Tinkerton
Legend
Yasueh said:Starter Edition is not the same as a trial account. So long as there's the option to continue to play it indefinitely, it can't be called a trial, that's merely one of the purposes to which it can be put, not it's defining feature (It's more of a 'WoW Lite'). Blizzard knew full well that there would be people who would play it exclusively if they took the time limit off. Only time will tell if they have plans to 'monetise' Starter Edition, in ways other than just hoping people using it will buy the full game, because once you've given people the ability to play for free, you want to make money off them somehow, even if they don't want to pay subscriptions.
True, one might say that it also serves the purpose of 'keeping in touch' with disgruntled former subscribers. Considering that the money making part of WoW (the +/- now 5 million EU/US subscribers, the Chinese 'subscribers' are mostly to pad numbers) is in decline since Cata one would think they do want to get new players as well.
WoW had a strong P2Win slant (as all Expansions are lumped together) as far as pre-end cap PvP was concerend ever since TBC, they just now added Freemium to it. Wouldn't be surpsied if they 'pulled a LotRO' and require payment to use more than a certain number of toons (so far Starter doesn't seem to have a smaller limit).