World of Warcraft Adds New Account Restriction for Season of Discovery

gamerant.com:

World of Warcraft recently implemented a restriction for new accounts in Classic Season of Discovery that stops them from trading with other characters, using the auction house, or sending and receiving in-game mail. These limitations, imposed on World of Warcraft accounts until they have had a paid subscription for at least 30 days, were added for similar reasons as last year’s restriction on WoW token purchases.

Season of Discovery is a new type of World of Warcraft game server that features new twists on the Classic formula. It recently began Phase 3 of its experiment, increasing the level cap, opening a 20-man raid version of the Sunken Temple, and introducing Runes and other new secrets for World of Warcraft players to discover.

However, as of the weekly reset on April 9, World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery has added a new restriction on fresh accounts. When they logged on, some players found themselves unable to trade with others, use the auction house, or access their in-game mail. According to a forum post by Blizzard developer Yryadorne, this was an intentional change. Through this new system, World of Warcraft accounts will be unable to use these features until at least 30 days of paid subscription time has lapsed. This restriction only affects Season of Discovery characters, but it does work retroactively, so fans who recently subscribed will be blocked for a few weeks still.

This new account restriction is similar to the one World of Warcraft implemented for WoW Tokens in November 2023. By requiring players to purchase at least one month of subscription time in order to interact with these game mechanics, World of Warcraft hopes to combat bots, gold farmers, and other bad actors that would threaten to ruin the Season of Discovery experience.

However, this new restriction can also be pretty punishing for new World of Warcraft players. Being unable to engage in these social aspects of the MMO for a whole month can be crippling and discouraging,