The OP was an attack on unsubscribed players,
I'm not sure how you're defining the word "attack," but to call it such signifies great ignorance of what an attack actually is. An "attack," to be such and therefore be valid, would have to commit either an ad-hominem fallacy (attacking the person instead of the topic), or it would have to start off with a personal attack ("You moron," "You idiot," etc.).
The OP was not an attack, it was simply a
suggestion.
This book might be of help to you.
Just because you run in the vertical, doesn't mean you're not running.
Spoken from the position of someone who understands very little about ACM (and completely contradicting Robert Shaw at the same time). I would suggest
this book, specifically Chapter 4 (One-versus-One Maneuvering, Dissimilar Aircraft [in particular, section 1:
Low Wing Loading versus High Thrust-to-Weight).
That said, the reasoning behind my suggestion was very straightforward. Opinions are not created equal, and at the core, paying customers' opinions almost always outweigh the opinions of those not paying for service.
If a player, who isn't paying, comes to the forum and complains about the game, what good is his opinion? He's not paying (and therefore playing) it to begin with. However, now he and everyone else (including prospective, potentially new players) see that opinion and it affects their interactions to a degree, as all communications do.
By the same taken, if a player who is paying comes to the forum and complains, his opinion has, at the very least, the weight of a $14.99 subscription behind it. To ignore his feedback and opinion, again - at the least - means potentially throwing away in the income of $14.99 per month.
And this is not unusual - almost every single, major pay-to-play game on the internet has forum access tied to subscriptions. Why? Because it works. Otherwise, you can have any number of people come in and complain about the game. Similarly, forum users who stay with the community simply for the forum are still enjoying the benefits of the game (after all, the forum would not exist if it were not for the game), so why should they be allowed to access for free hat others are essentially paying for to keep alive (if all paying subscribers quit, then the forums would cease to exist as the game would cease to exist).
Regardless of how much fun and community are built around the forum, it is a forum built for a business. Requiring a subscription to access the forum ensures that everyone is paying to access the game and its materials, even if its just the forum. And to top it all off, this isn't some radical idea - this is
industry standard. It would also benefit HTC and generate more revenue for future game development.