Next WoW expansion introduces paid early access, but Blizzard promise it'll offer "no long-term advantage"

rockpapershotgun.com:

World of Warcraft's expansion pack The War Within, out next year, comes in several flavours. There's the standard version of the pack, which includes access to previous expansions, currency for cosmetics and a level 70 character boost. The Heroic edition gives you all that plus a mount, a pet and extra in-game cash. And then there's the most expensive Epic edition, which includes a pet, two toys, 30 days of game time... and three days of early beta access to the game, yours for $89.99 in the states.

Naturally, World of Warcrafters are rather concerned about the last bit. It's the first time Blizzard's long-running MMO has taken the paid early access approach, recently adopted by Starfield and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - there have been early access betas in the past, but they've been doled out by lottery. Blizzard's game director Ion Hazzikostas has now moved to reassure the grousers and gripers, promising that The War Within's Epic edition won't give minted early worms the edge over those poor peasants who scoop up the less pricey versions.

"It is a trend across the industry that we're paying attention to," Hazzikostas said of paid early access at large in a new PCGamer interview. "A number of games have done it." He assured the site that The War Within's three day beta will be calibrated to avoid creating competitive advantages, but admitted that the developers haven't done a tremendous job of advertising this.

"The immediate concern that we knew we needed to tackle, and I think frankly I wish we'd done a better job of explicitly spelling out when we announced it on the web page as part of the pre-sale process, are the restrictions that are associated with the early access," Hazzikostas said.

Blizzard