Kinda my point all along with the difference between F2P and 'unlimited trial'.

WoW IS dying though, if they even feel the need to change things in this way. I wouldn't be surprised if they went FULL FTP at some point this year.

Also IMO FTP is shit as in most cases the MMOs who use this do so to make MORE overall than those using the subscription model as many will offer frivolous items that don't even offer any real benefit to your class/etc but LOOK/feel good so people buy them with real money and end up getting hooked on gathering/hoarding stuff, even if it doesn't give them an edge.

So instead of spending alot of time gathering items they'll possibly never use, such MMO players spend time AND money.

That's true for some F2P games but some don't do that so much. Not everything on the Turbine DDO store is great but you can play a lot of great content for free. I know some other MMO companies went the Zygna route trying to get people to shell out tons of dough to assuage their OCD.

I shoulda said some...lol. Yeah some are ok but alot make it cheaper to just go subscription as the micro-transactions actually end up costing one more in the end.

I spend sub 100 a year on DDO (and could spend 50 or less if I wanted), while that's by no means super cheap, that buys content that you would normally consider for inclusion in an expac and a few other goodies, all for less than a regular MMO sub (180 per year for the 15/month variety). WOW charges for expac boxes every 2 years on top of that (tack on 20 a year averaged out for a cool 200 per year to play WOW).

Of course this can always happen (and does in some MMOs): http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/6/10/

Lol dude don't get me wrong...there are some nice true f2p games out there. I'm mainly mad about the scammier ones. Plus don't bother defending DDO.....I played some of it when it was in beta. :)

I don't play it much now though, as per my OCD interfering & also because I couldn't figure how to level & gain skills as I improved.(I'd talk to those trainers in the starting areas and couldn't get my skills to rise even though I could per game levelling for some reason. Maybe you have to wait ahile or rest after picking them to gain the new skills? 0.o)

The way leveling is now, try about 6-8 hours at the most.

Seems to me all they did is remove the time restriction on trials and add a level cap -- I've seen all the other restrictions before. Though maybe that was with the "Recruit-A-Friend" initiative... Either way, it's a step in the right direction. As for including expansion content -- TBC and Cataclysm are significant here because it would give players access to the Blood Elf, Draenei, Goblin and Worgen races. Though it is unclear to me from the link in the original post if that content is included.

One last thing I'll say is that WoW's 1-60 content is pretty impressive now, after the major overhaul they did with Cataclysm. It's a LOT of fun to quest in those zones, and even with a level restriction of 20 you should be able to enjoy yourself for a very decent amount of time, as there are tons of quests to do and zones to visit. The downside is that you'll reach that level cap way too quickly, so you won't gain any experience for the majority of the content available to you, and a lot of it will not be very challenging.

Heh , once upon a time :D played WoW a lot...stop playying it when The Burning Crusade came out though.. Not sure if this decision will make WoW more attractive for new players and certainly not enough to bring old players back ( at least , not me ) . But whatever is said , Blizzard marketing (or whatever name it has) team knows what to do.

I personally think it's a matter of 'keeping up with the joneses' so to speak, they see a potential additional playerbase in the free-to-play market, but don't want ot go full free-to-play.

It's basically like this:
In City of Heroes, there are a lot of us who are saying F2P is going to drive CoH way down hill.. so what Blizzard is trying to do with WoW is be able to wave the 'F2P carrot at the freebie hunters "Looks, it's free to play!!" but at the same time, they want to turn around and assure their "I've been paying for this for 6 bloody years, I don't want n00bz0rs flocking to freeness ruining my game!" players that it's not really a free-to-play, it's just an unlimited trial.

Change things in what way? Trial accounts are strangulating. They are explicitly designed to filter out gold spammers, and were never meant to be used long-term. Because they are so sharply restricted, the 14-day time limit is already borderline unnecessary, and Blizzard knows that. Removing that limit as a token concession to market trends will generate some positive PR and perhaps bring in a handful of players who wouldn't have bothered to try the game otherwise, but it's not a meaningful change to the game's business model, and it is certainly not a death knell.

Hell, I'm sure it's not the only p2p game with a time-unlimited trial. With f2p exploding in recent years, it seems like a sensible thing for any subscription game to do.

Bah WoW is dying and if it does good riddance. We need new blood imo.

Titan!

Depends on your definition of dying, really. They're losing subscribers, true, but they still have about three to four times as many players as any other MMO out there... I think they're doing fine.

I agree that we need "new blood" but there are damned few titles out there that receive the same level of polish that Blizzard is able to give WoW and even fewer that are worth the monthly fee. DC Universe Online is a great example of this -- I bought it off Steam a few days ago and am really enjoy the setting, the quests, the interaction with the DC characters, etc. but with no crafting skills, no economy to speak of, lackluster chat/communications implementation, a level cap of 30 that can be reached in a week and an extremely grindy endgame, it feels more like an online sandbox game in the vein of Assassin's Creed or GTA4, and there's no way I'll continue playing (and paying) after the first free month. Of course, they implemented a micro transitions shop last week, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting ready to go F2P as well, now...

I think that WoW has gotten so big, in terms of player base as well as content/features, that other developers are struggling to justify monthly fees for their products and that's why F2P has become such a big trend in the last few years. And in some cases, this is not a bad thing for us customers. Guild Wars and the upcoming Guild Wars 2 (although, admittedly, they never had monthly fees) are both excellent online multiplayer games. The same goes for D&D Online, Lord of the Rings Online and City of Heroes.