I for one am willing to pay to play, as long as I\'m getting my money\'s worth (paying for servers, 24 hour online GMs, good low latency, no cheating/bugs, and a huge/fun game).
The problem with the "extra" amount for a game is it\'s a one time thing, and if they say "free online gaming" on the box (ie diablo 2), then they have enough to buy a certain number of servers, and then that\'s it, they start loosing money. Diablo II has horrible latency because it poorly used the server side programming (especially at release), and they couldn\'t afford to expand realms untill more people bought it (and now there are more people online). I paid 120 cdn for a special edition of D2, the normal edition was 100, and most games here are 60-70. But it is still mostly unplayable until after 1:00 am, or before 4:00 pm. Would I pay a monthly fee for it? No. But if I did, you can bet I would expect 24 hour playability, and resolution to the duping/hostility bug issues a lot faster than was done.
MMORPG worlds, however, AC or EQ for instance, do appeal to me. They can be so much bigger than any single disk RPG can be, with real person interaction, great (neverending-expanding) quests, more items, etc, etc. I think you guys will be surprised at how many people all over the world will be willing to pay a small, reasonable fee to play FFXI online with hundreds of other people.