Word of Warcraft is free to play once your character reaches level 20

Blizzard Entertainment has anounced that the most popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, will be free to play once your character reaches level 20.

With the new program called World of Warcraft Starter Edition, new playes can play at the own pace without worrying that their free trial will expire. Once their character reaches level 20, they can continue playing but will stop earning experience, making it impossible to stop. To play past level 20, new players will need to upgrade to the full version of the game, which can be done online.

Since, there's is no time limit for trail players, there's a great deal of the other restrictions besides the level 20 limit. Trial players can have a maximum of 100 gold, their trade skills are capped at 100 ranks, they are unable to trade in the AH or join Guilds, their chat options are limited, they cannot invite other players into a party, and they cannot join parties with other characters above level 20 and so on.

In short, WOW maybe free, but still it's far from the full World of Warcraft experience.

Here’s an FAQ describing all the intricacies of the new free trial system. To sign up, go here.

Do you think is this Blizzard’s first step to making WoW completely free? Will the upcoming masses of new trial players annoy older players? Share your opinions in the comments.