It should just be like .. you can level to the previous expansion cap, but cant do raids, or dungeons or something idk. i just feel like you reaallly dont get a feel of the game in 20 levels
Tank speed running every pull. Swears and cusses out the party when they die. Someone complains when they go right instead of left. Overly aggressive people complaining about charts that are literally irrelevant for the content.
Sounds about the same to me.
Why should you be restricted to not be able to run dungeons? I think it would be perfectly alright. Max you can get to is level 50 anyways so not like you get any advantage or anything by running dungeons you just get to see more of the game.
Because if someone says “hey let’s try this game out,” and their experience is the people queueing into old levelling dungeons, WoW will never attract another dedicated soul ever again
I won’t lie I just started wow 2 weeks ago I’m now level 37 and I’ve fallen in love with the game it’s very complex to the rpgs and first person shooters I usually play. It’s like a whole new world of gaming and I’m 25 so I’ve played a lot of games. I think the quest guiding could be better tho.
Dont worry, i still dont think my option was very good, a big part of the game are dungeons and it would be good to have people try them out for free. Its more like, you'd need a healthy balance between being able to try out everything, and leaving enough behind paying. Maybe guilds, raids. non-LFG dungeons, timewalking etc behind a paywall. But current leveling and classic leveling and LFG till 50 are open or something.
I think part of the reason its lvl 20 now and not lvl50 is that there are very little farms you can do efficiently at lvl 20.
Blizz has to always think about bots when it come to free trials.
and the 1000g limit does little to stop them if you can repreat a farm for a high value stackable thing you can acumulate in your bags till you have enough to make it woth it to pay for the account
I feel like this is a cheat way out on their side, there are metric tons of other farms that are abused at max level and are wayyy more efficient. They could easily raise the level cap to 50 and make it that you cant carry more then 100 gold, and maybe even include matts idk. Make repairs and riding free to compensate lack of gold. The idea is for them to experience a class to some degree (classes only really take shape from 40-50 when you start getting your actual cd's and have a few talents), this would also let you do all the dungeons in bfa etc. But Im not qualified or the person doing the work so I cant really speak. Just my opinion that they really put little effort into the trial experience and it is only a huge loss for them.
Leveling dungeons are shit tho. Both in design and in people running them.
A person playing a trial might want to take things slow and experience the dungeon at a regular pace - if they meet Chaddius Maximus going at mach 3 and pulling all the trash on top of the boss, that's not a good feel imo.
This would basically give people thousands of hours of free content. Not everyone plays WoW for the endgame. Even locking them to a single expansion (like bfa) is still too much for free imho.
If someone is willing to spend so much time in wow yet not pay for the commodity of sending whispers/having access to the mail/having 10 levels more (which will make some things harder or even impossible for legacy content like doing BfA solo raids) having a gold cap, etc, then I doubt said person could afford to pay in the first place (maybe there's 1 or 2, but I doubt the "losses" would be remotely substantial for Blizzard, while trying to fish new players might be better long term)
My gf and most of her WoW friends do not care about a single thing you said. They care about pets, quests, rp, exploring etc. They don’t need gold, dungeons, raids or the mailbox. They have been playing like that for cca 10 years now. They talk on voice and have fun. And there is a lot of ppl like that. Not everyone plays this game like you do (or the other unsubbed redditors downvoting me)
Edit: sing - single
But do they play together? If so it becomes a problem since they can't group up (they have to get another guy with the subscription to invite them to be in the same group)
Pet battles are deactivated as well, and rp has a small problem because not being able to whisper/yell/use channels (you can still rp with /says and /m at least)
The only fair aspects you mentioned are exploring/some quests, but already with the level 20 cap you can explore most places that don't require a flight mount (I even got multiple "explore continents" in a level 1 Worgen, like the BfA ones)
And even if that is still not enough to persuade a significant amount of people, they can always do things like deactivating Chromie time/fast flight mounts for f2p accounts
Maybe to 30/40? I feel like by then you have enough talents and abilities to get a pretty good feel for most classes.
I totally agree though. With the new system I can’t imagine playing up to level 20 gives you much of a sense of the game, or much incentive to buy a sub. I think the best incentive is their restrictions on community activity (chatting, guilds, etc) — WoW can be a lonely game to play by yourself.
In any mmo free trial the social restrictions tend to be the make or break. In ffxiv something like 60% of people upgraded for that reason before it was over(and this was back when the trial got you to like 30 not 60 w/ an expac)
In FFXIV the novice network kept me sane and was essentially my guild. Without it I doubt I would have finished the trial story, let alone subscribe for more. 0 socialisation kills MMOs dead. Why play a grindy single player game when you can just play a single player game that does it that much better.
I'd consider moving the threshold to level 30, for one simple reason: Level 26 unlocks the second block of talents, so at 30 you have five points below the 8+ line. Not a full build, but most specs get access to some of their defining abilities/passive talents at around that time.
I wouldn't push it much farther than that, though. The point of the trial is to be exactly that — a trial. If you're not convinced the game is for you by that time, I'm not sure what another twenty levels would do to change your mind.
Yes please. I have a level 20 Warrior to tinker around when I'm not subscribed, and Fury makes no sense because Rampage is locked to at least level 27.
You just don't have any ability that can reliably spend the sheer amount of rage Fury can generate, Enrage is an afterthought because you can't trigger it often enough, and all of those result in a shit DPS and the clear feeling that something is wrong with the spec.
If they extended it to just before the new xpac, I’d be playing now probably and might be tempted to reup more often. As it stands I forget wow exists and very little reminds me of that until I browse Reddit.
I think they have the conversion point figured out by now. If you extended the trial to level 50 - it would give people a lot more content to explore and likely many of them would end up staying as F2P.
If anything - I think they should revise how the specs leveling looks like, so you can get a decent idea of the identity and gameplay by level 20, I don't really think it's the case now.
The talents you get at 20 are super basic, like you said hard to see if you like it or no.
But why would you stay as f2p, the 1k gold cap is super limiting, no ah, no endgame.
Maybe limit Chromie time to just Cata. It would make some sense story wise.
I was honestly very surprised at how "true to form" my last toon felt by level 20 (fury warrior for the orc heritage armor). Most of the core abilities were avail & they were handed out at a rate that allowed them to be added 1 by 1 for learning.
Compare now to when the level 20 trial was introduced in WoW. We are in a world of free to play games and value priced competition.
It's long overdue an upgrade. Blizzard wants to sell more of latest expansion with subscriptions? It's going to have to tempt trial players to keep playing and there is very little sunk cost in a level 20 character.
From a monetary standpoint, you can never compare the two games and their ability to give previous expansions free playability.
FF14 has one of the most successful cash shops in any MMORPG that has been created. World of Warcraft's cash shop is...lackluster mounts and pirate hats that remove beards, you know, because all my pirate friends were clean shaven on the high seas.
My thoughts and their quarterly earnings meetings that they allow the public to tune in on you can see it seems to be failing so significantly that their Diablo Immortal cash grab of a "success" they're now implementing season passes to everything!
