Hey! So here’s my story
I played way back for a year (a very deep WoW year for me) juuuust before the big battlenet migration. I had a few characters but only two i really cared about. I had to stop because of school, and that’s when everything here changed.
Fast forward to a week ago and my GF and I really want to play wow classic, but without the Subscription FTP restrictions. It said recovery of accounts could potentially be made with old CD keys. I figured maybe they can merge accounts for me or at the least, apply a discount on buying the updated parts of the current game since i had the base game and burning crusade battle chest key. I contacted Blizzard last night and told them this.
They said pre-battlenet merging was not possible (which i expected) but that they could not apply any kind of discount to my battlechest CD key when buying their current game.
So here I am using the link the support person gave me. Filing my grievance. Canadian and US currency exchange hasn’t changed much in the last couple of decades, it was basicallly 40 bucks canadian for the battle chest when i bought it once upon a time. So I don’t see why Blizzard would have an issue with a returning player asking for a discount code or something in exchange for their CD key information. For a big company like this it seems like a drop in the bucket that should be automatic for hiatus-returning players. It’s a pretty sour taste to continue feeling with MMO games of this quality.
Anyways, the customer service person said things nicely, even if it didn’t make things feel any better. So no shade on them, just shade on the situation.
Hope someone sees this and takes note of it for the future or can do something in-response, I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way about returning. I just may be one of the few that followed up with a forum comment.
Sorry, what is it you think you get a discount for? I’m confused. I have a few accounts myself, but that doesn’t mean I get a discount on an optional Classic package.
In order to play on the Classic realms, you need to have a Retail version of the game with active game time and that’s it. There are no other requirements.
that’s the thing. I have the base game, but not installed. it’s the old battle chest with the retail game and burning crusade in one box. I have a newer PC without a CD drive. There was some mention on the site that some recovery options used CD keys of the game to recover old account info or validation of a purchased game. So I figured if I could provide that I’d at least get a discount on having to buy the newer retail version, since I’ve bought the retail version base and Burning Crusade years ago.
If this was pre-Battlenet and they can find the license, that CAN be added to a Battlenet account, however, it’s just a license and would be treated as all others are.
Unfortunately, you don’t get a discount for having an existing account (or an old account that you haven’t played in years). In more recent years, Blizzard has rolled almost all previous expansions into the base game for free.
So you’ve already sorta saved on all those older expansions. Now, if you want to play Shadowlands, you can indeed still purchase that expansion or if you wait until closer to the launch of Dragonflight, they will likely roll that into the base game for free too.
But having Shadowlands won’t do anything for you in the Classic realms, so it’s not really needed.
that would at least consider my account not a trial account anymore right? so it wouldn’t have the subscription-only ftp options enabled? Because that’s basically the bare minimum I’d want.
They said that all previous expansions get rolled into the newer one, so their codes become null and void. Which makes it seem like having the key doesn’t matter anymore.
The only way to make your account not a trial, is to add game time. You don’t have to do anything else. Trial now just means that there’s no active game time.
okay. so I subscribed for a month, but that doesn’t count as game time? Is game time those tokens that are like 60 days at a time? But buying a base retail game with my current account AND being subscribed would have the same effect too right?
That would indeed count as active game time Either an subscription or the blocks of 60 days both count as game time.
You can’t purchase a base retail game anymore. They’re free. If you’ve got a month of sub time, then you’re already golden to level up to level 50 in the retail version or play all the content currently available in Classic.
Okay cool. So that means that when it told me i had an FTP account when trying to trade it was some sort of layover time from making a new account? like if i logged in today that should be gone and everything should be gravy?
When you add game time to an account, you can begin playing characters over level 20 immediately (or begin to level beyond level 20). However, the other free-to-play restrictions can take up to 24 additional hours to come off.
Either an subscription or the blocks of 60 days both count as game time.