Where casual gamers are likely to rejoice about being able to wander through World of Warcraft for free, I'm sure at least several hardcore gamers are thinking, "Oo, fresh noob meat!"
The original 14-day trial for WoW has been retooled in the face of the free-to-play model, with the Starter Edition that includes a portion of WoW's first expansion Burning Crusade but caps players at Level 20. From there, Blizzard hopes that these players will not only boost their userbase tremendously, but also be so addicted by level 20 that they spend months of subscription fees until they're housebroken like the game enough to unlock the full version. It's essentially one long demo, with a few exceptions as Blizzard points out in a statement:
We've removed the previous 10- and 14-day trial time restrictions, and players who are interested in trying out World of Warcraft can now play the base game for free up to a maximum character level of 20, including draenei and blood elf characters—all they need is a Battle.net account and an Internet connection.
Let's also add "a large hard drive" to the end of their sentence, too. Furthermore, the WoW Battle Chest includes the core game, The Burning Crusade, and two strategy guides for only $19.99, but I will not… I must… resist… for the sake of…. Game…. Re… vo… lu… ti……..