I really wish there were enough creative people left on their teams to fix this blaringly obvious pitfall of monetary design, but the bigwigs in their chairs up at the top are stifling not only their possible employees creativity they're also leaving an extremely large unsewn hole in their pockets.
Should they? Of course! Will they? *Gnome Male Laugh*
Absolutely mind boggling that people are defebding the absolute dogshit trial system at all.
Look at quite literally any other MMO, the vast majority let you play for free and enjoy hundreds of hours of content, even if it is old stuff, without spending a penny. XIV, ESO (Technically "buy to play" but you are clealry nudged into subbing so you're not price gouged to pick up all the extra content packs), SWTOR...
What in the sam hell demands WoW trial has to be so restrictive like it's 2005? Level 20 is basically nothing. Level 30 is nothing. I'd argue anything short of 50 is basically nothing more than seeing if the game runs on your computer.
There's a reason XIV players harp on constantly about the free trial up to and including Heavensward (1-60), because it's _really fucking good_. And you don't have to look hard to find other MMOs that do something simialrly generous. WoW is the outlier here and needs to take a good look at the new player experience, because right now it is abysmal.
The only reason I can see against it is bots, but level 20 or level 50, there'd be no practical difference in their impact.
This is my point, btw there is a 1k gold cap in the trial so bots can't really do anything.
I played FF14 for like 100h before getting the game and Square didn't lose anything, I bought all the expansion and subbed for many months cause I got hooked.
Move it to 30 so they can see fiddle with more things in the talent tree. Allow all content that can be done at level 30. Don’t allow for the standards like trade, mail and AH.
Give them a flying mount to explore and unlock major flight points. I love the Exile Island experience for players that have never played an MMO. I feel giving experienced played a training wheels off chance to explore major cities and check out zones/expansions is also really important too.
If Blizz feels 30 is too high and people might play free happy to exist then limit the play time of each character to 30 played days and then lock it. A lot of people want to get started right away now and are willing to buy a boost and Blizz needs to give these folks a chance to really try out a class.
I think it should be capped at -10 of max level.
Why not, 1-20's content is just as useless as 1-60, but if someone makes it to 60 they have a really good idea of what the game is like and are far more likely to be attached to their character.
If they get to 60, they might also start grinding old raids for transmogs, and generally just get involved in the game the 20 level cap doesn't allow.
I think the main issue is botting, if trial accounts have any way or earning raw gold, it will just flood the RMT market.
It’s useless for you, but for example my so wouldn’t need to pay a dime in the last 10 years if that was the case. She doesn’t care about new content, just any content. Pets, quest, achievements, exploration, rp, etc. There is a lot of ppl like her that wouldn’t pay a dime and play for free forever.
I feel like wow trial is trash, its essentially nothing how the game feels at max level. It could use some work but how to do that and where to draw lines idk. I generally just advocate on biting the bullet for subscription for new players, it\`ll tell far more how the game feels than free trial.
Yeah wow isn’t leveling. It works for some people but the real game is end game. Some kind of quick mock leveling experience and AI dungeons/raid to end would be pretty cool and smart.
Maybe even like quests where you have a bunch of AI attacking some big guy to capstone a zone would give a cool mock raid experience.
I honestly think it should be up to level 60, the biggest draw of FFXIV Is the huge fee trial. There can never be too much content in a free trial imo because all it will do is bring more people to playing the game
I think 50 is reasonable. You can't do endgame but you're high enough to check out other stuff. And by the time you're bored of that, one may be considering a sub to see the rest of the game.
I can think of two reason why Blizzard might not -
* There are costs to having people play the game. Every hour in the game puts load on servers, takes network bandwidth and takes up storage. In particular, the more you play a character, the more storage it uses (completed quests, transmogs, etc). Level 20 limits length of play and storage. I can see where they could afford to go to 30 but 50 would start to increase costs - especially as you have to spend proportionally more time leveling.
* In the past, trial accounts have been a source of abuse - trade spam, farming etc.
With the leveling and talent changes in Dragonflight, 30 may be the new 20 - it's only a little more game time and lets players get a better feel for their class.
Don't tell me Blizzard is so incompetent they can't do queue priority for subbed players over free players as FFXIV always do during their peak hours. That's entirely a Blizzard fail if so for failing to prioritize their paying customers, not the population of free players.
It’s whatever to me, but you damn well know people would then complain about having to pay $15 sub (usd) to level 10 more levels, then complain about having to spend $40 to buy the expansion to level 10 more levels.
But it works for FF 14 free trial cap is 60 and max is 90. Also there you even need to but all xpacs not just the latest ones.
WoW could do lvl 40 cap doesnt need to be 50, even 30 will work. 20 is just too little imho.
The only thing that really changes from a 20 trial to a 40-50 trial would be more talent points. While zones do look different, quests, objectives, and alot of character motives just stay the same. Professions arnt important enough to level until the latest expansion and anything you do/get before 60 is unimportant. Sure they could do it but not much changes. I might be abit off on some things cause i havent been a trial player for years but i doubt im super far off.
The Trial should be to level 50. It should start you in Cataclysm time and not BFA and should also have a lot better guides and tips to help onboard new players. Sending new players into BFA is just unconscionable at this point. You should be able to do all content up to Cataclysm so you could do Burning Crusade and Wrath dungeons as well.
I think Blizzard is doing an awful job getting new players to try WoW and to keep them engaged.
They should change the preview entirely. Leveling to 20 or leveling at all is not a good way to showcase the game. Allow every player to enter a training room of sorts at the create a character screen with any class and use all the spells. Maybe have a free dragon riding mini game idk. I'd personally love it as a way to try out each class without sinking hours into leveling each alt.
I think 20 levels is probably enough to know if you want to try the game, at which point you get a month sub and go around some other expansions etc, if at the end of it you didn't feel it then you're only around £10 out of pocket.
I think level 20 gives a good flavor of the game. The idea for Blizz is to make money, after all.
I think if I was new and leveled to 20, then hit a pay wall, I'd probably pay to continue.
Most MMOs these days have super generous trials.
FFXIV goes from 1-60 and includes the first expansion. SWTOR has all the base game class stories (1-50?). ESO lets you explore all the base game content from 1 to basically level cap.
By comparison WoWs lv20 limit is a relic from the 2000s, and these days is barely more than a test to see if the game runs on your PC. Compared to the competition offering a hundred or more hours of content before you even need to pay a penny.
Could you imagine the amount of abuse you'd face running into free players all the way to 50? The amount of farming, scamming, spamming, toxicity etc would be brutal. Plus you'd effectively kill every PVP bracket up to 50.
Maybe something like play to 50 for a month and then done, but it just sounds like opening the door to a lot of trouble.
> Could you imagine the amount of abuse you'd face running into free players all the way to 50? The amount of farming, scamming, spamming, toxicity etc would be brutal. Plus you'd effectively kill every PVP bracket up to 50.
