Hi there, firstly, apologies for the radio silence on this change, it is targeting a group that that we specifically wanted to keep in the dark as long as possible. Let me now try and fill in some details for you!
We’ve been recently experimenting with a change to Classic Era and Season of Discovery that places restrictions on new accounts that have not yet purchased and consumed one month of gametime (i.e. one month has also passed since the purchased time). Specifically, we’re preventing those accounts from transferring in-game wealth to other players (mail, trade, auction). Players under this restriction can still receive gold and items, so established players can still help friends.
A very small number of you may have seen this restriction erroneously applied to your accounts periodically in the past week while we wrestled with some edges case, these have now been resolved. Once an account has passed this aging threshold, it will never see this restriction again.
Of course, we want this change to impact legitimate new players as little as possible. We understand that this level of restriction will impact gameplay, so we’re evaluating the effectiveness of this change very carefully. If we stick with it, we’ll consider adjusting the restrictions to further minimize negative impact to new players.
It’s our hope that this change will have significant effect against the Real Money Trade that is fueling multiple negative impactful behaviors in Classic Era and Seasonal, but we’re watching it closely.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to make World of Warcraft a fairer place for all.