Wow Free To Play
While most MMORPG's now employ a free-to-play business model, World of Warcraft has remained the notable exception. This weekend Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime discussed the possibility of WoW. However, Blizzard has extended WoW's try-before-you-buy experience today, making the game free to play until level 20. World of Warcraft's new Starter Edition makes the game free to play until.
WoW is technically free to play. You can enjoy the retail version of the game up to level 20 and make as many characters as you want. There are other restrictions, but if you want to just play a little bit of the game, you can do it. For whatever reason, that’s not possible with WoW Classic.
If you go and read the Starter Edition FAQ on Blizzard’s website, it explains that accounts without subscriptions can’t make characters on the Classic version of the game. You can see this for yourself if you lack a subscription and log into the game. It won’t let you make characters, and it probably won’t let you log into any in the future.
It’s unclear why this limitation exists for the game, but it’s likely because Blizzard would make more money from the relatively small $14.99 subscription than it would if a bunch of people played for free. You couldn’t let people play to level 20 and expect them to want to pay continue because it takes so long to do that in the first place. Maybe in the future Blizzard will put a level 10 restriction and allow anyone to play the game.
The lack of a free version might also be to prevent more clutter in the starting zones as the game is still in its early stages. It’d be easy to see them allow for low level players when the realms get rid of layering and need ways to entice new people to keep the populations healthy. Free character transfers are a inconvenient workaround compared to letting people give new servers a shot.
All of that said, the low cost to get into the game is welcoming. It feels odd that you don’t have to buy the original game at all still. It feels like Blizzard wanted to make playing the game as simple as possible — which might mean Starter Edition accounts won’t be out of the question down the line.
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World of Warcraft (WoW) Classic has quickly become one of the most popular games on Earth following its return to the spotlight. With so much attention being brought to WoW, many individuals have been curious as to whether or not they can play World of Warcraft Classic for free or if they will have to hand over some cash to enjoy the title. If you are curious about if World of Warcraft Classic is free, you'll want to read up on the actual cost of Vanilla WoW below.
Is World of Warcraft (WoW) Free?
Unfortunately for players hoping that the game would be of a free-to-play nature, World of Warcraft Classic is currently not free. The only way you can experience everything the retro version of WoW has to offer is to have an active subscription to the high-profile MMORPG. A regular subscription for the game will run you $14.99 a month.
Now, the retail version of the MMORPG is free for players to play until level 20. Players can also make as many characters they want. However, this is not the case for World of Warcraft Classic. This lack of an ability to play the popular version of WoW for no cost is not surprising, as Blizzard sees the high level of popularity this particular version currently has. There is also the case that there have been plenty of brand new players who have subscribed to experience the latest game to take over the video game community.
Wow Free To Play Restrictions
However, players can transfer their character from one realm to another for free, as Blizzard implemented the feature to help reduce the extremely long queue times some servers have been seeing.
What do you think about World of Warcraft Classic not being free? Let us know your thoughts about the cost of WoW over on Twitter at @primagames!
Wow Free To Play Guide
About the author
Wow Free To Play 2019
Guides WriterNicholas enjoys helping fellow members of the video game community learn more about their favorite games. First-person shooters and Battle Royale games are what you can usually find Nicholas playing when he isn't writing. We will congratulate you if you can find a bigger Call of Duty fan than Nicholas, who has been playing since he got Call of Duty 2 with his first Xbox 360.nicholas.barth@greenlitcontent.com