Starter Edition turns 12

Embu

Embu

French Moderator
Moderator
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The Starter Edition has been around for 12 years!

WoW Free Trial was released exactly 12 years ago, on June 28, 2011.

Yea, I feel old too.

But our community is still there after 12 years, and that's super great. Just wanted to share this, and remind all the memories we had at level 20 :D

Thank you all for keeping the community going :)
 
Well I believe the original start was to level 10, limited to the Vanilla+BC+Cata+Mists (Unless goblin, Worgen and Pandean was added later) races, limited to some expansions, and10g max.

So Starter Edition has come a long way to almost all the races, 1000g cap, level 20 and up to Shadowlands.
 
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sector3600 said:
Well I believe the original start was to level 10
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It was always 20
sector3600 said:
(Unless goblin, Worgen and Pandean was added later)
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Correct. F2P started in late Cata so Pandaren weren't a thing yet. And Blizzard never let F2P play with the newest toys so it wasn't until MoP or even WoD (I forget) until they let us be Worgen/Goblin.

We were restricted to low level Vanilla areas. The mob levels were not normalized to character level so it didn't take long before you ran into an area where the mobs were too high level. Also, there was no way to get to the zones in other expansions. I think the only exception was Hyjal through clever use of game mechanics.

Professions were maxed at skill level 100 for F2P. However, the secondary professions: Fishing, Cooking, & First Aid (was a secondary profession until it got lumped in with Tailoring) could be taken to whatever the maximum was at the time (I think 375). The game would tell you that you hit the Free Trial cap, but you would still get skill-ups. And we didn't get Archaeology until quite a bit later.

Heirlooms were BiS. With a 10g limit, you had to buy them from the Honor or Justice vendors and they only sold the chestpiece, shoulder, weapon & shield/off-hand. The better heirlooms were sold by the Justice vendor. Then Blizzard removed the Justice vendor and, shortly after, it was discovered that those heirlooms were sold at the Darkmoon Faire. So then began the scramble for DMF tickets.

Being late Cata, F2P started out with the OG talent tree. Then, in MoP, Blizzard changed that to where you picked a class specialization at level 10 and at every 15 levels, you got to choose 1 of 3 extra talents. I actually quite like the current talent system; it is quite a bit like the OG talent tree system with quite a bit more freedom IMO.

F2P could not be DKs as they started out at level 55. However, there was a bug/glitch/accident that did allow some F2P to make DKs and play them. But I think that was fixed not too long after it was found out.

My favorite thing about the start of F2P is that we were considered XP-on. And all the battlegrounds were practically 100% F2P. It was amazing and so much fun. Once in a blue moon, a leveler would make their way in but they could hold their own against F2P as long as they were decent players.

And, lastly, XPOff was TwinkInfo back then.
 
Warshark73 said:
It was always 20

Correct. F2P started in late Cata so Pandaren weren't a thing yet. And Blizzard never let F2P play with the newest toys so it wasn't until MoP or even WoD (I forget) until they let us be Worgen/Goblin.

We were restricted to low level Vanilla areas. The mob levels were not normalized to character level so it didn't take long before you ran into an area where the mobs were too high level. Also, there was no way to get to the zones in other expansions. I think the only exception was Hyjal through clever use of game mechanics.

Professions were maxed at skill level 100 for F2P. However, the secondary professions: Fishing, Cooking, & First Aid (was a secondary profession until it got lumped in with Tailoring) could be taken to whatever the maximum was at the time (I think 375). The game would tell you that you hit the Free Trial cap, but you would still get skill-ups. And we didn't get Archaeology until quite a bit later.

Heirlooms were BiS. With a 10g limit, you had to buy them from the Honor or Justice vendors and they only sold the chestpiece, shoulder, weapon & shield/off-hand. The better heirlooms were sold by the Justice vendor. Then Blizzard removed the Justice vendor and, shortly after, it was discovered that those heirlooms were sold at the Darkmoon Faire. So then began the scramble for DMF tickets.

Being late Cata, F2P started out with the OG talent tree. Then, in MoP, Blizzard changed that to where you picked a class specialization at level 10 and at every 15 levels, you got to choose 1 of 3 extra talents. I actually quite like the current talent system; it is quite a bit like the OG talent tree system with quite a bit more freedom IMO.

F2P could not be DKs as they started out at level 55. However, there was a bug/glitch/accident that did allow some F2P to make DKs and play them. But I think that was fixed not too long after it was found out.

My favorite thing about the start of F2P is that we were considered XP-on. And all the battlegrounds were practically 100% F2P. It was amazing and so much fun. Once in a blue moon, a leveler would make their way in but they could hold their own against F2P as long as they were decent players.

