World of Warcraft Goes Free With Starter Edition 244
Stoobalou writes "Blizzard Entertainment has announced that its enormously popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft will be free to play for characters up to level 20. WoW has always offered free trials of one of the world's biggest multi-player online games but previous offers have always been limited to a set number of days. The new policy means that first-time visitors to Azeroth will be able to build an unlimited number of characters and classes up to level 20 at their leisure, although there will be some limitations."
Yeah, but they gimped it so bad it's worthless (Score:5, Informative)
When I first heard about this, I was actually excited. I never really got into MMO's much (I did play some MUD's back in the day pretty addictively). I've tried out a few, like Eve Online and City of Heroes, but usually got bored with them after a while (Guild Wars was the only one I played for any length of time). People keep raving about WoW, and I've been tempted to try it out a few times. But paying $50, plus buying a bunch of expansion packs, *ON TOP OF* $15 a month?!?!? Christ, why don't I just give them my house too? That's a lot to go into an MMO, sight unseen.
But the more I read about how much they've gimped this trial, the less interested I am. No chat, no auction houses, no guilds (basically no social interaction of any kind, which kind of defeats the whole point of an MMO). If it were JUST the level 20 thing, or the skills cap, or even the guild thing, I could live with giving it a shot. But basically, they've stripped it of *everything* that makes it a MMO. That's a shame. I really would like to give it a try. And I'm not above paying if I get into it (I'm not a cheapass who pirates all his movies). But I don't think this ultra-gimped version is going to get me into it.
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My guess is they did this because of the rampant spamming problems they used to have
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Well, it would be nice to at least have some way to prove I'm *not* a spammer, bot, or gold farmer--and at least get access to chat and auctions.
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I'm sure they'd love to hear your ideas.
I'd say that whatever method you could use to "prove" you're not one, the spammes would use too :)
Re:Yeah, but they gimped it so bad it's worthless (Score:5, Funny)
Well, at this point I'm going to prove it by not buying or playing the game.
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I'd say that whatever method you could use to "prove" you're not one, the spammes would use too :)
Eh? How about you enter a real name, street address, phone number, mobile number to sign up for the free account.
You are required to send a SMS text message from your mobile phone to a game company supplied number, for which there is a $2 charge. In response, you receive a SMS with a pin number.
You are then required to call in from your home phone (the caller id will be checked) and type in the PIN n
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My guess is they did this because of the rampant spamming problems they used to have
I'd guess that they would point to that as the reason, but the real reason is they don't want to give the milk away for free. It seems like you could pretty easily make sure the free players weren't spamming or gold farming. I'm not familiar with WOW, but it seems like you could do -something- that's between "Allow spamming" and "Block all chat."
How is not allowing them to use the auction house or guilds in any way related to spamming? Again, not familiar with WOW so maybe there is a reason, but it do
Re:Yeah, but they gimped it so bad it's worthless (Score:5, Informative)
No, they really do this becasue of the spammers and gold farmers. I played for on and off for about 5 years. Even with severely gimped trial accounts the problems with spam and gold farming are rampant. Originally the trial accounts were not gimped this way (they were level limited, but could chat and stuff), they were forced to do this by player complaints. Ordinarily I'd be more that willing to entertain corporate greed as the motivation, but in this case I can verify that it's a legitimate attempt to prevent abuse.
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You see, unlike some other MMOs, you start off at level 1 in the full shared environment, where your automated bot software can run your little level 1 tushie over to the nearest major city and start doing
Interestingly, AoC has less of an issue with this because every new character starts out in an isolated instance and until they hack/slash their way to the starter city they have no access to a mailbox
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They did for the two new races: worgen and goblin characters can't get out of the starting area -- it's "phased" -- without doing the quests up to the end of the starting phase.
You do have access to a mailbox and zone chat, as well as guilds and such if you have friends, but no auction house or trade channel.
That still leaves all the other races that were around before that last expansion just a short run to a capitol city, but Blizzard did move the AoC direction a bit.
