World of Warcraft now free until level 20

@heroesfan261 Heh, try a couple of days. :?

Oh noes! Now the 14 day free trial is no longer restricted to 14 days! It's just a free trial, like those demo things! The world as we know it has ended...

I'll only come back to wow if it goes fully F2P. getting to level 20 takes what now? a week?

It's really amusing how many forums posts - at other MMO forums - I see claiming, "WoW is now free to play!!!" Even Blizzard's web ads are clever, emphasizing in all caps "NOW FREE TO PLAY" so all those low attention span freaks can go post on other forums. Let's just be honest and call a spade a spade: It's a free trial good until character level 20. That's it, folks. The entire game you know as World of Warcraft has not become free-to-play. Get it right, or don't bother.

Blizzard isn't worried about anything. They have ridiculous amounts of money now. Even if The Old Republic takes some of the user base, It will be completely crushed by any new MMO blizzard decides to put out.

i get bored of my characters before level 20 anyway

The only way WoW will ever go free-to-play is if their subscription base dwindle to below 1 million users. They have 10 million paying subscribers; that's a lot of money coming in each month. They'd be crazy to drop the monthly payment model.

EPIC FAIL!

and i still dont care about WoW. Maybe if they ever make it f2p i may check it out..

alot of people think that SWTOR has something fishy going on. I mean look to the amount of media that gets released for GW2 and you will understand that TOR developers may not be that proud.

EXECUTES YOU HAVE WOKEN ME TOO SOOOON! This was fun 6 years ago.. wel fun.. killing thousands of npc's to fight this guy and HOPE your damn pants drops

Lol, "Rage of the Ireland" Blame the picture, not me!

I dont think it's Rift that has Blizzard worried, but the upcoming release of Star Wars The Old Republic.

That's kinda awesome of them actually.

Methinks Rift made a certain Blizzard worried

@ Keech Look up "Skinner Box". Again in the end you are right it is their responsibility I said that I meant it the buck stops at the individual. That doesn't mean that the games makers aren't being irresponsible and it doesn't mean that they aren't using methods of game design to try to encourage such irresponsible behavior. They have intentionally designed the game to where it's very easy to let it take over your life. Again that final decision to let it do so is the players responsibility to avoid. However that does not mean the makers of said game are blameless.

@TheProphecies05 lol, I AM playing diablo 2 instead of wow...

@OmegaBob Please don't comment on what you don't know. SWTOR is not a solo experience, some of us here do actually want to play with friends and smash up some PvP, and I'd much rather prefer 8 x KOTOR3s than a single one.

I would imagine this change is more directed toward gold farmers than it is for bringing new players into the fold. If you read all the new limitations, its pretty obvious.

You know, I could care less about WoW, but I saw the little icon on the GS news page saying "Rage of the Ireland" and I laughed.

Almost everybody already played world of warcraft, and this thing will not make players get back into it ( the early lvling zones are dead as hell since everybody is already lvl 85 ) The only way they will get players back if they make it for free, private servers like molten wow > original wow atm and that is strange ..

I said Star Wars films, not novels, comics or other fluff. Granted, this is a video game I am talking about, so maybe I shouldn't be nit-picky That said, since most of EA's Star Wars MMO can be solo'd, why pay a monthly fee for what is essentially a single player game? I'd rather have KOTOR 3 please.

Nice, now people dont have to pay to bounce around org/sw chatting mush all day lol!!

wow is like a mother we run away from her sometimes when we get bored,we meet new people,we check new things & then we comeback saying: I miss you mam & she always say welcome back honey i know you are coming.

I smell desperation.

I remember during the time of the second expansion (TBC) when I was on trial for 14 days, I was capped at level 20 anyway. Assuming that hasn't changed in the past few years (and I'm pretty sure it hasn't), all they did here was publically announce it.

@waza000 You still have to buy a copy of the game. The original + expansion #1 are combined into one $20 package, then expansions #2 and #3 are sold separately. Arguably, you don't need to buy expansions #2 and #3 until you hit level 70.

