If you wanted it to go on even longer, you had to pay $20 for a copy of the original game, which would include a 30-day trial period, as well. That helps, but you still have to shell out the cash.

Not anymore, thanks to the new WoW free-to-play system. You can play any kind of character (minus those added in Cataclysm) up to level 20…for free. For as long as it takes. Did you get your character to this “max”? Create another. If you’re fine with going from 1-20 over and over, this could be fun for you.

And if you decide that you’re willing to make the commitment, $19.99 gets you the original game as well as the Burning Crusade expansion in a “Digital Battle Chest.”

Unfortunately, something like this has a ton of limitations. I’ve included Blizzard’s full list here:

The following restrictions are placed on all Starter Edition Accounts:

- A level cap of 20.
- A maximum of 10 gold.
- Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
- Unable to trade via the Auction House, mailbox, or player-to-player.
- In-game access to public chat channels unavailable. Players are limited to communicating using only say, party, or whisper.
- Characters will be unable to create or join guilds.
- Characters are not able to send whispers to other characters unless they have been added to the characters’ friends lists or have received a whisper from a character first.
- Characters will not be able to invite other players into a party.
- Characters will not be able to join parties with other characters above level 20.
- Voice chat disabled on Starter Edition accounts.
- Realms experiencing login queues will prioritize players who have full, paid accounts.
- Starter Edition accounts are not eligible for character transfers
- RealID features are disabled on all Starter Edition Accounts.

For more information, check out the official FAQ.

Endless Trial accounts are restricted to Tier 1 of the Empire versus Chaos pairing. This includes Tier 1 scenarios but does not include access to the Capital Cities or the other racial pairings within the game.

Endless Trial accounts may receive mail and purchase from the auction house; however, they cannot send mail or create auctions.

Endless Trial accounts are limited to designated servers. If you’d like to play with friends on other servers, you will need to purchase a retail copy of the game and transfer your character to their server (or create a new character on their server). All characters Rank 11 and under on purchased accounts have access to unlimited transfers, with a max of one transfer per day. Please note that you can only transfer characters to the same server type as the server you created your characters on (Core, Open RvR, and Roleplay). Please see the full server list here for details about each server, including server type. Alternatively, if you have a friend who is currently playing WAR, you can ask them for a Recruit-a-Friend code that will allow you to create a Recruit-a-Friend trial account which has access to all servers. Please see the Recruit-a-Friend section for more information.

Sounds like a good deal, and a great way for you to play for a longer period of time to really see if you want to commit to that monthly fee. More details on the Endless Trial and where to download both PC and Mac versions can be found here on the official site.