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Having done both the Worgen and Goblin starter areas I can say that Blizzard have really put a lot of effort into drawing the player into the game without unleashing their Level 1 characters out into the real 'world'. What Blizzard now need to do is the same to all the previous races as their starter zones are as earlier commenters have mentioned; you are dumped into a newbie area, and all you have to do is run for 5 mins to the main city and there's the banker NPCs and the Auction Houses. Previously, I'v
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Id be interested to see how a level 20 could farm gold. If you prevented EITHER buying OR selling, they would not be able to launder gold either.
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They were used for laundering. Gold seller bot gets gold. Gives gold to level 5 trial account. Level 5 trial account buys weird gray items thrown up on AH by players who are buying gold for absurd amounts of gold, which is how the players get the gold they bought. Transaction log shows a level 5 trial account as the one buying the bogus auction.
It adds more steps to tracking it down to then have to sort out where that account got the gold from.
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sounds like a quest to me!
never played the game, but I like playing MMO's, I like playing single player games, and would not mind running around as a freebee with crap everything just to explore the land
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right..., I somehow ended up with the totally wrong topic
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[quote]I've tried out a few, like Eve Online and City of Heroes, but usually got bored with them after a while (Guild Wars was the only one I played for any length of time).[/quote]
WoW is no different. It's just another glorified point and click, practically turn-based fetch-n-step quest machine.
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If you think its "practically turn based", youve never done progression encounters or played in the arenas. There is a global cooldown (and Im not sure it would be feasible to make a game that didnt have some kind of GCD), but against good players it is nothing like a turn-based rpg. There are several "instant" moves which you have to be ready to react to at any time.
Not sure how different it is from Guild Wars, but the games tend to have mechanics that differentiate them; Warhammer had some interesting m
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But these trial accounts aren't even a trial, more of a benchmark demo, more or less.
Level 20 is sufficient to get through the first few leveling zones and try the early dungeons (ragefire, deadmines, wailing caverns, stockades).
It cuts you out of guilds, world chat, and trading, but otherwise gives you what I would expect from a trial, a good overview of typical gameplay.
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When I first heard about this, I was actually excited. I never really got into MMO's much (I did play some MUD's back in the day pretty addictively). I've tried out a few, like Eve Online and City of Heroes, but usually got bored with them after a while (Guild Wars was the only one I played for any length of time). People keep raving about WoW, and I've been tempted to try it out a few times. But paying $50, plus buying a bunch of expansion packs, *ON TOP OF* $15 a month?!?!? Christ, why don't I just give them my house too?
$15 a month for what (for most people) amounts to hundreds of hours of entertainment *per month* is a steal... But you are right, for casual users this is too far in the other direction, the likelihood of getting bored to death when all you can do is start a character and level them to 20 is pretty high. Why not just dust off Elder Scrolls?
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or casual users this is too far in the other direction, the likelihood of getting bored to death when all you can do is start a character and level them to 20 is pretty high. Why not just dust off Elder Scrolls?
The idea is to get the player hooked so he or she will buy the game to advance the character.
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And that's a pretty good idea. But the problem is that they've gimped a bunch of other stuff besides just the level. You would be playing such a stripped down version of the game that you really wouldn't be getting a taste of it. Even with Guild Wars (which was free to play all the way through), I had access to chat and trading (guilds too).
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You don't even necessarily need to dust it off; Skyrim is coming out in November.
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WoW and Morrowind have similar hardware demands which could today be called "casual". Skyrim looks stunning but I won't be playing it for a while.
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To be honest, I'm not holding out too much hope. They're removing more of the magic skills, such as alteration, as well as hand-to-hand and adding dual-wielding and dragons (whoop-de-do). In other words, they're adding even more emphasis on stereotypical hack-and-slash warrior types, and further screwing over magic/stealth/weird players.
For example, in Morrowind, I could create a character that flies around naked and beats people to death with his bare fists. In Oblivion, he'd have to walk and might as well
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$15 a month for what (for most people) amounts to hundreds of hours of entertainment *per month* is a steal...