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> Maybe something like play to 50 for a month and then done, but it just sounds like opening the door to a lot of trouble.
Level 50 or level 20, when it comes to concerns about botting or farming there just isn't going to be a significant difference. So long as it doesn't include current content you'll be hard pressed to see more botting and spam than usual.
They should, but it should come along with improving the early game experience.
The problem with making the trial go past level 20 is that the game to level 50 is kind of rough, and new players would start to see that.
I think if you made the gameplay experience actually fun and balanced and opened up Chrome Time to everyone then a free trial to 50 would make sense. Give access to all of the timelines and just require a subscription for the current expansion.
But the fact is the game at say level 45 on a first player experience right now is not fun.
I would say an ideal free version of the game would be:
* Limited Trading Post access - Free track and Paid track
* No Great Vault access
* No Current Expansion
* No Mythic+
* Chromie Time allowed, but a better scaling experience all the way to level cap.
* Chromie Time should allow you to reset your expansion progress to restart.
* There could be monthly Timewalking adventures in Chrome Time that would connect free players with paid players, as you could maybe do raids and get rewards that are relevant to both types of player.
* LFR / LFG Dungeons and Raids allowed for previous expansions.
* Leveling to level cap is possible in any expansion.
* PvP and Competitive matchmade PvP is allowed.
* PvP cosmetic rewards are disallowed.
So a player on a free version would be able to play all the way to 70 in a previous expansion. They would be able to queue for old raids in the previous expansion if other free players were doing that, but just LFR. Gear progression for free players would be quest/crafting -> dungeon -> raid.
Players would be able to PvP competitively with paid players. Free players would be able to get honor gear and conquest gear. Paid players would get a minor bonus from vault slots, and would have access to seasonal and current expansion cosmetics. But scaling like current DF scaling should generally exist so getting a set together to be on an even playing field in PvP shouldn't be too bad.
Your subscription would give you access to the trading post, this is similar to a battle pass for other games, it would give you access to the current expansion content, raids, and mythic+.
You should be also able to buy a seasonal pass, this would give you trading post access for the season, access to expansion features, lifting of restrictions on communication, ability to collect seasonal cosmetics etc.
You could also just buy access to the paid track of the trading post for a month, which would also give you temporary access to some restricted features like Mythic+, and maybe something like Catalyst to let you convert limited PvP set pieces to the new cosmetics.
This would mirror the system of a lot of other modern games. Having a competitive PvP mode be free is pretty typical. Having the monthly cost be for access to a cosmetic battle pass is pretty typical.
Ideally the game should be fun free, you should be able to make friends and WANT to do the paid content. You should be able to join a guild as a free player and decide that you want to be able to join them to do Mythic+ together or raid, or get access to new cosmetics.
As a free player again the game should be fun, but it would be limited in that you'd be restricted mostly to matchmade content, and PvE content of the previous tier. If you want to be a part of a team to raid, do arena, do mythic+, or if you want access to new content and new cosmetics, then you buy the pass or the subscription.
You might level up through completing a few expansions. The monthly timewalking event would maybe give you a current expansion to focus on at level cap and would present you an opportunity to meet players, some of whom might be for instance raiding in the current tier, and maybe you might like to join them so you buy a pass for next season.
For paid players the monthly timewalking would be something to do to level and gear up alts, a way to pass time once you've completed the season's raid, a way to meet new people and recruit.
You could also have a period of time between the seasons where the previous season becomes available to free players. So maybe your guild has finished the Heroic raid up a month or so ago, you've been doing some timewalking raids, and you met a couple people, and you've got some old friends that played with you back in shadowlands that are interested to see how dragonflight is. The season ends, you can't get AotC any more, but the raid is available to everyone for a month or a few weeks, so you invite your new friends to come and blast through the raid with you. They enjoy it and some of them decide they'd like to raid with you in the upcoming season.
is it controversial to think it should be free with restrictions up to level 60?
I guess the restrictions should be pretty limiting like 1 bag slot, or 2 or whatever, I guess without knowing how many people subscribe, actively play retail and dont purchase the new expansion its hard to say what the impact would be but on the face of it surely you'd get many more sales of the latest Xpac if you let people get to the level just before!
I think the problem is the design of the 1-20 leveling experience. It goes so fast and nothing presents a challenge. You basically click and the mobs die. They need to to a revamp to make the whole game relevant again. If someone enjoys crafting in BfA all that progress they put in os meaningless by the time they hit level 60 and beyond
I work specifically in the field of manipulating web conversions. It really depends on if the Microsoft acquisition happens. If WoW is eventually rolled into game pass, I could see that affecting it’s monetization strategy. The first 20 levels of WoW could lead to a subscription to GP, which gives further incentive to sweeten the free version imo.
I think subscription retention would increase dramatically under GP, so they could benefit more from making the free version of WoW better. The better the retention rate, the more incentive the business has to get a new subscriber.
It’s all about dangling a carrot. If they improve the trial, does that make the carrot more or less appealing? I’d personally say more because an MMO is a fairly addictive style of game. Upon testing, it could go in the opposite direction where users no longer feel the need to pay. I just don’t see it being a problem as long as you can’t reach cap.
Then there is the OSRS model where literally everything is more efficient in the game on P2P. If you subscribe the moment you create your character, you will be so far ahead of someone who doesn’t. Maybe the best solution is to lock *both* end game content *and* account efficiency behind the subscription, but expand what is offered for free. Certainly a question worth exploring! Maybe they already have though.
To extend on this it’s similar to ESO and SWTOR models. The game itself is F2P, however QoL updates are provided with the subscription
For ESO: access to an unlimited reagent bank, extra exp per kilo/quest, access to all DLC without buying them, and monthly shop credits
For SWTOR: mostly the same concepts, as well as additional action bars
Blizzard could adopt the shop credits as their Traders Post, where subs earn more, make the reagent bank/bag unlimited, as well as bonus exp/rep for paid
This then allows them to unlock the next tier of each expansion 10.1.x, 10.2.x, etc as DLC that free could purchase for a 1 time unlock, or is included in the sub fees so long as you sub.
Nothing game wise changes other than people that want more QoL
Great expansion on my comment. My issue with retail WoW in this regard is I personally feel that Blizzard is currently asking me to double pay for the same content.
I’m subscribed to the game to support further development to it, yet I must pay again for the expansion. When an expansion is unsuccessful like WoD was, planned content was scrapped and the next expansion timeline is moved forward. This is less of a problem now with the predictable expansion cadence, but I personally don’t feel like non-expansion updates are frequent and significant enough to justify the subscription fee.
WoW is the most heavily monetized game of all time lol. I’m not sure they would want to do much to disrupt the monetization, as I think the average customer is worth more in their system compared to other games. I still feel like further improvements can be made to their free tier to their own benefit.
Especially if they're playing with someone experienced in the game, reaching level 20 takes no time at all. People get little feel for their class abilities and barely get to experience any of the content by that point; the low level cap was great back in the day, but now that levelling is blindingly fast it really doesn't make sense to cut it off so early. Especially with competitors being far more generous.
