Now it all becomes so clear to me!

I was poking around the World of Warcraft forums, keeping my finger on the pulse of the bloated 4-million player community, and I ran across this Blizzard post about the free trial accounts being offered in some of the gaming rags.

I guess I’ll post the relevant text as thread authors (not just Blizzard authors either) can DELETE their threads if they so choose. An incredibly poor decision, in my opinion, as players can post shit then just walk away from the shit, sans consequences, when the heat gets turned up. Anyways, per Eyonix, Blizzard dragonling:

Since there has been some recent confusion concerning the issue, I thought I’d clarify that in order to protect our player base from abuse, we have placed some restrictions on accounts created using the promotional trial version of World of Warcraft that is available through certain magazine publications. Please be aware that these restrictions are only in place during the trial period; players who decide to purchase a retail copy of World of Warcraft and activate their accounts will be able to continue adventuring with the same characters and take full advantage of all features included in the retail version of the game.

During the trial period, characters on the promotional accounts will be able to advance up to level 20 and accumulate up to 10 gold. Use of the auction house and mailbox, player-to-player trade, and access to the in-game chat channels will be unavailable for the duration of the 14-day trial period.

So, thinks I: wtf, why would Blizznit deny access to the in-game chat channels for trial players? That’s gonna be a bitch if they need help with quests.

Then, I made the connection after I spotted this thread, by a Zul’jin player, complaining about the recent rash of in-game chat advertisements. (I’m slow, but I can learn.) He links to some screenshots he took of the ads. (My archive of his screenshots if that link dies.)

The clever little gold sellers were using the trial accounts to the fullest: spamming ads, laundering cash and items, moving their crack through the Auction House. Very, very clever.

My server, too, has been hit with the recent rash of unauthorized in-game advertising:

They seem to broadcast to all the bigger level players within minutes as usually guildchat erupts with WTFs soon after. Naturally, this has spawned a running bit whenever a guildmate needs a loan for some epic equipment piece of uber, “dude, 77 bucks gets ya 1K gold. Use your mom’s PayPal.”

Clever must not pay as well as I’ve been led to believe.