What is Starter Edition

During July of 2011 Blizzard upgraded their 10 day trial accounts, removing the time limit, and renaming them Starter Edition accounts. In February of 2015 they expanded Starter Edition to include any account that was not subscribed, allowing players who had previously bought the full game, who would have been prevented from accessing any character on their account unless they had an active subscription, to play characters of level 20 and under without a subscription.

'Veteran Edition' is the unofficial name given to these upgraded accounts with lapsed subscriptions. Blizzard only used the term 'Veteran' internally, and consider any account without a subscription to be Starter Edition, as the limitations put on these accounts are mostly the same. Almost all of these limitations have been put in place in order to prevent free (or easily affordable) accounts from being abused for the purpose of Real Money Trading, restricting the account's ability to both communicate and trade with other players.

There is however an addon which allows S.E. accounts to use a custom chat channel, and to request assistance from players in the channel with subscribed accounts, in order to make groups. As the only players with whom the addon's users can communicate with are other players who have the addon installed, the potential for its abuse is neglibile, and Blizzard have made no attempts to end its use.