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World Of Warcraft goes free-to-play

Blizzard Entertainment becomes the latest developer to adopt the increasingly popular freemium model, with World Of Warcraft now available for free until players reach level 20. Limits are also in place on gold and trade skills, while the auction house, mailbox, trading, chat and guilds are unavailable. Should players wish to subscribe when they reach the level cap, the game and its Burning Crusade expansion are available at a discounted price.

Source: MCV

Comments

2
jaks's picture
jaks says:
June 29, 2011 at 5.08pm

That's not free to play. That's a demo.

Echo104's picture
Echo104 says:
June 29, 2011 at 11.11pm

Are the writers of this article daft? How is making a 14 day trial into a trial with no time limit, free to play? Free to play means you have access to all the content which is nessesary to advance in the game and does not alter gameplay to a serious extent.
Microtransactions are also something vital to free to play games, but in WoW the only real microtransactions available don't actually change the gameplay, for example you can't buy a new sword, but you can move your character from realm to realm for a hefty price.
The so called "limitations" that are stated were there in the 14 day trial as well, and remove so much from the game that it's impossible to interact with other players. If the model was renamed to limited-to-play then I'd agree, but by any means, it's not free to play. You can enjoy the starting aspects of the game, but you would have to do that solo; WoW is a game based on community.
On a closing remark, it seems like some people got too excited with what Valve did.