by Its_Immanis - 7 years ago     show comments

In an interesting turn of events it appears that the World of Warcraft Battle Chest, previously required to start a World of Warcraft account or add a license to an existing Trial Account, has gone the way of the Plagued Proto-Drake.

There has not been an official announcement made as of yet but it appears that Blizzard has decided to change how users signed up for a new World of Warcraft account.

In the past users could sign up for a fairly restricted version of WoW, limiting them to characters at or below level 20, no access to social features, limited gold, and several other restrictions. To lift these restrictions players needed to purchase the “Battle Chest”, a purchase which included access to all content except the most current, and an initial 30 days of play-time. This product generally ran in the $20 price range but was frequently on sale for $5-$10 USD, meaning that Blizzard usually ended up losing money on the deal once the $15 of missed revenue from the free 30 days was accounted for.

As of today the Battle Chest is no longer available from the online Blizzard Store, but has instead been replaced by the “World of Warcraft: Complete Collection“. This purchase includes all content including the upcoming expansion Battle for Azeroth, along with 30 days of game-time.

If a player is not ready to commit to purchasing the current expansion and just wants to experience previous content they can sign up for the standard World of Warcraft: Subscription

 which grants access to all content up through the most recent expansion (currently Legion) for the same price of $14.99 per month.

It seems as though the existing “Starter Edition” trials still exist with the same restrictions, it is just easier for players to transition from the trial edition to the full game.