MMO addiction one level at a time. :)

@GhostHero333 As much as I do not like WoW anymore, I think what they are doing is not "shuttering" at Star Wars. The free until 20 is a great idea. In my opinion, SW:OR is not in my radar. I'm going to restate something that I have been seeing that I think is brilliant. We should hope that WoW lives on, so while we go play our SW:OR's and GW2's there won't be the idiots who play WoW infecting the game worlds.

what we need to know is, once i hit lvl 20 ... do i have to buy WoW and 3 (or 4 ... w/e) expansion packs ... will they ask me to buy about 100$ worth of game + a 15$ month subscription .... or can i get it directly for 15$ a month

@omegabob http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_healer There are healers in the Star Wars universe and there are also jedi/sith who are more skilled with the force than others (spell caster)

@OmegaBob I agree that TOR isn't going to be revolutionary. However, I'm not sure why you chose to bash how healers are being implemented. There are some clear examples of healing in the movies and I'm sure if you read the comics or books, there are even more examples. As for WoW, I think TBC was probably the last step in the right direction. Since then, Blizzard has been setting an awful precedent for the MMO genre. The most basic of problems is that WoW and many subsequent MMOs have nerfed content to the lowest common denominator rather than teaching players to become better at the game. I hate time sinks that gate content, but I have no problem with a high level of difficulty. It may be good business, but it's bad game design.

EA's Star Wars MMO is the same as any other MMO except it has vocal dialogue sequences that cannot be skipped & a Star Wars skin. Also, where in the Star Wars movies were there mages in healers? Maybe you can get away with (if you REALLY tried) to say a Jedi/Sith is a magic user, but what about the healing? Do they have Nurse Droids pushing Bacta tanks around in the groups. Not very innovative at all.

SW: OR is not going to be much better WOW with SW LORE maybe slightly... GW2 is the most promising.

i left WoW, because now is so easy for new players, and population is going down. I am bored of WoW . i am waiting for DotA 2, Diablo 3, Elder Scrolls, Halo and StarWars Old republic...

World of Warcraft is just a scared wand-waving game that shutters at the sound of someone talking about Star Wars the Old Republic so now they are scrammbling for ideas. And waiting for SWtOR to announce its release date so they can release their next expansion pack a week or two before then.

As a long time WoW player, I rather like the idea of this. Especially that they can't join guilds. It will majorly cut down on toons in guilds that have been abandoned.

@djsifer01 Right. Keep telling yourself that. I mean who says Denial is just a river in Egypt?

WOW is old news and this wont get them any new players. RIFT is a far better game and stealing players daily. With other MMOs on the horizon as well, WOW will be a distant memory soon.

Thats really smart probably getting worried about SWTOR trying to get ppl hooked

i find it useless to pay fees for games

I think this would be great for getting new players... But what about us that already bought the first 2 games? They should just make it so that you have to buy the games still and after that its all free to play, how it should be anyways.

So Blizzard is trying to get a few subscribers before GW2 and SWTOR launch, good move but wow is way dated, was AMAZING back in t he vanilla days, really fun till TBC, then it went downhill with WOTLK... IMHO

LOL, If you cant win them, unite with them...Blizzard couldnt cope with the rush of Free to Play options out there, and had to implement one themselves...

Blizzard held out for the longest, but it was inevitable that they had to do something with two MMOs that are coming out soon. However, there are too many restrictions to me that make this move not so great for beginners. I already own all the EPs and have not played in a long while. WOW is still good but like every great game one still can get burned out if you play it day and night.

meh

Also on this topic players who didn't have burning crusade get it for free (applied very recently)

Hey that's great, if you can't get into the game by level 20, then you never will, so you'll know for sure before paying a thing.Excellent news on BC basically becoming free, as well.

This is the first step to free to play. It almost feels guaranteed they will be going free to play by the time Titan releases. Likely by that time they will have cut down the servers as players drop off.