Endless Free Trial, Digital Battle Chest and More

It looks like Blizzard is adamant about getting some fresh blood into Azeroth. The company has kicked off a series of promotions, including an endless free trial and a new digital Battle Chest. Here's the rundown of all of the ways you can get your friends playing World of Warcraft.

  • Endless Free Trial: The time limit on free trials has been lifted, but the restrictions are still in place. The level cap for the trial is set at 20.
  • Digital Battle Chest: You can now pick up the original World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade expansion for $19.99. If you've ever owned the original WoW, then you'll automatically get The Burning Crusade for free.
  • Free WoW for Friends: Veteran players who have opted in to receive news and special offers from Blizzard have received an e-mail with a code for a free copy of WoW and 30 days of access. This means you can give a friend the original game and The Burning Crusade for free!
  • Recruit-A-Friend Extended to 80: The Recruit-A-Friend benefits have been extended from level 60 to 80, including the triple exp bonus.

With the launch of the endless free trial, many gamers have tossed the term "free-to-play" around. What are your thoughts on all of these promotions? What do you think the future holds for World of Warcraft?

Comments

Post Comment
Desperation = Free Trials
# Jun 30 2011 at 8:30 AM Rating: Decent
Agreed with both other statements (Ekaterinodar and Soneil). Great example is Rift... a Fathers day special to buy the $50 package for only $9.99. Plus all the adds for free trials. Now we have it in WoW as well.

Whenever ANY company starts down that path, the public perception is they are going down the tubes. Since Cata, WoW is going that direction. They now seemed to be focused on all of the PvP crap (if I wanted to play Pvp I'd be on a crappy PvP server ..Hello?)

Bliz did a great job make 1-60 new and fun, but pushed the leveling so fast, you don't get to fully see it all. They also screwed up the gear hitting 80 and going into the half assed leveling content for Cata. Example: Best gear you get from leveling toon in Icecrown from drops and quest rewards are at item 173 (with the low specs). You hit Hyjal or Vashj'ir, you get your Butt handed to you until you get drops and quest gear from there. These areas were designed that everyone spent 2 years ******** around with the Lich King and had gear somewhere around the 240+ item level, NOT 173. First equal gear you pick up is a green 273 item.

So overall, a lot of mis-planning went into this "half release (5 levels rather than 10)" and made Heroics so screwed up that too many people just said they were done, not fun anymore like all of the Northrend Dungeons and raids were.

I'll end my rant or I'll just go on about the ***** ups and why they are losing players and giving crap away for free NEVER EVER works no matter what business model you run.

Edited, Jun 30th 2011 7:34am by ScubaShark
Desperation = Free Trials
# Jun 30 2011 at 1:43 PM Rating: Decent
LOL.. Just received an e-mail from Rift... Now through July 6th I can get Rift for only $4.99 !!! Five Bucks! Something rings of a big time fail.
Desperation = Free Trials
# Jun 30 2011 at 10:36 PM Rating: Good
***
1,882 posts
ScubaShark wrote:
LOL.. Just received an e-mail from Rift... Now through July 6th I can get Rift for only $4.99 !!! Five Bucks! Something rings of a big time fail.


Rift is going for the throat. They are trying to build a large player base against a huge competitor. From everything I've heard they've been really successful. Instead of waiting until their is a decline, they are constantly ramping up the pressure by offering amazing deals to entice players to give their 15 bucks a month to them instead.
Desperation = Free Trials
# Jul 03 2011 at 11:55 PM Rating: Decent
**
267 posts
Never actually heard of rift but perhaps I should take a look. I haven't played any mmo since I quit wow after cata came out (every now and then I get free 10 day trials from bliz trying to bring me back but I haven't used any of them). The one I'm most interested in at the moment is old republic.
Desperate.
# Jun 30 2011 at 2:02 AM Rating: Good
***
1,882 posts
Wow, they really ARE desperate. Makes me curious to know how many more people they've lost since the reported 600,000.

Honestly, they need to come up with a way to keep their core players.
Not surprising
# Jun 29 2011 at 11:29 PM Rating: Good
**
267 posts
Levelling has become such a joke since cataclysm that you could hit level 20 in a day. I guess this shows bliz is desperate for new blood now that so many of the older players have left.
Post Comment

Free account required to post

You must log in or create an account to post messages.