Wow (no pun intended)! Hundreds of hours a month. Like maybe 200? Most people spend an average of 6 hours and 40 minutes per day playing WoW? I guess most people who play that game have ABSOLUTELY no life. Even if "hundreds of hours" means just 100, that's 3 hours and 20 minutes every day of the month. Most people who have a full-time job and a family (or any social life outside of "the box" of your PC screen) probably don't average more than 2 hours a day.
I guess, by your definition, a casual gamer is anyo
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I've met a few people who played MMO games for more than 6 hours a day. Most of them wound up alone (wife/girlfriend left them) and unemployed. Including my brother.
Exactly! (Score:2)
WoW is simply adopting the cocaine sales model. Give 'em a little for free so you can enslave them to your product!
Come to think of it, I don't know anyone who has ruined their life because of drugs. I know a few who have ruined their life because of WoW.
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Yeah, the GP clearly exaggerated (or is wildly out of touch with what "most people" means) but the point stands. At $15/mo, less than the cost of dinner and a movie (heck, in some places, less than the cost of a movie) you can get several hours of entertainment. One could probably discuss the quality of the entertainment, but that wasn't discussed. And there's the value of opportunity, too. That $15 gets you as much playtime per month as you want. When that movie ends, it ends.
Even if you play for 4 ho
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But my guess is rather than "most people" playing hundreds of hours per month, most people actually play 0 hours per month, and just don't check their credit card statement very often, and they don't want to lose those.
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Hundreds of hours of entertainment per month?
Hundreds, being minimum 200 of course, would mean playing 6 2/3 hours per day, 7 days a week.
Even as a purposeful exaggeration, that sure seems like a LOT of time. Maybe these people just play WoW and never watch movies or TV or read instead, for example? (Just to use other entertainment/time-wasting options most people do.)
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No chat, no auction houses, no guilds (basically no social interaction of any kind, which kind of defeats the whole point of an MMO)
Allow that, and it'll be spam bot hell for the paying players.
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They should at least allow friends to interact. There's a good chance a person was introduced to WoW by a friend, and I'm sure they'd love to be able to chat with one another during the trial. Thats pretty much a showstopper for me.
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They do. To quote what several others have quoted...
In-game access to public chat channels unavailable. Players are limited to communicating using only say, party, or whisper.
In other words, they simply cant spam the global world chats. Oh the horror.
Re:Yeah, but they gimped it so bad it's worthless (Score:4, Interesting)
A better solution might be to just create a level 20 server. Have the full game on there, including all the normal features. But no one on the server can get above level 20. Then, if someone decides to join, give them a free transfer to another server of their choice.
The only problem I could see is if the economy on the trial server is broken... transferring goods between servers would throw the economies out of whack if the incoming server's economy is broken... but I can't think of any reason why it would be...
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Broken econ on the gimped server wouldn't be much of a problem up to level 20 you aren't going to use the AH that much as you'll be mostly picking up greys/whites that can be sold the NPC vendors for an ok value.
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EVE Online (who is also in the news about this monetization sorta stuff) was always really good with this in the last few years. Originally they were like many MMOS - drop fiddy bucks on the game, then pay $15/month. Now it's $5 to activate your account and $15/month after that. $5! Wow is like a hundred bucks to get all the expansions (and then some), and that just gets you started. It's a huge up-front cost. Blizzard made more than enough money on their game at this point - I'm honestly surprised that the
I think they blew it here. (Score:2)
I would have opened it up to a higher level than 20, maybe as far as 60. It does need the social interaction of being allowed to join guilds. I could see a restriction in that you could not help form one, that would prevent people just starting trials to make new guilds. As for other limitations, let them buy off the AH and disallow monetary and item trades to other characters. Its not like the 14 or 15 bucks a month will break anyone's bank, but I don't think 20 levels is enough to hook new players. You ba
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I don't really agree with you. They do this for a very good reason (as others have already messaged...spammers/gold famers-sellers). You know there is going to be a lot of people there. You know there will be social interaction and an auction house, economy, etc. This gives you a feel of what the game is like and if you will enjoy it. If you like that part, then you will enjoy the game because it isn't all that hard to find a guild and people to hang out with once you decide to buy it.