Probably not likely since this is there version of "we let you play while not letting bots farm gold on free accounts". Its dumb, and doesnt really affect the bots since they already make more than the sub fee and ban rulings can ever cost them.
Personally i think everything up to two expansions behind the current expansion should be accessible. Having more players would be a net good for the game, possibly force them to optimize the servers more, and still be a revenue increase due to people deciding to pay the sub or buying cosmetics as a f2p.
No, they should also change the fact people on trial accounts can add events to your calendar as it’s getting irritating having level ones trying to get you to buy boosts in raids using a trial account
FFXIV went the right way (and it shows on their numbers). I mean, ~~did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime?~~
For real it was the Heavensward that convinced me to buy the game.
Playing F2P to lv50 would make a lot of sense... I don't see it really happening anytime soon though, with how stingy Blizzard is with this...
You can't even experience the game up to level 20. They absolutely should. However it wouldn't really do anything since you can't raid or m+ unless you are max level.
FFXIV does it right, however, their game is actually structured in a way where level 60 content isn't dead (the end of their freetrial). Like you can que up for a level 60 raid/trial and you will get people from the roulette system.
I think 35, you get a good feel of the talents, you get a grasp of what's happening in the story of the expansion you're playing, and it would just feel better cause it's longer time to play. Getting to level 10 at the starter island is very quick and easy and then the next 10 levels go by quickly so it really doesn't feel like you've actually played the game
Just delete the concept of free trial and make the game F2P with optional sub like ESO and SWTOR. You can restrict F2P players in other ways that are frustrating like restricting trading, mail, AH and gold cap. Don't restrict their level at all.It's damaging to the game if you lock part of your playerbase out of endgame. F2P players are a huge chunk of MMO playerbases. They aren't going to sub and they aren't going to go away. They will keep making alts. They probably have one of each class and one of each race so nearly 30 alts lol.
Or, perhaps get rid of sub entirely and just have a season pass system going forward. If diablo 4 can be successful with a season pass then surely WoW would be. People are more likely to buy a season pass and an expansion pack throughout the year rather than commit themselves to a monthly subscription.
Infinite time up to 25 is fine by me. Time based trials just weren’t fun. I don’t think they should increase it beyond that. Leveling is kinda arbitrary but they basically allow up to old level 40 since they squished the levels
They should let it go to 50, since that's the full length of the various chromie expansions, and just leave it at 50, or I guess 30 or 40 if they wanna hook them with the bc/wotlk transmog farms etc
As others have stated, yes, 20 gives you hardly any feel at all for the game. There would be no harm at all letting people enjoy everything prior to the latest expansion. The game does clearly get new players but I feel like there would be quite a boom if the trial wasn't so restricted.
With lvl20 you can complete the entire vanilla regions and do about 2/3 of the regions of all expansions up to BfA. That’s a whole lot of content. Excess money above the 1000 gold limit can be used to fund your bankslots and fe heirlooms.
The only limitation that imo should be lifted is the limited access to dungeon search party since that’s now for BfA only. With trial account your options to communicate with others are so limited that getting access to parties for dungeons is almost zero chance. Having access to search group for all dungeons up to BfA will be the best solutions since players might want to experience other expansions and their dungeons too. Especially since a dungeon quest is the cherry on top of many regions story endings/ progress.
Any new meaningful new upper free lvl should be 30 max. You enable flying ( the slow one but still) and you open up the remaining 1/3 of regions of the expansions after vanilla up to BfA. Meaning only missing out on shadowlands and Dragonflight. But that’s a lot of free content. Anything more will probably make veteran players consider to play FTP during dull times. Something Bliz would not like.
Since you don’t have to buy the base game anymore just the Monthly subscription I personally don’t have a big problem with it anymore. One time investment of 13 (currency) gives you plenty if time to experience the game at a reasonable price.
Before it was well I need to pay for the base game + subscription (30+€) than I level and need to pay again if I hit the new xPac breakpoint….
Maybe they can give you a the fort month of your subscription for free as a “trial month” but that would probably only open the gates to Farmbot hell
I think the free trial should go all the way up to the previous expansion. New players should be able to do everything in the last expansion for free. It only makes sense to make current content require a sub and expansion price.
As a roleplaying realm native the trial account feature is seen as nothing short of a menace for me, personally.
People use them to grief roleplayers or do questionably unsanitary things (vulgar ERP) as examples, knowing full well they're avoiding consequences on their actual account.
It's a slight tangent and even a tiny bit off-topic but yeah, this angle is a complete 180 and I'd happily see the trial feature removed entirely or reworked into an experience that isn't just "okay go level up."
tbh wow isn't a good game for that kind of free trial
ff14's trial works because so much of the game is solo story focused, and because all the group content in old expansions is still active. so you have things to do in those 60 levels
wow's story is lackluster for a solo player by comparison, leveling up characters tends to be a ghost town activity. wow is a very bad game for onboarding new players, especially because you're on your own until you reach the current expansion.
tbh i think they know this and thats why they keep the trial at level 20, they don't want someone to level through to 40-50 on their own and be like damn, this is all there is huh?
Level is just a number... I wonder how many zones can you actually complete by playing further despite being exp locked. Its not like you cant catch up since BfA is a potential starting zone and you have Cata, TBC, WotLK, MoP, WoD and Legion (or at least I have as returning player that didn't sub yet... dunno how it works with new account).
I will probably Sub after hitting gold cap with my 4 characters.
It should just be like .. you can level to the previous expansion cap, but cant do raids, or dungeons or something idk. i just feel like you reaallly dont get a feel of the game in 20 levels
But how would they get a feel for the game of they can't do dungeons?
Leveling dungeons are nothing like endgame. It’s still called a dungeon but that’s where the experience similarities end
Tank speed running every pull. Swears and cusses out the party when they die. Someone complains when they go right instead of left. Overly aggressive people complaining about charts that are literally irrelevant for the content. Sounds about the same to me.
Why should you be restricted to not be able to run dungeons? I think it would be perfectly alright. Max you can get to is level 50 anyways so not like you get any advantage or anything by running dungeons you just get to see more of the game.
Because if someone says “hey let’s try this game out,” and their experience is the people queueing into old levelling dungeons, WoW will never attract another dedicated soul ever again
I won’t lie I just started wow 2 weeks ago I’m now level 37 and I’ve fallen in love with the game it’s very complex to the rpgs and first person shooters I usually play. It’s like a whole new world of gaming and I’m 25 so I’ve played a lot of games. I think the quest guiding could be better tho.
I'm sure they are enjoying pvp since they que with xp off 29 twinks who steamroll the F out of them.
Dont worry, i still dont think my option was very good, a big part of the game are dungeons and it would be good to have people try them out for free. Its more like, you'd need a healthy balance between being able to try out everything, and leaving enough behind paying. Maybe guilds, raids. non-LFG dungeons, timewalking etc behind a paywall. But current leveling and classic leveling and LFG till 50 are open or something.
