It's not, as rumours had suggested, the first step in a full
free-to-play rollout, but a free-to-play mode similar to the trial
Starter Edition for users who already have accounts.
"We've always had this kind of weird limitation where if you've never
played WoW, we let you play as much as you want, albeit in a very
restricted Starter Edition account. However, if you have ever had a
subscription -- but don't currently have one -- we don't even let you
log in," community manager Bashiok explained in the Blizzard forums.
"In 6.1 we'll effectively revert lapsed accounts into a Starter Edition
'mode', with all of the same restrictions. The one difference being that
your sub-level 20 characters will be able to join a guild if any of
your other characters are still in that guild."
These restrictions include level and money caps -- a level cap of 20 out
of a possible 100 levels, and a maximum of 10 gold, after which players
can continue to play the game, they just cannot accrue any more
experience or gold.
Like Starter Edition accounts, Veteran Edition accounts will also have
restrictions on communications: no whispers to any character not on the
player's friends list, no shouting, and no inviting players into groups.
When patch 6.1 rolls out across the game, all lapsed accounts will
become a "Veteran Edition" account, Bashiok said, although the term
"veteran" was never intended to be anything but a way to label the
account type internally.
"It's unlikely to be a term we use to any great degree externally,"
Bashiok said. "It will simply be the default state for accounts that
don't currently have an active subscription."