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When I first heard about this, I was actually excited. I never really got into MMO's much (I did play some MUD's back in the day pretty addictively). I've tried out a few, like Eve Online and City of Heroes, but usually got bored with them after a while (Guild Wars was the only one I played for any length of time). People keep raving about WoW, and I've been tempted to try it out a few times. But paying $50, plus buying a bunch of expansion packs, *ON TOP OF* $15 a month?!?!? Christ, why don't I just give them my house too? That's a lot to go into an MMO, sight unseen.
For what it's worth, you can now get the full retail game plus the first expansion (70 levels of content with a free month to start) for a twenty. That's enough to get a pretty broad sample of the game, for a movie ticket and snacks.
Not $50 startup (Score:2)
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I'm not a WoWer, but you're giving it rather a hard time. WoW is impressively cheap for what it is.
Not being a WoWer, but liking games, I spend maybe £35 a month buying the latest thing I want... Some of them (typically Rockstar games) last me more than a month. Some of them last me a matter of days or hours. Over a year, I'll maybe have spent £400 on games.
If I were a WoWer, I'd spend £8 a month on a subscription, and £20 a year on a new expansion. Meaning only about £100i
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From the FAQ [blizzard.com] I read:
Unable to trade via the Auction House, mailbox, or player-to-player.
In-game access to public chat channels unavailable. Players are limited to communicating using only say, party, or whisper.
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To be fair with the second point, theres a really good reason to prevent public chat:
1) Spammers would absolutely love this. No way to trace them (no credit card), and unlimited accounts to spam trade chat with
2) You REALLY dont want scores of trial newbies spamming in cities. Generally they dont have much to say anyways, as they will be able to buy precisely no gear that is advertised (too low level), contribute to no raids, and join no guilds; their contribution would end up being to conversations on th
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WoW has had chat and auction houses for years.
RTFA/RTFFAQ (Score:2)
He's not complaining that WoW doesn't have those things - he's saying that the Free Starter Edition version doesn't include them, so you're missing out on a lot more of the game than just not getting above Level 20.
The first hit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this is worse then 4 days? (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, this really isn't news, its more like an advertisement.
If Slashdot.org got paid for this, great... If not, get this off my Internet.
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My one friend claims he can get to 85 in a day.
He must already have his own personal guild to carry him there.
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Who the hell would mod this insightful? It's a flat out not possible even with bots wearing all BoA + dual boxing RAF.
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Who the hell would mod this insightful? It's a flat out not possible even with bots wearing all BoA + dual boxing RAF.
Even if its hyperbole, it makes a good point. Getting to 20 in 1 day is beyond easy, even without help, and if your trying it with a group of friends... trivial.
What are you supposed to do after that?
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You are assuming the the player already knows how to play. If you actually read the quest text, need to familiarise yourself with the UI, have no mental map of the game world to navigate by, L20 will take much longer than 1 day.
And if your friend is dragging you around by the nose not allowing you to experience it for yourself they are doing you a disservice.
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You are assuming the the player already knows how to play
If you've played any modern MMO, you know how to play WoW. I got to level 20 in under a day, without trying.
I was actually annoyed because you actually level FASTER than you can experience it for yourself, unless you go out of your way to avoid any fight that you don't specifically require to complete a quest....
They've accelerated the rate of XP gain substantially since the game was released... so your "first day experience" in WoW a couple years ago
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The first player from 60 to 70 in BC was 27 hours non-stop, with an entire guild carrying the guy. I think it was similar for WotLK, and I imagine it would be from 80 to 85 now; that ignores the few days it would take to get up to 60 (at least 1-2 hours to get to level 15). Looking online, I see that a number of folk's fastest times hover in the 4-6 day time span; I havent seen any under 4 days.
