When I read this I totally believed it was true right up until the point where you said it was a joke, the reason being that the dilemma of being able to go straight to level 80 but being locked into a $30 dollars a month subscription forever for doing so sounds just what a evil marketing genius would dream up.
Still not sure though if this approach would actually net more money or not, it trivialises the character building and storyline although this is what they are currently doing, and while
Blizzard don't called themselves a MMORPG their success owes a lot to copying one in EQ1, and that's not a fee that's going to encourage people to carry on playing long.
Me personally, it depresses me that so many people would pay for this, instant gratification at the expense of the wallet seems to be fine with a lot of people today, whereas no one would have dreamed of a £5 slot on a double dragon machine that transports you directly to the end boss level, or buying a special premium version of Eye of the Beholder that allows you to skip areas or grants better starting gear.
I think a lot of people are playing the wrong game when they want these sort of changes since I believe to change a RPG to include them means losing something from the RPG, that's just my take on it though.
Besides, ZT Online already caters perfectly to the wallet heavy gameplay :)
