World of Warcraft free-to-play to level 20

[Zeli]

Starting today, anyone with a Battle.net account can play any character they want to in World of Warcraft up to level 20 completely for free.

more: www.stumbleupon.com/su/2aGKkV/www.shacknews.com/article/69096/world-warcraft-free-to-play


That's perfect for me since I never got that far on a character anyway!

[Zeli]

okay... so I may have played a bit on a new free account last night...

DON'T JUDGE ME!

[Slurm]

YOU SHALL BE JUDGED!

and I wrote up some thoughts.....more like ponderings...

www.multiplaying.net/2011/06/29/thoughts-on-wows-endless-trial/

[Zeli]

my answer to your article:

I don't think the goal for Blizz is for people to roll to 20 and reroll or remain at that level. I think they're hoping to squeeze out a few more thousand casual people who accidentally get caught up in the game but until now have been on the fence and no time limit is really encouraging.

I've given out a few 14-day free trials to friends who only manage to log in once in that time frame. Maybe they would have logged in a few more times if it wasn't so restricting. Some people only play video games once a week... or even less...

Because it's free and I have no organized friends in any other free game that I want to play, these trials are filling an MMO void. Without guildies I have trouble focusing on a single game. Guild Wars is a great game, but the instanced world is so lonely for me. WAR provides a great endless trial and I pop in there from time to time, but I rarely plan it out. WoW is very comforting. Without a guild, I have no motivation to progress so it doesn't matter if there's a level limit. Let's face it, I'm not exactly an end-gamer, especially left on my own. These aren't bad deals for me. It's kinda fun seeing what I can accomplish within the limitations.

Although I'm not paying, I am participating in active entry level areas preventing the look of an end-level only game to potential new paying players. I have no desire to resub to WAR or Wow though. For me, the free trials are filler.

[Cavallina]

I agree with Zeli, I think Blizzard is hoping to attract a couple more subscriptions. I think they see the writing on the wall and know their subscriptions will be impacted by other MMO's and newer technology. Let's face it, the game is over 6 years old and they are trying squeeze all they can out of it to fund their new MMO project.
The thing is, I would recommend this to any of you who haven't played since the new expansion. The starting areas have been revamped, especially the undead area. It's epic, with a great storyline and meaningful quests (for the most part) and now it's free.

Over the last 5 years I have only been without an active WoW subscription for only about 6 months. It fills that void for me even if I only play a couple days a month. It's familiar and comforting as Zeli said. When SWToR is released I plan on canceling my subscription and hanging with my awesome guildies (I can only hope it lasts longer than Aion).

[GrilledCheese28 (aka Aruth)]

I think they are at least partially aimed at people like me that nowadays will not buy a MMO without a free trial or beta test entry.

I think its a smart move. They'll eek out a few more subs from this. Once those newbies get bitten by the mmo bug they'll open their wallets.

[Rer]

Level 19 PvP Twinks anyone? Rofl

[Slurm]

Oh man, I didn't even think about that. What's going to happen to the market for items around those levels?!?!

ZELI! WILL YOU STILL BE ABLE TO FARM SMALL EGGS WITH ALL THESE NOOBS?!?

[Zeli]

For PVP, I'd switch over to T1 WAR trial

and it does no good to farm eggs. Trial accounts in WoW cannot trade, use the mail or Auction House. You can't even /tell someone unless you're on their friends list.

btw Cav : if you have a current account and still have a character in CoT on Silver Hand, I'd like to test and see if trial accounts can get a guild invite.

[Cavallina]

Jun 29, 2011 12:49:21 GMT -5 Zeli said:

btw Cav : if you have a current account and still have a character in CoT on Silver Hand, I'd like to test and see if trial accounts can get a guild invite.

No problem, ust let me know when you'll be on. Or you can friend me through Battlenet with your new account.

[Zeli]

cool. I think i'll be on tonight after 9.

character: zvy

[professer]

Well I'm sure I'm not the type they're trying to attract. Its been years since I've visited Azeroth.

[Winin]

Me too. I think I went back once since quitting. It was a pretty clean break for me. Not like my usual backsliding-in-a-moment-of-weakness. A free trial is like...you know what, I'm not going to finish that thought.

[Zeli]

Big thanks to Cav for logging in tonight and attempting multiple ways to contact me when I didn't respond via battlenet chat.

why didnt I respond to his realid/battlenet chat? because they don't appear to trial accounts and the person sending them receives no message either so to anyone who may have tried to talk to me... I wasn't ignoring you. I didn't get your chat.

My trial account is merged into my main account. I log in with the same email address and password and select either my real or trial account to play. Battlenet accounts are ID'd by your email address...

so what did we learn:

• Trial accounts cannot see their battlenet friends list.
  
• Trial accounts cannot add people to a battlenet friends list.
  
• Trial accounts do not receive battlenet friends chat.
  
• Others who have friended your battlenet ID can see you online and chat to you and they receive no message indicating that you cannot see their chat so they totally think you're ignoring them.
  
• Trial accounts cannot join guilds.

This is all dumb. In an MMO, it's the people that get you to stay. I understand they don't want trial accounts to run off with guild banks but perhaps they could allow trial accounts to guild and simply not allow them in the guild bank. Belonging to a guild is one thing that would encourage people to stay after level 20. Maybe I'm not thinking this through...

[Rer]

No that just sounds incredibly stupid XD