Basically, sounds like BS if he means "1 day without recruit-a-friend and solo".
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My one friend claims he can get to 85 in a day.
I would be a bit skeptical. When the last expansion hit, you had players who had play-tested the beta and hit the ground running to go from 80 - 85 in ~5hrs. 1 - 80 in ~19hrs might be possible. But in any case - we're talking experienced players running a strategy as efficiently as possible.
When I run new characters for fun, I hit 10 in about an hour. Usually hit 20s on the 2nd day. But I've been playing since the start. I understand the mechanics of the game. And occasionally, I gift my lowbies wi
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Your friend can't hit 85 in one day.
They could get pretty high in 24 hours of /played time, but real time wont get them too far.
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A new player isn't getting to 85 in a day.
That kind of expedited leveling would require heirloom items in every slot available (which requires a max level character with significant resources and time played), L25 guild XP bonuses (and possibly some rest XP, though it would be burnt pretty quickly in the starting levels), possibly a RAF XP bonus to 80 and an intricate knowledge of the optimal leveling path - even queuing in instances as a tank for instant queues would be lucky to get you there in a single d
The Gold Limitation Sux (Score:3)
Re:The Gold Limitation Sux (Score:5, Informative)
Why the limitation to only 10 gold coins? That seems stupid. It would seem to me that given that you can have unlimited characters under the cap anyway, that the more gold you accumulate, the more you're going to want to go out, spend it, become well-equipped, and then break through the cap and rise in the game. That means $$$ for Blizzard, so why the gold cap?
Limiting the usefulness for gold farmers.
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Well free accounts = free laundering money to resell for actual cash. I can see why they restricted it.
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10 gold is a lot of gold for a level 20 character to accumulate. Most of the low level quests only give a couple of silver.
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I'd say that for a player new to WoW 10 gold at level 20 might seem like a lot.
For an experienced player leveling an alt (even without heirloom items or support from a level capped character or a guild) it's not hard to make a lot more than that if you know what you're doing (mining + herbalism or mining + skinning, as it turns out most level-capped characters can't be bothered mining copper ore and would rather pay 20+ gold per stack for it).
Now, back in "vanilla" it was a different story, I remember tryin
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Oops, I meant "...back then 100 gold wasn't peanuts."
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Back in the day you had to be L40 to get your first mount and they cost 100g which was a huge amount to accumulate. Many people didn't get their first mount until much closer to L60.
These days there are many times more flight points to make it easier to get around, several classes/races have movement speed increases that make getting around easier.
On top of that, the questing experience no longer seems to require the level of run to one end of Darkshore (for example) to the other or between zones like it us
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It's not like you can do anything with it. You can't trade with players, either directly or through auctions. Repairs won't ever reach those heights and vendor gear at that level is worthless (unless you pay with honor points). Basically, all gold on trial accounts is there for mounts and vendor bags.
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10 gold is actually a fair amount. You can't use the AH, so you are just going to be buying vendor stuff which isn't very interesting. They do this so they don't collapse the economy due to gold farmer abuse.
Like any drug... (Score:5, Insightful)
...WoW's users are building up a tolerance. Players are consuming new content at an ever increasing rate, and with the latest expansion Cataclysm, which took the better part of two years of development effort, many users have consumed the content and quit (again) after only six months or so.
An increasing number of people appear to be becoming tired of the same old recurring end-game structure of 10/25 player raids and working week after week on the next boss fight mechanics in order to slowly replace all of their equipment from the last tier of content with gear from the current content which will eventually get replaced again in the future.
The subscriber base has dropped significantly since it's peak shortly after the Cataclysm release, and Blizzard are now trying lots of things like giving away free copies of the original version of the game, allowing their "refer-a-friend" program to work up through level 80, and now the unlimited free trial period offer here.
