sucks that its a monthly fee to actually get more than a year for  your character.... disappointing

I understand that completely. I'm not trying to get rich, its just server costs. Transparently this game is expensive to run, and with some people playing 1000+ turns it eats through my server credits so I had to limit it for free users to 12 turns per day. The turns reset every day so you can still come back and keep playing!