Re:Copyright Office Adds DMCA Exemption for 'Abandoned' Onli...
by thaumasiotes on Monday October 29, 2018 @01:45PM
(#18329452)
> I've never played WoW nor do I know anyone who still does, so I'm out of touch. At what point (if any) were users forced to pay extra (a paid for update and/or increased subs) to continue to play the game? Can those without the expansions still play? That certainly seems to be a fair place to draw a line.
It doesn't quite work out the way you're imagining. A WoW expansion does one thing that require you to buy the expansion: the level cap goes up (e.g. in Cataclysm the level cap was 80 if you were paid up through Wrath of the Lich King, but 85 if you had bought Cataclysm). An expansion may or may not also prevent accounts that haven't bought it from entering new zones.
But it also makes a bunch of other changes that you get whether you want them or not. Content may be removed from the game, like original Naxxramas. Game mechanics will shift around. Every raid below the level cap goes out of support -- it isn't possible to play supported raids without being at the most recent level cap, and it also isn't possible to play old raids the way they were when they were current, as mechanics changes are not evaluated for impact on unsupported raids.
There were so many conceptual problems with having multiple different expansions that weren't current that Blizzard has moved to the model of "you've either bought the current expansion, or you haven't" -- when one expansion releases, the previous one is now automatically rolled into everyone's account.
It doesn't quite work out the way you're imagining. A WoW expansion does one thing that require you to buy the expansion: the level cap goes up (e.g. in Cataclysm the level cap was 80 if you were paid up through Wrath of the Lich King, but 85 if you had bought Cataclysm). An expansion may or may not also prevent accounts that haven't bought it from entering new zones.
But it also makes a bunch of other changes that you get whether you want them or not. Content may be removed from the game, like original Naxxramas. Game mechanics will shift around. Every raid below the level cap goes out of support -- it isn't possible to play supported raids without being at the most recent level cap, and it also isn't possible to play old raids the way they were when they were current, as mechanics changes are not evaluated for impact on unsupported raids.
There were so many conceptual problems with having multiple different expansions that weren't current that Blizzard has moved to the model of "you've either bought the current expansion, or you haven't" -- when one expansion releases, the previous one is now automatically rolled into everyone's account.