World of Warcraft's Free Trial is SERIOUSLY Outdated!

[Music] you want to know something that's a little bit crazy World of Warcraft is probably the most popular MMO of all time and it has one of the weakest free trials for potential new players that could be because for as long as I remember it hasn't really needed a strong free trial new players would just want to try the game organically and use the small free trial experience as a window into what they could potentially have should they subscribe all their friends were probably already playing everyone in the damn world was playing so there was no need for much persuasion or testing back in 2005 these free trials came as seven day vouchers and eventually around cataclysm there was a big change to allow for trial accounts to play unlimited up to level 20. this is how it works today you can make a character any class and erase and enjoy levels 1 through 20 completely for free the catch heavy restrictions on what features you can access world of warcraft's player base is very divided and quite a few of his veteran players have left the game never to return while expansion launches will always bring a certain amount of people back I personally think it's about time that they try to get new players involved in the heart of the game give players a free trial that actually allows them to participate in some of the fun not just watch silently as other players play the game around them now I want to be perfectly clear in no way am I saying that World of Warcraft is dying I just think the game is at a point where bringing in new players and getting them hooked is a lot more difficult I'm a wow veteran I've played for 15 years I've grown with the game and have been given the opportunity to understand its features and mechanics as they were introduced but bringing in a new player and asking them to understand 18 years worth of game development is getting impossible to do especially when they have to pay the Box cost and a sub fee just to find that out just for argument's sake though I want to mention that other large MMOs have incredibly generous free trials they are keenly aware that they are fighting for a share of the MMO player base something that wow hasn't really had to worry about until the past couple of years Final Fantasy 14 lets you play through the entire core game and the first expansion Heaven's word for free Guild Wars 2 lets you play the entire core game with only a few minor restrictions on certain content for free Star Wars the Old Republic allows you to access eight class story lines and level the 60 for free both versions of RuneScape have always maintained a free version of the game which allows you to access hundreds of hours of content with no time restrictions I'll be on online as a free version similar to RuneScape where you are mostly just missing out on convenience and faster progression if you don't pay and if the game doesn't have a free trial it might be because it's free to play Eve online is free to play Lord of the Rings Online is free to play free trials or free to play games allow you to get a feel for the world the mechanics the type of gameplay and generally give you an idea of what you're signing up for before you make the decision to spend your money and more importantly your time on the game for MMORPGs this is incredibly important MMORPGs are expensive so a good free trial will give you a solid taste of all of these things and make you want more which creates that incentive to pay for the game now I'm not gonna go so far as to say that Wow's monetization strategy might be a bit overzealous I mean wow does have a monthly sub fee on expansion cost and a cash shop with cosmetic and quality of life services including the Pay to Win wow token I'm not gonna say that wow has basically only focused on end game content in the past two or three expansions which basically means you're paying for monthly content you may not even be taking part in I'm not gonna argue that maintaining a sub fee through patch cycles that last around six months means that each pass costs you roughly eighty dollars I'm not here to say any of that what I do want to talk about is the fact that despite all of the Avenues in which a new WoW player can willingly give their money to Blizzard they have to do so without trying the game first Jack World of Warcraft does have a free trial you can play for free until level 20 with only minimal restrictions on features such as chat mail and the friend system okay you're telling me I could play the Newbie starting zone and 10 levels of outdated and irrelevant content can invite my friends to a group and dungeon dive with them well you can't add them if your friends pay for a subscription they can add you as a friend and then invite you to a group but you can definitely dungeon dive with them as long as you manually create a party of five people find the entrance to the dungeon and have your entire party walk to the instance just like it was back in classic oh I don't have access to the dungeon finder at least well you do but only for battle for Azeroth which may change to shadowlands Once dragonfly comes out I'm not too sure yet but who needs the dungeon finder when you have friends but what if I want to play and socialize with people to find friends in a new online world that I've never been in before and may not have a friend willing to hold my hand and play 10 levels of low intensity outdated content with Me Oh you mean other random wobblers just join a guild uh no wait you can't do that uh find an in-game community nope can't do that either I got it go to a major city and start talking to random people asking if they will join you for some low-level questing or a dungeon okay I can do that but you can't use the whisper function to directly talk to someone unless they whisper you first or they put you on the friends list you also can't use the general chat or the yell function so whoever you're talking to has to be right next to you the entire time and you can't trade it all so you can't pay people to be your friend for a day what you will only have access to a few PVP Battlegrounds you will only have access to a few spells and abilities because classes usually don't get a decent kid until around level 30 or so you will never learn to fly you can't collect or battle pets and you can't use the auction house so trying to make money is extremely difficult but that doesn't matter much anyway because you can only hold up to a thousand gold and nothing under level 20 matters enough to purchase anyway you can't access dungeons that require you to be level 20 or higher regardless of the expansion but you know what you can do Erp yeah I'll just go try Final Fantasy instead free trials are incredibly important these days especially in MMORPGs MMORPGs have the highest time sync requirement out of pretty much any major game genre and can be one of the most expensive aside from mobile and gotcha games so why is it that World of Warcraft hasn't updated the free trial to try and attract more players here's my main concern about the current free trial how the hell is a new player supposed to get any indication of what World of Warcraft is actually like in the first 20 levels of the game well I do think that the Exiles reach starting area is a good introduction to the very basics of the game it only lasts about an hour coming out of exile's Reacher level 10 right really quick let's talk about this without the free trial restrictions levels 10 through 20 right now barely give you a glimpse into what your class will feel like in later levels at that point you have 10 Talon points that will give you a couple of spells or abilities from your talentery but other than that you're basically hitting one or two buttons that's great for teaching new players as they gain levels and get more complex