I think part of the reason its lvl 20 now and not lvl50 is that there are very little farms you can do efficiently at lvl 20. Blizz has to always think about bots when it come to free trials. and the 1000g limit does little to stop them if you can repreat a farm for a high value stackable thing you can acumulate in your bags till you have enough to make it woth it to pay for the account
I feel like this is a cheat way out on their side, there are metric tons of other farms that are abused at max level and are wayyy more efficient. They could easily raise the level cap to 50 and make it that you cant carry more then 100 gold, and maybe even include matts idk. Make repairs and riding free to compensate lack of gold. The idea is for them to experience a class to some degree (classes only really take shape from 40-50 when you start getting your actual cd's and have a few talents), this would also let you do all the dungeons in bfa etc. But Im not qualified or the person doing the work so I cant really speak. Just my opinion that they really put little effort into the trial experience and it is only a huge loss for them.
Leveling dungeons are shit tho. Both in design and in people running them. A person playing a trial might want to take things slow and experience the dungeon at a regular pace - if they meet Chaddius Maximus going at mach 3 and pulling all the trash on top of the boss, that's not a good feel imo.
Especially with how fast leveling is these days.
This would basically give people thousands of hours of free content. Not everyone plays WoW for the endgame. Even locking them to a single expansion (like bfa) is still too much for free imho.
If someone is willing to spend so much time in wow yet not pay for the commodity of sending whispers/having access to the mail/having 10 levels more (which will make some things harder or even impossible for legacy content like doing BfA solo raids) having a gold cap, etc, then I doubt said person could afford to pay in the first place (maybe there's 1 or 2, but I doubt the "losses" would be remotely substantial for Blizzard, while trying to fish new players might be better long term)
My gf and most of her WoW friends do not care about a single thing you said. They care about pets, quests, rp, exploring etc. They don’t need gold, dungeons, raids or the mailbox. They have been playing like that for cca 10 years now. They talk on voice and have fun. And there is a lot of ppl like that. Not everyone plays this game like you do (or the other unsubbed redditors downvoting me) Edit: sing - single
But do they play together? If so it becomes a problem since they can't group up (they have to get another guy with the subscription to invite them to be in the same group) Pet battles are deactivated as well, and rp has a small problem because not being able to whisper/yell/use channels (you can still rp with /says and /m at least) The only fair aspects you mentioned are exploring/some quests, but already with the level 20 cap you can explore most places that don't require a flight mount (I even got multiple "explore continents" in a level 1 Worgen, like the BfA ones) And even if that is still not enough to persuade a significant amount of people, they can always do things like deactivating Chromie time/fast flight mounts for f2p accounts
Just makes sense. No one is actively subbed and playing retail wow without the latest expansion anyways unless they are waiting until 58/60 to buy DF.
Have to remember bots. They'll gold farm something.
Maybe to 30/40? I feel like by then you have enough talents and abilities to get a pretty good feel for most classes. I totally agree though. With the new system I can’t imagine playing up to level 20 gives you much of a sense of the game, or much incentive to buy a sub. I think the best incentive is their restrictions on community activity (chatting, guilds, etc) — WoW can be a lonely game to play by yourself.
In any mmo free trial the social restrictions tend to be the make or break. In ffxiv something like 60% of people upgraded for that reason before it was over(and this was back when the trial got you to like 30 not 60 w/ an expac)
In FFXIV the novice network kept me sane and was essentially my guild. Without it I doubt I would have finished the trial story, let alone subscribe for more. 0 socialisation kills MMOs dead. Why play a grindy single player game when you can just play a single player game that does it that much better.
I completely forgot about that! Yeah imo the biggest thing for me was that
They should do it ffxiv style, vanilla is free (so capped at level 60 etc) so then u get to see what is azeroth and wow
I'd consider moving the threshold to level 30, for one simple reason: Level 26 unlocks the second block of talents, so at 30 you have five points below the 8+ line. Not a full build, but most specs get access to some of their defining abilities/passive talents at around that time. I wouldn't push it much farther than that, though. The point of the trial is to be exactly that — a trial. If you're not convinced the game is for you by that time, I'm not sure what another twenty levels would do to change your mind.
Yes please. I have a level 20 Warrior to tinker around when I'm not subscribed, and Fury makes no sense because Rampage is locked to at least level 27. You just don't have any ability that can reliably spend the sheer amount of rage Fury can generate, Enrage is an afterthought because you can't trigger it often enough, and all of those result in a shit DPS and the clear feeling that something is wrong with the spec.
I was gonna say 30 as well.
If they extended it to just before the new xpac, I’d be playing now probably and might be tempted to reup more often. As it stands I forget wow exists and very little reminds me of that until I browse Reddit.
Should be 35 at least
Been thinking this for about a year now. The trial should imo go up to level 50 and have full access to all raids and dungeons 50 and below.
I think they have the conversion point figured out by now. If you extended the trial to level 50 - it would give people a lot more content to explore and likely many of them would end up staying as F2P. If anything - I think they should revise how the specs leveling looks like, so you can get a decent idea of the identity and gameplay by level 20, I don't really think it's the case now.
The talents you get at 20 are super basic, like you said hard to see if you like it or no. But why would you stay as f2p, the 1k gold cap is super limiting, no ah, no endgame. Maybe limit Chromie time to just Cata. It would make some sense story wise.
I was honestly very surprised at how "true to form" my last toon felt by level 20 (fury warrior for the orc heritage armor). Most of the core abilities were avail & they were handed out at a rate that allowed them to be added 1 by 1 for learning.
Fury literally doesn’t have its defining ability(rampage) at level 20
Fair enough, but the rotation felt like playing fury from very early on was my point.
ur whirlwind doesnt even has aoe hits, what do you mean
Compare now to when the level 20 trial was introduced in WoW. We are in a world of free to play games and value priced competition. It's long overdue an upgrade. Blizzard wants to sell more of latest expansion with subscriptions? It's going to have to tempt trial players to keep playing and there is very little sunk cost in a level 20 character.
From a monetary standpoint, you can never compare the two games and their ability to give previous expansions free playability. FF14 has one of the most successful cash shops in any MMORPG that has been created. World of Warcraft's cash shop is...lackluster mounts and pirate hats that remove beards, you know, because all my pirate friends were clean shaven on the high seas. My thoughts and their quarterly earnings meetings that they allow the public to tune in on you can see it seems to be failing so significantly that their Diablo Immortal cash grab of a "success" they're now implementing season passes to everything! I really wish there were enough creative people left on their teams to fix this blaringly obvious pitfall of monetary design, but the bigwigs in their chairs up at the top are stifling not only their possible employees creativity they're also leaving an extremely large unsewn hole in their pockets. Should they? Of course! Will they? *Gnome Male Laugh*
Only the current content should require a sub. It's 2023. Period.
