So as I’ve said before I’ve been playing as a F2P for over two years now because I’ve been enjoying doing an anthropological study of the F2P culture and also because it’s a challenging way to to play the game.
The War Within was the most F2P friendly expansion what with the addition of Warbanks and flight to the F2P experience. Was being the operative word here.
Just in time for Christmas the Blizzard Wizard gave the F2Ps the gift of taking away their warbanks. Everything a F2P (even those on a Vet Account) put in their warbank is now good as gone for them. This was done without warning so there was no chance to transfer items to another bank or alt.
Fortunately for the Pook I didn’t really have anything important in my Warbank and I had already levelled up an enchanter and used the Warbank to get the Pook some enchants. Other players were less fortunate. Ultimately I can always resubscribe because I’m privileged enough that $15 a month isn’t a big deal.
Some people play as F2P because for them it’s just another challenge mode, like Iron-man or Hardcore. These players usually have one F2P account and one Subscribed account. Some of them play current content and some of them just twink at the level they find most enjoyable. For them the sudden departure of the Warbank is just a return to a more challenging mode of play.
For a sizable number of F2P players they play F2P because it’s the only way they can experience World of Warcraft. These are fans who love to be in Azeroth, they love the lore and the gameplay and the styling of the game but through the lottery of birth they were born into a socio-economic class that doesn’t afford them the luxury of $15 a month to spend on a video game. It can be very hard to understand what that must be like for many people such as myself who spend more than that a week on frivolities like daily coffee dates with my partner. I really lucked out in the lottery of birth.
A lot of fans of World of Warcraft in Central and South America have been screwed over by the yoinking of the Warbank. Fifteen dollars a month can be a really big deal and when the choice is WoW or the basic necessities, survival takes precedence over a video game no matter how much the video game is loved. These people are some of the biggest fans of the franchise because they’re playing the game in a form that is designed to not be enjoyable. The trial-account is designed to be a free tutorial. It lets you dip your toe into the waters of Azeroth but if you’re not going buy the game and subscribe then the trial-account wants you to get the heck out. These are not people playing the game as an F2P because they enjoy the challenge like some. These are not people who have an education in anthropology and are fascinated by studying the culture of the bracket, like me. For these fans it’s the trial-account or nothing.
If I were to post an essay on the effectiveness of the Trial-Account as a means to grow interest in the World of Warcraft franchise it would be a very long post because Blizzard is making a lot of mistakes with the Trial-Account and rely too heavily on the stick rather than the carrot to encourage subscriptions. That’s not the purpose of this post.
The purpose of this post is to hope that this will somehow get the attention of the Blizzard Wizard during this joyous season of Winter Veil. I doubt that this plea will make your heart grow three sizes but if there’s even a slight shred of decency rattling around in that wizened lump of a pump reinstate the warbank for at least another month to give those players who through no fault of their own can only participate in this franchise through the Trial Account an opportunity to retrieve any items of importance that are locked away in their warbanks.
Yoinking the Warbank away from the F2Ps with no warning was a real jerk-move Blizzard Wizard. The three words which best describe it are as follows and I quote, “stink, stank, stunk.”