abilities but that means that the low levels specifically before level 25-ish have extremely basic combat it's not exactly very interesting nor is it indicative of what I feel is a top tier tab targeting combat system that's fast paced and responsive while giving you strong abilities that make for some engaging damage tanking or healing rotations Wow's combat is so good it makes me wonder why they don't want free trial players to be able to experience it in its full Glory instead any player testing out the game is prevented from Gaining experience after level 20 which means they'll never reach the levels that give them core class abilities or talents but now let's add in the fact that a trial account has plenty of restrictions on it some then prevent the new player from experiencing key parts of the game a new player can't use chromie time they'll have to play the battle for Azeroth expansion content for their first time until they get a character to level 50 which is never so if the free trial player wants to use the dungeon finder they can only queue for BFA dungeons the dungeon finder is absolutely necessary in lower levels you aren't getting a group together for any Legacy dungeons without the dungeon finder and time walking you can't even use the pre-made group finder until Level 50. so if a free trial player wants to Quest with someone else or complete a dungeon that's not from BFA they'll have to find friends out in the world but just a way to gosh darn minute because there are restrictions on chat and adding friends too so let's say this poor free trial player who isn't using chromie time finds another soul out in the desolate Wasteland that is the Legacy content they cannot whisper they cannot yell so they have to be within distance of a regular slash say chat message on top of that a free trial player cannot invite someone to a group so they'll need to persuade the other player to invite them into a group most players these days are leveling so fast that they don't even realize other people play the game do you really think that the poor free trial player is going to be able to catch someone's attention long enough to get an invite for some leveling content alright so no group content unless you have extremely nice friends with a paid subscription already willing to hold your hand through some leveling content what about solo content well you got questing free trial players can still Quest alone just remember you most likely will quest in BFA zones which aren't bad by any means you just don't have much of a choice there you can technically queue for Battlegrounds as well as long as they are unlockable by level 20. so you could just play Battlegrounds all day assuming you like getting your ass handed to you in low-level PVP you do have access to achievements so you can try and complete some of the low level ones you can try out every race in class combination even though you'll only get a very small taste of what they can do in combat that doesn't reflect how awesome it actually is at later levels but I think the biggest thing for me is how short-lived this this content is leveling to 20 takes like 4 hours even if you're questing and fumbling around in the world leveling to 20 doesn't really allow you to engage with much before your experience is turned off and you can't access any higher level content on top of that all the restrictions on chat how much gold you can make and trade they make Group Play professions dungeons Battlegrounds feel so much less impactful and these are key features of World of Warcraft the whole point of MMOs is to feel the satisfaction of your character progression and if that only lasts for a day or so before you're asked to pay 15 bucks a month to continue I think that's a hard sell I also think it's pretty well known by the wow player base that the first 20 levels of the game are nothing like playing the newest expansion so if you're trying to sell a new player on joining you for some fun in the new expansion do you think having them play the first 20 levels gives them a good idea of how much fun they could be having if they joined your guild got to max level on a character got to run cool updated dungeons that are relevant to the current player base or even other things like unlocking Allied races or trying other other expansions or it even the pet battle system I think the free trial may have made more sense when 20 levels was actually a gameplay experience in its own right back in classic or at least up to Wrath of the Lich King there were still millions of people who didn't know the fastest progression paths or weren't caught up in the chase for the current meta it would take new players a good portion of a week to get to level 20. and in that time they were able to engage with the beautiful much more populated and relevant world of Azeroth by wrath and cataclysm it was obviously much easier but it was still a good amount of gameplay now with the level squish The increased speed of leveling in general and the fact that most content from levels 1-20 is at a ludicrously easy difficulty the free trial has so much less value free trial accounts can't really enjoy the combat they can't enjoy much of the questing or dungeon content other than low-level BFA they can't enjoy progression and building a character past level 20. they can't enjoy professions or playing in the economy and they can't enjoy any of the social aspects of the game unless someone goes out of their way to invite them knowing all the free trial restrictions there there's just not much of a game left now I know that the restrictions on chat friends list trading gold count it all has a purpose you wouldn't want free trial players or spammers to come in and ruin the game experience for everyone else but if all of these other MMORPGs are able to figure out how to make an attractive free trial I can't imagine that wow wouldn't be able to think of something maybe free trial accounts can level to 50 or whatever the threshold is at the time but can't move on to the newest content until they sub maybe they're restricted to two character slots but can access chromie time to Quest and run dungeons in any previous wow expansions maybe free trial accounts can join guilds and communities but only if they're invited in maybe all they need to do is allow free trial accounts to play a demo character at higher levels like sub players can do now they may not know what any of the Spells or abilities do but at least they can see what the higher level content is like whatever they do I hope the free trial gets some attention I would love to be able to get new players involved with the game and have them understand why I love World of Warcraft so much even with all the game design problems of the past couple expansions it's kind of weird to me that I can get so hype for dragonflight and Wrath of the Lich King Classic but I can't really tell my friends to try either of them without paying 15 bucks for a month's subscription and at least 50 bucks for the dragonflight expansion and I know updating the free trial is not the biggest problem that wow needs to address but it's definitely something to think about as the game gets older and starts to slowly lose its veteran player base you may not think that a 15 sub fee is too much money to be a barrier to entry for new players but I guarantee you that it's much more important to the decision than you think but most importantly I hope you enjoyed the video leave a like if you liked it and subscribe for more content I hope you enjoy your dragon Isles adventures and I can't wait to see what we talk about next [Music] foreign

Channel: All-Trades Jack

Views: 26,604

Keywords: wow, world of warcraft, vanilla, classic, dragonflight, WoW, Shadowlands, free trial

Id: jSbm0D7xZeY

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 17 2022