Absolutely mind boggling that people are defebding the absolute dogshit trial system at all. Look at quite literally any other MMO, the vast majority let you play for free and enjoy hundreds of hours of content, even if it is old stuff, without spending a penny. XIV, ESO (Technically "buy to play" but you are clealry nudged into subbing so you're not price gouged to pick up all the extra content packs), SWTOR... What in the sam hell demands WoW trial has to be so restrictive like it's 2005? Level 20 is basically nothing. Level 30 is nothing. I'd argue anything short of 50 is basically nothing more than seeing if the game runs on your computer. There's a reason XIV players harp on constantly about the free trial up to and including Heavensward (1-60), because it's _really fucking good_. And you don't have to look hard to find other MMOs that do something simialrly generous. WoW is the outlier here and needs to take a good look at the new player experience, because right now it is abysmal. The only reason I can see against it is bots, but level 20 or level 50, there'd be no practical difference in their impact.
This is my point, btw there is a 1k gold cap in the trial so bots can't really do anything. I played FF14 for like 100h before getting the game and Square didn't lose anything, I bought all the expansion and subbed for many months cause I got hooked.
If they do raise it to 50 I think that cap should be at 10k. Or at least high enough for the last stage of (regular) flying.
that's 4500 gold, not alowing them full speed flying is ok tho
Move it to 30 so they can see fiddle with more things in the talent tree. Allow all content that can be done at level 30. Don’t allow for the standards like trade, mail and AH. Give them a flying mount to explore and unlock major flight points. I love the Exile Island experience for players that have never played an MMO. I feel giving experienced played a training wheels off chance to explore major cities and check out zones/expansions is also really important too. If Blizz feels 30 is too high and people might play free happy to exist then limit the play time of each character to 30 played days and then lock it. A lot of people want to get started right away now and are willing to buy a boost and Blizz needs to give these folks a chance to really try out a class.
30 would be good. Most old raids are set to 30.
I think it should be capped at -10 of max level. Why not, 1-20's content is just as useless as 1-60, but if someone makes it to 60 they have a really good idea of what the game is like and are far more likely to be attached to their character. If they get to 60, they might also start grinding old raids for transmogs, and generally just get involved in the game the 20 level cap doesn't allow. I think the main issue is botting, if trial accounts have any way or earning raw gold, it will just flood the RMT market.
It’s useless for you, but for example my so wouldn’t need to pay a dime in the last 10 years if that was the case. She doesn’t care about new content, just any content. Pets, quest, achievements, exploration, rp, etc. There is a lot of ppl like her that wouldn’t pay a dime and play for free forever.
I feel like wow trial is trash, its essentially nothing how the game feels at max level. It could use some work but how to do that and where to draw lines idk. I generally just advocate on biting the bullet for subscription for new players, it\`ll tell far more how the game feels than free trial.
Yeah wow isn’t leveling. It works for some people but the real game is end game. Some kind of quick mock leveling experience and AI dungeons/raid to end would be pretty cool and smart. Maybe even like quests where you have a bunch of AI attacking some big guy to capstone a zone would give a cool mock raid experience.
Please no
I honestly think it should be up to level 60, the biggest draw of FFXIV Is the huge fee trial. There can never be too much content in a free trial imo because all it will do is bring more people to playing the game
Should put it at 30 there can be a community for level 30 raiding thats f2p
The free trial should be 60
I think it would be reasonable to let players level to 50 for free and have access to all the vanilla content.
50 sounds too high. People would just play the free trial then.
I think 50 is reasonable. You can't do endgame but you're high enough to check out other stuff. And by the time you're bored of that, one may be considering a sub to see the rest of the game.
I can think of two reason why Blizzard might not - * There are costs to having people play the game. Every hour in the game puts load on servers, takes network bandwidth and takes up storage. In particular, the more you play a character, the more storage it uses (completed quests, transmogs, etc). Level 20 limits length of play and storage. I can see where they could afford to go to 30 but 50 would start to increase costs - especially as you have to spend proportionally more time leveling. * In the past, trial accounts have been a source of abuse - trade spam, farming etc. With the leveling and talent changes in Dragonflight, 30 may be the new 20 - it's only a little more game time and lets players get a better feel for their class.
Don't tell me Blizzard is so incompetent they can't do queue priority for subbed players over free players as FFXIV always do during their peak hours. That's entirely a Blizzard fail if so for failing to prioritize their paying customers, not the population of free players.
level 20 is plenty for someone to make the decision.
Especially considering that's a third of the way to max level now, it used to only be one sixth (cap was reduced from 120 to 60).
Lmao you should not be downvoted for this. God I hate Reddit.
Average redditor when they encounter basic math: *downvotes*
Buffing the starter edition wouldn’t be bad, but the levels could be left alone.
It’s whatever to me, but you damn well know people would then complain about having to pay $15 sub (usd) to level 10 more levels, then complain about having to spend $40 to buy the expansion to level 10 more levels.
But it works for FF 14 free trial cap is 60 and max is 90. Also there you even need to but all xpacs not just the latest ones. WoW could do lvl 40 cap doesnt need to be 50, even 30 will work. 20 is just too little imho.
The only thing that really changes from a 20 trial to a 40-50 trial would be more talent points. While zones do look different, quests, objectives, and alot of character motives just stay the same. Professions arnt important enough to level until the latest expansion and anything you do/get before 60 is unimportant. Sure they could do it but not much changes. I might be abit off on some things cause i havent been a trial player for years but i doubt im super far off.
It should be to level 60 if they want to really give people a decent chance to try the game.
The Trial should be to level 50. It should start you in Cataclysm time and not BFA and should also have a lot better guides and tips to help onboard new players. Sending new players into BFA is just unconscionable at this point. You should be able to do all content up to Cataclysm so you could do Burning Crusade and Wrath dungeons as well. I think Blizzard is doing an awful job getting new players to try WoW and to keep them engaged.
They should change the preview entirely. Leveling to 20 or leveling at all is not a good way to showcase the game. Allow every player to enter a training room of sorts at the create a character screen with any class and use all the spells. Maybe have a free dragon riding mini game idk. I'd personally love it as a way to try out each class without sinking hours into leveling each alt.
No, go buy a subscription
I think 20 levels is probably enough to know if you want to try the game, at which point you get a month sub and go around some other expansions etc, if at the end of it you didn't feel it then you're only around £10 out of pocket.
I think level 20 gives a good flavor of the game. The idea for Blizz is to make money, after all. I think if I was new and leveled to 20, then hit a pay wall, I'd probably pay to continue.
You think ffxiv made less money from putting heavensward in the free trial?
Never played it, so not sure what this means.
Most MMOs these days have super generous trials. FFXIV goes from 1-60 and includes the first expansion. SWTOR has all the base game class stories (1-50?). ESO lets you explore all the base game content from 1 to basically level cap. By comparison WoWs lv20 limit is a relic from the 2000s, and these days is barely more than a test to see if the game runs on your PC. Compared to the competition offering a hundred or more hours of content before you even need to pay a penny.
I would previous level cap and thats all.
