No, World of Warcraft Isn't Going Free-To-Play

By Jason Winter, News Editor January 15, 2015

...but it was a tidy bit of speculation for a few days, wasn't it?

Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok clarified things a bit on the official forums today, saying that the datamined "Veteran's Edition" wasn't a hidden upcoming free-to-play option, as some speculated, but rather a way for veteran players to get back into the game for free.

To summarize, when patch 6.1 hits, anyone who has previously had an account and subscription will be able to log into the game for free, with restrictions identical to that of a Starter Edition account, with the ability for sub-level-20 characters to join guilds. So it's really not much more free-to-play than it ever has been; you just don't have to create a new Starter account to kick around for free if you're a former player.

I'll probably jump back into WoW for a bit to look around when this goes live. How about you?

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In this article: World of Warcraft, Blizzard.

About the Author

Jason Winter, News Editor
Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

ZhaoYun 6 years ago

overall this game is dead to be personally i prefer paying money for a game every month like world of tanks or a p2p game like FF14 than for WOW its way more worth it in my opinion since u can basicly play A LOT of wow clones for free so why waste money on wow when theres like 100 or more games like wow that are f2p?

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fallenj 6 years ago

Why are the negative comments on the top...

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Nick 6 years ago

Cool

eric 6 years ago

You can do dungeons, battlegrounds, yes!

Crazyjimmy 6 years ago

Blizz is most likely never gonna allow WoW to be free to play, too many people spend money on the game just on subs alone. They'd lose a lot of money if they moved their biggest game to f2p. Even if they did move WoW to f2p they'd most likely slap it with tons of restrictions just like what Bioware did to SWTOR.

Urs-00 6 years ago

wait, so the "veteran pack" is the ability to join guilds? That's it? WOW, I can be a lvl 20 with chat restrictions BUT, if I ever subscribed, I can join a guild?

I thought it would be a restricted buy to play... but nope, I have the privilege of playing the demo like everyone

omg tks blizzard... ¬¬

Todoran 6 years ago

YOU: WoW F2P?
USS:NO!

YOU:Its not F2P Q_Q …but it was a tidy bit of speculation for a few days, wasn’t it?
USS: -_- No shit Captain obvious!

daniel 6 years ago

If you could do battlegrounds with the f2p model i would care. But the starter restricions kinda blow on that note,you can't BG or use the group finder. So all you can do it what alot of players do,stand in town and look at other ppl play the game.

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EdmondDantes 6 years ago

Yeah i expected this from Blizard.Meeeh im playng on a privat server so you can take the game and ...... up your ass.

idontlikemyname 6 years ago

FROM what i read was this:
Blizzard Sending Gift to Veteran Accounts
It looks like Blizzard is planning to send some kind of gift players that have had an account for ten years. A few players have received a notification that a package from Blizzard will be arriving tomorrow. There was a support article about the gift that was taken down shortly after it was posted.