can't remember many specifics)
-Stack sizes up (999 arrows instead of 99, etc)
-MP regen
-Better targeting with controllers
-a bunch of other stuff

might as well check it out (or wait til 1.18 is out).