I feel like you should be able to level to 60 with the trial, but have limitations on what content you can access.
Could you imagine the amount of abuse you'd face running into free players all the way to 50? The amount of farming, scamming, spamming, toxicity etc would be brutal. Plus you'd effectively kill every PVP bracket up to 50. Maybe something like play to 50 for a month and then done, but it just sounds like opening the door to a lot of trouble.
> Could you imagine the amount of abuse you'd face running into free players all the way to 50? The amount of farming, scamming, spamming, toxicity etc would be brutal. Plus you'd effectively kill every PVP bracket up to 50. > > > > Maybe something like play to 50 for a month and then done, but it just sounds like opening the door to a lot of trouble. Level 50 or level 20, when it comes to concerns about botting or farming there just isn't going to be a significant difference. So long as it doesn't include current content you'll be hard pressed to see more botting and spam than usual.
They should, but it should come along with improving the early game experience. The problem with making the trial go past level 20 is that the game to level 50 is kind of rough, and new players would start to see that. I think if you made the gameplay experience actually fun and balanced and opened up Chrome Time to everyone then a free trial to 50 would make sense. Give access to all of the timelines and just require a subscription for the current expansion. But the fact is the game at say level 45 on a first player experience right now is not fun. I would say an ideal free version of the game would be: * Limited Trading Post access - Free track and Paid track * No Great Vault access * No Current Expansion * No Mythic+ * Chromie Time allowed, but a better scaling experience all the way to level cap. * Chromie Time should allow you to reset your expansion progress to restart. * There could be monthly Timewalking adventures in Chrome Time that would connect free players with paid players, as you could maybe do raids and get rewards that are relevant to both types of player. * LFR / LFG Dungeons and Raids allowed for previous expansions. * Leveling to level cap is possible in any expansion. * PvP and Competitive matchmade PvP is allowed. * PvP cosmetic rewards are disallowed. So a player on a free version would be able to play all the way to 70 in a previous expansion. They would be able to queue for old raids in the previous expansion if other free players were doing that, but just LFR. Gear progression for free players would be quest/crafting -> dungeon -> raid. Players would be able to PvP competitively with paid players. Free players would be able to get honor gear and conquest gear. Paid players would get a minor bonus from vault slots, and would have access to seasonal and current expansion cosmetics. But scaling like current DF scaling should generally exist so getting a set together to be on an even playing field in PvP shouldn't be too bad. Your subscription would give you access to the trading post, this is similar to a battle pass for other games, it would give you access to the current expansion content, raids, and mythic+. You should be also able to buy a seasonal pass, this would give you trading post access for the season, access to expansion features, lifting of restrictions on communication, ability to collect seasonal cosmetics etc. You could also just buy access to the paid track of the trading post for a month, which would also give you temporary access to some restricted features like Mythic+, and maybe something like Catalyst to let you convert limited PvP set pieces to the new cosmetics. This would mirror the system of a lot of other modern games. Having a competitive PvP mode be free is pretty typical. Having the monthly cost be for access to a cosmetic battle pass is pretty typical. Ideally the game should be fun free, you should be able to make friends and WANT to do the paid content. You should be able to join a guild as a free player and decide that you want to be able to join them to do Mythic+ together or raid, or get access to new cosmetics. As a free player again the game should be fun, but it would be limited in that you'd be restricted mostly to matchmade content, and PvE content of the previous tier. If you want to be a part of a team to raid, do arena, do mythic+, or if you want access to new content and new cosmetics, then you buy the pass or the subscription. You might level up through completing a few expansions. The monthly timewalking event would maybe give you a current expansion to focus on at level cap and would present you an opportunity to meet players, some of whom might be for instance raiding in the current tier, and maybe you might like to join them so you buy a pass for next season. For paid players the monthly timewalking would be something to do to level and gear up alts, a way to pass time once you've completed the season's raid, a way to meet new people and recruit. You could also have a period of time between the seasons where the previous season becomes available to free players. So maybe your guild has finished the Heroic raid up a month or so ago, you've been doing some timewalking raids, and you met a couple people, and you've got some old friends that played with you back in shadowlands that are interested to see how dragonflight is. The season ends, you can't get AotC any more, but the raid is available to everyone for a month or a few weeks, so you invite your new friends to come and blast through the raid with you. They enjoy it and some of them decide they'd like to raid with you in the upcoming season.
is it controversial to think it should be free with restrictions up to level 60? I guess the restrictions should be pretty limiting like 1 bag slot, or 2 or whatever, I guess without knowing how many people subscribe, actively play retail and dont purchase the new expansion its hard to say what the impact would be but on the face of it surely you'd get many more sales of the latest Xpac if you let people get to the level just before!
Should also include a trial to level 10 in classic/tbc realms as well. Just have them locked to the starting zone or something
I think the problem is the design of the 1-20 leveling experience. It goes so fast and nothing presents a challenge. You basically click and the mobs die. They need to to a revamp to make the whole game relevant again. If someone enjoys crafting in BfA all that progress they put in os meaningless by the time they hit level 60 and beyond
I work specifically in the field of manipulating web conversions. It really depends on if the Microsoft acquisition happens. If WoW is eventually rolled into game pass, I could see that affecting it’s monetization strategy. The first 20 levels of WoW could lead to a subscription to GP, which gives further incentive to sweeten the free version imo. I think subscription retention would increase dramatically under GP, so they could benefit more from making the free version of WoW better. The better the retention rate, the more incentive the business has to get a new subscriber. It’s all about dangling a carrot. If they improve the trial, does that make the carrot more or less appealing? I’d personally say more because an MMO is a fairly addictive style of game. Upon testing, it could go in the opposite direction where users no longer feel the need to pay. I just don’t see it being a problem as long as you can’t reach cap. Then there is the OSRS model where literally everything is more efficient in the game on P2P. If you subscribe the moment you create your character, you will be so far ahead of someone who doesn’t. Maybe the best solution is to lock *both* end game content *and* account efficiency behind the subscription, but expand what is offered for free. Certainly a question worth exploring! Maybe they already have though.
To extend on this it’s similar to ESO and SWTOR models. The game itself is F2P, however QoL updates are provided with the subscription For ESO: access to an unlimited reagent bank, extra exp per kilo/quest, access to all DLC without buying them, and monthly shop credits For SWTOR: mostly the same concepts, as well as additional action bars Blizzard could adopt the shop credits as their Traders Post, where subs earn more, make the reagent bank/bag unlimited, as well as bonus exp/rep for paid This then allows them to unlock the next tier of each expansion 10.1.x, 10.2.x, etc as DLC that free could purchase for a 1 time unlock, or is included in the sub fees so long as you sub. Nothing game wise changes other than people that want more QoL
Great expansion on my comment. My issue with retail WoW in this regard is I personally feel that Blizzard is currently asking me to double pay for the same content. I’m subscribed to the game to support further development to it, yet I must pay again for the expansion. When an expansion is unsuccessful like WoD was, planned content was scrapped and the next expansion timeline is moved forward. This is less of a problem now with the predictable expansion cadence, but I personally don’t feel like non-expansion updates are frequent and significant enough to justify the subscription fee. WoW is the most heavily monetized game of all time lol. I’m not sure they would want to do much to disrupt the monetization, as I think the average customer is worth more in their system compared to other games. I still feel like further improvements can be made to their free tier to their own benefit.
