Rumors of there being a free-to-play “Veteran Edition” of Blizzard Entertainment’s massively popular MMO World of Warcraft surfaced when supposed references were discovered through data mining. While the rumor itself caused debate on the Battle.net forums, the developer’s community manager eventually dispelled the rumor by clarfiing what “Veteren” actually meant.
The “Veteran” term was an internal codename that refers to the accounts of existing World of Warcraft players (whose subscriptions had lapsed) reverting to a Starter Edition-like “mode”. The Starter Edition for World of Warcraft allows new players to play the game as much as they desire under heavy restrictions. With the game’s upcoming 6.1 update, the community manager, known as Bashiok on the forums, elaborated that the developer would “effectively revert lapsed accounts into a Starter Edition ‘mode’,” which would then feature all the same restrictions as seen in a Starter Edition.
Bashiok added that the only difference between a regular Starter Edition for new players and a Starter Edition for lapsed players would be that the latter will allow for characters under level 20 to join a guild if any other of the account holder’s characters are still in said guild. The manager also explained that the term “Veteran” wouldn’t be used much to any degree on an external basis. “It will simply be the default state for accounts that don’t currently have an active subscription,” Bashiok concluded.
[ Source: Battle.net ]
[ Via: GameSpot ]