Ultimately though the problem is that Blizzard has not been able to think outside the box enough to invent new and compelling *kinds* of content, and their players are increasingly unimpressed with the same cycle of leveling/raiding.
It is likely at this point that WoW has seen its peak in terms of subscriber base and relevance in the gaming world. I think they will always be able to maintain a subscriber base measured in millions, and may well run indefinitely, but if they want to grow again they need to get some fresh talent into their design group.
G.
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Actually, doing so could well be deadly. It has been done before (DAoC, I'm looking your way!), with devastating results.
Of course, feeding the same formula to the same people forever will not work in the long run, with varying definitions of long. Blizzard did a lot of things right with WoW and that's why it is simply the most successful game ever. I won't go into lengths what went right and how a lot of companies tried to copy the success and FAILED badly because they ignored the most important cardinal r
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When your business model is to convince people to surrender their marginal economic energies to *rent* the job of grinding away at the accumulation of a fictitious fiat currency, there's only so many ways to skin the cat.
It's quite possible Blizzard planned this out long ago. I don't know why this is painted as a reactive move. Surely they surmised at the outset that eventually the mania would crest. Their server capacity charges are likely far less now than when the game originally rolled out. Paramete
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Changing the formula has a name. It's called the NGE. Pissing off a vast quantity of your existing customers is a poor idea when you're not at all guaranteed that the new formula is going to bring in enough new people to offset them.
Sony tried it, and it was a total disaster. I can't imagine anybody is insane enough to want to do that with a game that has the subscriber base of WoW. Even if it's peaked and is now on a gradual decline (as happens to all games, there was no way this could last forever) it's g
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It is likely at this point that WoW has seen its peak in terms of subscriber base and relevance in the gaming world.
You could be right.
However, this has been stated over and over for the past 5 years, and each year WoW continues to grow. Currently they STILL have over 10million subscribers, and though one chart indicates that theyve lost some over last september (11.4 million vs 12mil), it is absurd to claim they have lost relevance when they are still by far and away the biggest MMO out there.
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I actually think subscription numbers may have peaked a lot earlier than Cataclysm. They stopped announcing active subscriptions sometime during Burning Crusade (at the time, they were around 12-13M, as I recall). Since then, they've been pretty much mum on the subject. Cataclysm may have been a local maxima (all indications seem to point towards it having brought back a number of players), but in terms of reaching the subscriber base they had a few years ago, I doubt it. WoW is on the long decline now.
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I don't really think you know what you are talking about. You can't talk about WoW players in such general terms like that. Expansions always see a jump of people because there are people like me who like to play the "single player" portion up through group dungeons but don't feel like putting time in to doing raids. Cataclysm was well done and very enjoyable. But it is an old game now and despite the improvements, its engine is getting dated and showing its limitations. Nothing is going to last foreve
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The raiding is fine and the mechanics (for most fights) aren't really that hard if you have a competent guild. You're problem was constant pugging.
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I agree with your overall point, but a large portion of those users are Asia based, and they pay per hour rather than a monthly fee. Also, paying 6 monthly drops the price to about $12 or so.
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What does it cost to maintain servers?
Not $2B. Maybe $2M, but I'd be surprised even at that.
What does bandwidth for that much usage run?
Say an average user plays 10 hours per week, so they're looking at 6x10^9 player hours per annum. Total usage is probably around 10MB per player hour, so about 6x10^13 bytes of transfer per annum, which equates to about 15 megabits per second. OK, there'll be substantial bursts at a much higher rate, but it looks like 1Gb/s would be enough to cope with their demand. Bought directly from reputable datacenters, an uncapped link of this capacity would u
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Really? Interesting, because I had the exact opposite experience on pretty much all points.
Cata, the risk/reward is far worse. Most pickup groups will leave you with a 200 gold repair bill. Even if you actually get the dungeon finished, you likely won't get anything useful, and the points earned are not really that much.
