@jahlon in general you are right, buuut it is a huge difference to implement a subscription system, that gives a bit advantage, to the real pay2win cash crabs.
Fractured will be in it's sense a pay to play game, because you pay once and you can reach all content without paying anything else.
But for reason we get an MMO and there is the need of earning money by the studio to hold the servers running, there need to be something for that the people are willing to pay. So small advantages for buyer that are not gamebreaking for non buyer is not a classical pay to win.
Games thats classified as pay2win games are such, where the advantage you can buy with real money is really neccessary to win the game. Or even gives real money based content thats just available for buyer.
Per example the extra Bagslots at POE are a real pay2win, because, you can't get it without paying and the extra inventory slots are quite neccessary for making ingame money.
Let's look to Fractured:
So, not the small advantage of VIP at Fractured will be pay2win, because it is promised by Devs, that this advantage is so small, that it does not matter at all, because someone who don't have it, still has the possibility to reach same in not so much more time.
The real Pay2Win for Fractured could be at least the extra Character Slots that you just can buy at shop and that are not obtainable ingame.
But c'mon, to specify this as a pay2win game for this reason is silly as hell.
It is not fair to place games that have this small advantages at same level as greedy cash crab games.
A Developing Studio don't develope a game just for fun and just because they are nice and want to give us something for a small amount of money. They are not samaritians.
They are bussinessmen, who want to get a reward out of their hard work.
And they need money for running the servers, giving us ungoing updates and have something to live in, to eat, a t-shirt and a water glass