Blizzard Launches WoW ''Starter Edition''
It's not a time-limited demo, but Blizzard's new World of Warcraft Starter Edition isn't exactly a free-to-play MMORPG, either.
Tuesday evening Blizzard revealed that it converted the previous 10- and 14-day demos of World of Warcraft into a pseudo free-to-play MMORPG, throwing the time restrictions out the door and letting new players roam about indefinitely. The news arrives after Blizzard's CEO Mike Morhaime revealed that 600,000 subscribers jumped ship shortly after the release of Cataclysm, possibly due to the "quick consumption" of the expansion.
Previous comments from Blizzard indicated that the studio had no plans to go free-to-play with World of Warcraft anytime soon. And with the just-launched World of Warcraft Starter Edition, that's still somewhat the case. Interested gamers can now play the base game for free up to a maximum character level of 20. The Starter Edition even includes some of the content found in the first expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, including draenei and blood elf characters.
Tuesday Blizzard said that players who previously signed on for 10- or 14-day trials will be able to jump back into the Starter Edition right where they left off. But once characters reach level 20, they’re required to purchase the $20 digital "World of Warcraft Battle Chest" and sign up for a subscription. Thus, the Starter Edition isn't exactly a F2P game, but rather an unlimited demo. Still, this could serve as a springboard to launch a F2P service in the near future.
In addition to the Starter Edition launch, Blizzard also said that the second content update for Cataclysm, Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2), is "erupting" across Azeroth. "With a new raid, a legendary DPS staff quest line, the most diverse daily questing experience to date, PvP Season 10, user-interface enhancements such as the Dungeon Journal, and much more, Rage of the Firelands brings a little something for everyone," Blizzard said.
The studio added that anyone who owns the original World of Warcraft, regardless of when they purchased the game, will automatically be able to access all of the content and features from The Burning Crusade expansion at no additional cost.
If you quit prior to BC (6 years ago), you can play the expansion that came out 5 years ago for free! Oh wait! That's only if you resub, though! LMAO. Pathetic...
Everything in the game feels so used, and every new thing they implement just seems like something that should've been there all along, and thus is never appreaciated. The game is over. Really. They can keep adding content to keep a few million players happy, but most casual players will be bored by it anyway.
This is of course assuming they don't go free to play eventually. Which will expand its life but even then nothing lasts forever. Whether you love or hate WoW you have to admit it will be quite a event to see when the giant gets laid to rest.
This. I'm just lookin forward to Titan.
If anything the real stagnation is in the "end game" because no matter how many new dungeons and raids they add, it'll always be more of the same.
The really need to explore new, different styles/types of content beyond dungeons/raids and daily quests.
I am very surprised after all this time they have not added in any Warhammer like Public Quests or Rift like invasions/dynamic content.
They have completely and totally shied away from open-world PvP in favor of their battlegrounds and arena's and PvP event zones like Tol Barad, but to bring the veterans back and keep them playing, we need open world dynamic PvE and PvP content!
yep truer words were never spoken, Look at EQ , the game that started the MMO craze, it died and well it's sequel couldnt even last out. Who knows though , there were many inheirantly wrong things with EQ 2 ,but with blizard's record i could see a WoW 2 possibly even surpass WoW 1 in players.
however , i will yank my hair out if blizzard releases a WoW 2 before making a warcraft 4 RTS. (ie i cant really stand MMO's) and i hate teh fact that so many companies are jumping to moo's with IP's taht used to be RTS or single palyer RPG ( such as SW:ToR). sure muliplayer games are great , but the market is started to get flooded with games that focus too much on MP, especially MMO's .
i really miss the days where beter single player games were more numerous , oh well , at least i can look forward to Skyrim for single player rpg fun.
No matter how good a game or experience is, it will always get stale, after doing it for a while. WOW will not be dead until everyone who can play it has moved on, and there are still a lot of people who haven't tried it. With one caveat, it certainly won't be worth it to maintain the servers if the total number of users fall below a certain threshold.
Whats the best source of information on the Titan project?