And, lastly, XPOff was TwinkInfo back then.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they used to give out 10-days starting in Vanilla, but the free trial experience didn't really take off until Cata, when accounts started becoming permanent.
1688021667623.png


I remember making a bunch of burner accounts and seeing how far I could get. And yeah, at some point, they allowed F2Ps to create a DK on Latin Realms, and so once you made one on these realms, you could just make one on your main (US/EU) realm, and voila, you have DK as F2P. However, once you logged off, your character was locked forever. But it was great, because if you could get someone to group you, you could pretty much run your F2P char through dungeons ez. But Crystallpall goes into more detail in his slightly embellished F2P history thread (https://xpoff.com/threads/f2p-history.45047/)
 
Respect for all the 20's players. We were always at a disadvantage yet we persevered.
Nothing was more fun than shutting down a team of whales with nothing more than raw talent and skill.
F2P 20 is the true endgame.
 
Warshark73 said:
It was always 20

Correct. F2P started in late Cata so Pandaren weren't a thing yet. And Blizzard never let F2P play with the newest toys so it wasn't until MoP or even WoD (I forget) until they let us be Worgen/Goblin.

We were restricted to low level Vanilla areas. The mob levels were not normalized to character level so it didn't take long before you ran into an area where the mobs were too high level. Also, there was no way to get to the zones in other expansions. I think the only exception was Hyjal through clever use of game mechanics.

Professions were maxed at skill level 100 for F2P. However, the secondary professions: Fishing, Cooking, & First Aid (was a secondary profession until it got lumped in with Tailoring) could be taken to whatever the maximum was at the time (I think 375). The game would tell you that you hit the Free Trial cap, but you would still get skill-ups. And we didn't get Archaeology until quite a bit later.

Heirlooms were BiS. With a 10g limit, you had to buy them from the Honor or Justice vendors and they only sold the chestpiece, shoulder, weapon & shield/off-hand. The better heirlooms were sold by the Justice vendor. Then Blizzard removed the Justice vendor and, shortly after, it was discovered that those heirlooms were sold at the Darkmoon Faire. So then began the scramble for DMF tickets.

Being late Cata, F2P started out with the OG talent tree. Then, in MoP, Blizzard changed that to where you picked a class specialization at level 10 and at every 15 levels, you got to choose 1 of 3 extra talents. I actually quite like the current talent system; it is quite a bit like the OG talent tree system with quite a bit more freedom IMO.

F2P could not be DKs as they started out at level 55. However, there was a bug/glitch/accident that did allow some F2P to make DKs and play them. But I think that was fixed not too long after it was found out.

My favorite thing about the start of F2P is that we were considered XP-on. And all the battlegrounds were practically 100% F2P. It was amazing and so much fun. Once in a blue moon, a leveler would make their way in but they could hold their own against F2P as long as they were decent players.

And, lastly, XPOff was TwinkInfo back then.
Click to expand...
Please take me back to those days
 
Warshark73 said:
Being late Cata, F2P started out with the OG talent tree. Then, in MoP, Blizzard changed that to where you picked a class specialization at level 10 and at every 15 levels, you got to choose 1 of 3 extra talents. I actually quite like the current talent system; it is quite a bit like the OG talent tree system with quite a bit more freedom IMO.
Click to expand...
Are you sure about this? I thought Cata launched the new talents and we had them at the start.

F2P is the only reason I'm looking forward to Classic cata, but I fear they won't care to replicate the experience since it doesn't make money.
 
iaccidentallytwink said:
Are you sure about this? I thought Cata launched the new talents and we had them at the start.

F2P is the only reason I'm looking forward to Classic cata, but I fear they won't care to replicate the experience since it doesn't make money.
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I'm 99% sure we had old talents at the start of Cata, at least for the first days of me playing F2P. I remember reading Earl's Paladin guide and the reduced CD on HoJ talent being there
 
iaccidentallytwink said:
Are you sure about this? I thought Cata launched the new talents and we had them at the start.

F2P is the only reason I'm looking forward to Classic cata, but I fear they won't care to replicate the experience since it doesn't make money.
Click to expand...
Yes, Cata did have the OG talent system where you had the 3 different talent trees. The difference in Cata is that you couldn’t put points in a different tree until you finished the first tree. Meaning: if your first points were put into Arms, you couldn’t put points into Fury until you finished the Arms tree. So F2P couldn’t ever have points in more than one tree.

MOP is where the talent system changed to where the game had you choose your class specialization at level 10, which kinda sorta pigeon-holed you into your abilities, but it wasn’t really all that different from how the talents worked in Cata. Then, at level 15, you started choosing from 1 of 3 “extra” talents and, every 15 levels, you got another pick of 3 talents to choose from.
 
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Warshark73 said:
Yes, Cata did have the OG talent system where you had the 3 different talent trees. The difference in Cata is that you couldn’t put points in a different tree until you finished the first tree. Meaning: if your first points were put into Arms, you couldn’t put points into Fury until you finished the Arms tree. So F2P couldn’t ever have points in more than one tree.

MOP is where the talent system changed to where the game had you choose your class specialization at level 10, which kinda sorta pigeon-holed you into your abilities, but it wasn’t really all that different from how the talents worked in Cata. Then, at level 15, you started choosing from 1 of 3 “extra” talents and, every 15 levels, you got another pick of 3 talents to choose from.
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wow I was so certain it came with cata, never trusting my memory again
 
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