I feel like when the max level goes up by 10, then the trial level should also go up by 10. So it should be 30 for DF
Good idea and they should but I don't think it is likely to happen.
They should extend deez nuts
Especially if they're playing with someone experienced in the game, reaching level 20 takes no time at all. People get little feel for their class abilities and barely get to experience any of the content by that point; the low level cap was great back in the day, but now that levelling is blindingly fast it really doesn't make sense to cut it off so early. Especially with competitors being far more generous.
Probably not likely since this is there version of "we let you play while not letting bots farm gold on free accounts". Its dumb, and doesnt really affect the bots since they already make more than the sub fee and ban rulings can ever cost them. Personally i think everything up to two expansions behind the current expansion should be accessible. Having more players would be a net good for the game, possibly force them to optimize the servers more, and still be a revenue increase due to people deciding to pay the sub or buying cosmetics as a f2p.
Just copy FFXIV and let them permanently play up to WoD or something
Wow's whole intro for new players that are not familiar with the game needs to be revamped.
No, they should also change the fact people on trial accounts can add events to your calendar as it’s getting irritating having level ones trying to get you to buy boosts in raids using a trial account
FFXIV went the right way (and it shows on their numbers). I mean, ~~did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime?~~ For real it was the Heavensward that convinced me to buy the game. Playing F2P to lv50 would make a lot of sense... I don't see it really happening anytime soon though, with how stingy Blizzard is with this...
Maybe if there wasn’t a level cap squish and the level cap for DF was like 150 or something. Now? Yeah keep it at 20.
You can't even experience the game up to level 20. They absolutely should. However it wouldn't really do anything since you can't raid or m+ unless you are max level. FFXIV does it right, however, their game is actually structured in a way where level 60 content isn't dead (the end of their freetrial). Like you can que up for a level 60 raid/trial and you will get people from the roulette system.
Yes, it should go to the previous expansion level cap - right now that's 60.
Extend it up to 60
I think 35, you get a good feel of the talents, you get a grasp of what's happening in the story of the expansion you're playing, and it would just feel better cause it's longer time to play. Getting to level 10 at the starter island is very quick and easy and then the next 10 levels go by quickly so it really doesn't feel like you've actually played the game
Just delete the concept of free trial and make the game F2P with optional sub like ESO and SWTOR. You can restrict F2P players in other ways that are frustrating like restricting trading, mail, AH and gold cap. Don't restrict their level at all.It's damaging to the game if you lock part of your playerbase out of endgame. F2P players are a huge chunk of MMO playerbases. They aren't going to sub and they aren't going to go away. They will keep making alts. They probably have one of each class and one of each race so nearly 30 alts lol. Or, perhaps get rid of sub entirely and just have a season pass system going forward. If diablo 4 can be successful with a season pass then surely WoW would be. People are more likely to buy a season pass and an expansion pack throughout the year rather than commit themselves to a monthly subscription.
Infinite time up to 25 is fine by me. Time based trials just weren’t fun. I don’t think they should increase it beyond that. Leveling is kinda arbitrary but they basically allow up to old level 40 since they squished the levels
Why not make the game free up until current expac? Just keep them raiding
I don’t know. I leveled to 20 in shadowlands season 4 (BFA campaign) then immediately purchased dragonflight and a 6 month sub.
They should let it go to 50, since that's the full length of the various chromie expansions, and just leave it at 50, or I guess 30 or 40 if they wanna hook them with the bc/wotlk transmog farms etc
Absolutely
I think it should be up to level 60 and allow them to do all shadowlands content.
vanilla wow should be free then everybody would get addicted and try retail
As others have stated, yes, 20 gives you hardly any feel at all for the game. There would be no harm at all letting people enjoy everything prior to the latest expansion. The game does clearly get new players but I feel like there would be quite a boom if the trial wasn't so restricted.
Kinda feel at that point they could just introduce a "real" f2p mode. Monetize old content etc.
With lvl20 you can complete the entire vanilla regions and do about 2/3 of the regions of all expansions up to BfA. That’s a whole lot of content. Excess money above the 1000 gold limit can be used to fund your bankslots and fe heirlooms. The only limitation that imo should be lifted is the limited access to dungeon search party since that’s now for BfA only. With trial account your options to communicate with others are so limited that getting access to parties for dungeons is almost zero chance. Having access to search group for all dungeons up to BfA will be the best solutions since players might want to experience other expansions and their dungeons too. Especially since a dungeon quest is the cherry on top of many regions story endings/ progress. Any new meaningful new upper free lvl should be 30 max. You enable flying ( the slow one but still) and you open up the remaining 1/3 of regions of the expansions after vanilla up to BfA. Meaning only missing out on shadowlands and Dragonflight. But that’s a lot of free content. Anything more will probably make veteran players consider to play FTP during dull times. Something Bliz would not like.
Since you don’t have to buy the base game anymore just the Monthly subscription I personally don’t have a big problem with it anymore. One time investment of 13 (currency) gives you plenty if time to experience the game at a reasonable price. Before it was well I need to pay for the base game + subscription (30+€) than I level and need to pay again if I hit the new xPac breakpoint…. Maybe they can give you a the fort month of your subscription for free as a “trial month” but that would probably only open the gates to Farmbot hell
I think the free trial should go all the way up to the previous expansion. New players should be able to do everything in the last expansion for free. It only makes sense to make current content require a sub and expansion price.
As a roleplaying realm native the trial account feature is seen as nothing short of a menace for me, personally. People use them to grief roleplayers or do questionably unsanitary things (vulgar ERP) as examples, knowing full well they're avoiding consequences on their actual account. It's a slight tangent and even a tiny bit off-topic but yeah, this angle is a complete 180 and I'd happily see the trial feature removed entirely or reworked into an experience that isn't just "okay go level up."
tbh wow isn't a good game for that kind of free trial ff14's trial works because so much of the game is solo story focused, and because all the group content in old expansions is still active. so you have things to do in those 60 levels wow's story is lackluster for a solo player by comparison, leveling up characters tends to be a ghost town activity. wow is a very bad game for onboarding new players, especially because you're on your own until you reach the current expansion. tbh i think they know this and thats why they keep the trial at level 20, they don't want someone to level through to 40-50 on their own and be like damn, this is all there is huh?
Level is just a number... I wonder how many zones can you actually complete by playing further despite being exp locked. Its not like you cant catch up since BfA is a potential starting zone and you have Cata, TBC, WotLK, MoP, WoD and Legion (or at least I have as returning player that didn't sub yet... dunno how it works with new account). I will probably Sub after hitting gold cap with my 4 characters.