What WoW Free to Play players can and cannot do

The World of Warcraft Starter Edition is Blizzard's free to play option for WoW. While it is a good way to get to know the game, don't go running out to tell all your friends to play with you for free until you know a few things about this edition. In order to avoid pronoun trouble, your friend is named Veronica.

• A Starter Edition player cannot send or receive mail. So you can't mail bags, gold, or even an empty welcome note to Veronica.

• Pet Battles are off limits for free to play people, but they can purchase the training -- unfortunately.

• Veronica will be able to create a Pandaren, just not a monk.

More free to play info after the break.

• FTP players cannot whisper except in reply or if on the recipient's friends list. If you want Veronica to be able to send you a tell without you having to whisper her first, friend her.

• Veronica will only be able to chat in /party, /say and /whisper. She can join raids and custom chat channels, but can't speak. She will be able to see what everyone is saying, though.

• Starter Edition players cannot invite people to groups, but can be made leader of them.

• Death knights can be chosen and customized, but cannot be created as a free to play character. Such a tease.

• Veronica will be able to learn tradeskills, but 100 is the highest rank she'll be able to achieve.

• No Real ID for Starter Edition players. So you can only chat on the same server.

• Guilds cannot be joined or created by free to play players.

• No in-game voice chat for Veronica! (Does anyone actually use voice chat?)

• The auction house is searchable and it will even let Starter Edition players attempt to make bids, but then the red text will pop up to chastise them.

• If there is a login queue for her server, Veronica will be queued behind subscribed players.

• Free to play players can only possess 10 gold at a time and only reach level 20.

• Battlegrounds will be accessible to Veronica, but turning off experience gains will not.

• Starter Edition players do collect achievements.

If Veronica still wants to try out World of Warcraft for free, Blizzard's FAQ can tell her a few ways to do it. If after playing for a while, she decides not to upgrade, her account will remain active. So she can go back to WoW whenever she wants and her characters will still be there.

Overall, the restrictions and the constant reminders to upgrade are annoying, but there is still fun to be had as a free to play player.