Unless you are 100% with 359 level gear or higher, a single repair bill will run you 20-50 gold. I'm geared for heroics and basic raiding, and that's what a semi-clean run costs me. Tanking kinda sucks, because even if you do everything right, you're still hit with a fairly significant repair build. But the only way to get to a 200 gold repair bill is to wipe so often that you have to repair multiple times. Which brin
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Fact: missing the punchline(s) does not mean there wasn't a joke.
WarCrack (Score:4, Insightful)
TF2, now WOW? (Score:2)
Maybe XBOX live will give a little bit more functionality to the free "silver" membership? The two things I'm assuming most people use paid live for are netflix and multiplayer. Someone at MS should consider making the lesser-used one availa
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I think WoW realized that if they change the existing trial program slightly (you now have longer then 10 days to reach level 20, not much else changed from something they've offered for YEARS) they can generate headlines and publicity without particularly doing anything.
And going by this post on Slashdot that acts like this is something new and shiny, they succeeded. In reality it's the existing trial without the 10 day limitation. But hey, minor details like facts should never get in the way of a good sto
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Considering it would take a hell of a long time to code this, I guarantee it has nothing to do with TF2.
Just a little ball of crack (Score:2)
Appropriate targets (Score:4, Insightful)
For those who don't like this policy:
1. It exists because of spammers. Vent your anger at the spammers, not Blizzard.
2. It exists because spamming for gold sales works (otherwise people wouldn't bother). Vent your anger at gold buyers, not Blizzard.
3. It exists because of guild-looters (people who join guilds, strip the guild vault, and sell the profits). Yes, guilds should manage themselves better; trusting people on the Internet without direct experience to demonstrate that trustworthiness is idiocy. But a looted guild bank generates a lot of direct costs to Blizzard (GM tickets) and indirect costs (people who unsubscribe because of the negative feelings this gives about the game).
4. Freeloaders don't get a vote. Someone on a trial account isn't contributing anything; the purpose is to let the person decide if they want to get the privileges that others pay for (and in the process contribute in a positive way to the multiplayer environment). Trial accounts aren't for YOU, they're for Blizzard as a sales tool. Paid accounts ARE for your benefit (as well as Blizzard's). You're just being given first-hand information (for free) on whether you'd enjoy the game.
Typical "entitlement" attitude. Nobody is "entitled" to free games. Be glad you're being given anything, because you're not owed anything. Think games should be free? Write and host your own, and learn firsthand about just how badly people behave even when what they're being handed is free.
Missing the Point (Score:3)
These measures are making the whole experience very unappealing. They might be avoiding some problems, but they are unlikely to attract anybody that didn't make their mind before playing this trial mode and they may even change the mind of the ones who did.
Whether the free gamers have "entitlement attitude" doesn't matter, because if the free mode fails to entice players, then it is pointless. No self-righteousness will make anybody buy/subscribe.
I understand the need to control RMT, but... (Score:2)
As a longtime WoW Player - relatively casual mind you. I've never beaten an expansion's end-game raid content during that expansion (ie. I went to the Sunwell for a tour when I made 80) - though I disagree with their limitations, I can probably inform non-players on why they are so strict
0. Level 20 - Goes without saying, this is a nice chunk of the early game. If you want to go higher, you'll like the game enough to subscribe..hopefully
1. 10 Gold Limit. WoW has a copper/silver/gold scheme, and 10 Gold is
Gold Selling Ads (Score:2)
So I look up at the top of the summary and see this.
http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/imgad?id=CNyWgqXE0MyoxQEQ2AUYWjIIwoZhlNY3qIk [doubleclick.net]
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What? They can take DNA samples over an Ethernet cable?
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Actually 50, unless they changed it. 10 is the maximum per realm.
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10 per server - there's more than one server. And you can delete characters you don't want to keep and level a fresh one.
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Any trial account twinks would be severely limited by the lack of heirlooms and inability to purchase BOEs on the auction house.
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They also added the ability to shut off XP when they added that.
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If anything this is more of a response to the rather poor reception and sagging numbers Cataclysm got.