What is Starter Edition
The short version? Any World of Warcraft account that does not have active game-time (either a subscription or the time that comes with a purchase of the base game).
- During July of 2011 Blizzard expanded their trial version of the game, that had been limited to just 10 days of play, removing the time limit, and renaming them Starter Edition accounts (S.E.). This change also reactivated any existing trial accounts that had completed their 10 days of play time.
- In February of 2015 they further expanded Starter Edition to include any other 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 any characters of level 20 and under without a subscription.
'Veteran Edition' is the unofficial name given to an upgraded accounts with a lapsed subscription. 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 (RMT), restricting the account's ability to both communicate and trade with other players, although they also serve the purpose of incentivizing players to upgrade their accounts, at least to Veteran status, to improve their game experience.
While the limitation do restrict both chat and forming groups between players, there is however an addon which allows S.E. accounts with it installed 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 are other players who also have the addon installed, the potential for its abuse for RMT is neglibile, and Blizzard have made no attempts to end its use.
