Free WoW Week For Some Former Accounts; Battle.net Signup Required

The rest of us might be taking more time off, but the folks at Blizzard just won't take a holiday from drawing people back in to Azeroth. Sometime last week, reports started fluttering in that some gamers who had formerly sought glory and conquest in World of Warcraft were receiving invites back into the battle, in the form of a free seven-day trial, which can be started anytime before the end of this year. And if the promise of pick-up groups and reagent-farming weren't enough to lure you back, they've packed in the ultimate must-have for compulsive collectors: a free pet. The Onyxia brood whelpling, a tiny purple dragon who also appears in the eponymous boss fight, is available to any account that logs in before December 7.

Not all former questers are eligible for the free re-trial, however. An official post elaborates:

To be eligible for 7 free days of play time, the account must meet the following criteria:

• The account must be in good standing (i.e. not locked or suspended).
• The account's expiration time is prior to October 16, 2009.
• The account may not be a trial account.

In addition, only certain accounts are eligible, and attempts to apply the time to an ineligible account will be met with an error message.

It should be noted that, while the extra traffic won't cost Blizzard much, it will help their overall goal of linking up plenty of established accounts with their brand-spanking-new Battle.net service, which became mandatory for WoW players a few weeks back, and which will also be required to play StarCraft 2 and Diablo III.

The long-term features for Battle.net are still in development, but what we've seen so far shows a vision of a system that blends Steam-esque chatting and achievements with customizable profile pages à la Facebook. These sound like excellent additions to the Blizzard family of games, but there have also been rumblings of a premium Battle.net which will let players buy into a higher tier of online features and benefits.

Obviously, any social networking idea will draw more people in if their friends are already connected to it, and giving out free pets for signing in and merging one's Battle.net account is a good way for Blizzard to up the number in a hurry. Even so, there have been plenty of sought-after features and new content added to World of Warcraft in the past year or so, so players who've been hooked in the past but cut ties to the game now have the opportunity to ready their mounts and see what they've missed!

If your languishing account meets the above requirements, and you're not afraid to delve past that pretty Battle.net logo, the account management page will show you how to start your seven-day Azeroth retread.