World of Warcraft Free to Play

I used to play a lot of World of Warcraft, racking up something silly like 250 days played time, but I managed to go cold turkey and replace my habit with a new hobby called ‘real life’. Looking back at it now it seemed ridiculous because the game really had me by the balls in a vice like grip and wouldn’t let go. Not entirely sure if I ever got over the whole thing as from day to day I would occasionally check out the latest expansion, Cataclysm, and wish I could play it.

So along comes the news that World of Warcraft is going free to play and it caught my eye. I wouldn’t have to pay subs but the penalty for this would be on level cap. Instead of making it all the way to level 85 which is the Cataclysm level cap I could only get to level 20. The question that sat at the back of mind was, is this really for people who have already played the game?

When I played the game there were three main reasons for logging on:

1. The guild and the banter
2. Raids
3. PvP

I suppose this could mean that the free to play version of the game wasn’t really for me. I could join a guild but would it really be that good? There would be a ton of people trying out the game and not really understanding what was happening.

The biggest problem was not being able to enter decent raids to get cool gear and not being able to take part in the arena which can only be done if you are at the level cap. Instead I would be destined to wonder aimlessly in places I had already trodden to death and maybe create a twink character.

After all this contemplation I decided to install the game on my laptop to see what happened. I am glad to say that for the sake of my marriage I’m not really that bothered about the game any more. There have been a lot of changes but the noob areas are very much still noob areas. The free to play version doesn’t allow me to scratch that itch any more so it’s probably best left alone for my own safety.

There are other games that have introduced or are about to introduce free to play models. Conan Unchained is now free to play with a list of restrictions, however, there isn’t a level cap thus allowing you to explore the majority of the game content. City of Heroes is also planning a free to play model.

I think I stand alone on the opinion of World of Warcraft Free to Play being a let down because Blizzard have now released a free to play model with Starcraft II which may be worth trying. It’s certainly a future model for publishers and a field that I love to try out. Let’s face it, there’s nothing to lose apart from time.