Mythic announces free 10-day WAR trials on FilePlanet

by Brooke Pilley Feb 25th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items

Mythic just announced free 10-day trials for Warhammer Online through FilePlanet, which is available to Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and U.S. residents only. Up until now, the only way to try WAR for free was if you received an invitation from Mythic's Recruit-a-Friend program. For a limited time, anyone to takes the free trial through FilePlanet will also receive $5.00 off the full purchase on Direct2Drive.

You can download the trial here. The trial will expire 10 days after you activate your account, even if you don't log in. Trial accounts are restricted to tier one and capital city zones. You may purchase items from the auction house and receive in-game mail but you can not sell items on the AH or send in-game mail (to prevent spam/bot accounts). Trial characters can only be created on designated servers. Check the official free trial FAQ for more details.

It is unknown when or if the 10-day trial offer will expire. The ideal time try WAR for the first time is probably in early March once they implement the 1.2 patch. Patch 1.2 will feature the Bitter Rivals live event (many interesting tasks, a new scenario, and will usher in the Choppa and Slayer careers), fix hundreds upon hundreds of bugs, and aim to balance almost all the game's careers.

Tags: bitter-rivals, call-to-arms, fileplanet, free-trial, mythic-entertainment, war, warhammer-online

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

THAC0 said on 3:07PM 2-25-2009

This is a good idea. I'll be willing to give it a free trial to check out the slayer and choppa careers, but would not have re-subscribed again to see them. Maybe they can win me back.... doubtful

Crymorenoob said on 3:11PM 2-25-2009

What's the PvP/loot situation like in War?

Mr Rodgers said on 3:13PM 2-25-2009

I'm glad they're implementing this. In all honesty, I don't understand why every MMO doesn't already have this kind of deal permanently in place. It shows an element of transparency, letting the customer know that the company is proud of their work and isn't trying to dupe them into buying a shoddy product.

If you're proud of your work, why not let people try it for free? Let the product sell itself.

Hardy said on 3:41PM 2-25-2009

They don't have trials at the games release because, I'm assuming, from a marketing perspective it would REALLY REALLY hurt sales for the game itself.

I mean, most people that bought the game would probably just try the trial instead, which would make it even harder for MMOs to succeed in this cutthroat market.

Mr Rodgers said on 3:54PM 2-25-2009

I can see what you're getting at, but if the company just provides a product worth buying, there's no problem. They would make a great initial impression on their customers and would end up losing very few subscriptions.

Ultimately, if the game is worth buying and has a wide-appeal, the people who try the game would turn around and make the purchase at the end of the trial AND have some respect for the game developers for their openness.

Like I said, I understand why they DON'T do it initially. It makes sense from a financial point of view. I would just love to see a company take the risk on a truly excellent product. My wager is that they would gain considerably from a PR point of view.

My initial point was that I don't understand why some established games don't have free trials. Does AoC even have free trials up? Did Tabula Rasa? If a game is floundering, there really is nothing to lose.

THAC0 said on 4:02PM 2-25-2009

"I mean, most people that bought the game would probably just try the trial instead, which would make it even harder for MMOs to succeed in this cutthroat market."

Exactly, that means the game sucks if they wouldn't buy it after a trial and they are hiding a shitty product when they don't offer one. I'd feel a lot better if i got to try something before shelling out 50 bucks. I still never got my money back from Dark and Light ... /sighs

Tony said on 3:22PM 2-25-2009

It'd be a bit more interesting to me if I didn't have to be paying for Fileplanet to use it.

Then Gabe said on 3:36PM 2-25-2009

Yeah, I was all set to give it a try, then found out fileplanet wants you to pay $6 just to be able to try out the "free" trial. Bullshit.

THAC0 said on 3:44PM 2-25-2009

Oh you have to be a paid subscriber to try it. screw that.

Mr. Pickles said on 3:59PM 2-25-2009

Well, it is around a 7GB download. Lately there's been too many legal issues with turrents to try anything of that sort, and the distribution of such could cause for some very messed up code (maleware anyone?).

However, I'm sure that down the line they'll put in some free demos or something at stores just like Blizz did with their game. Heck, before Blizz made their trial free, they charged roughly $3 USD for the trial disc at Gamestop's and Walmart's, only after TBC released did they actually make it truely "free."

Mr Rodgers said on 4:08PM 2-25-2009

I still see those "free" trial discs for sale at some Gamestops. Granted, these are the Gamestops where I feel like I'm about to get shot rather than the well-run ones, but still. It always makes me laugh.

Banquo said on 4:54PM 2-25-2009

If you have a friend who plays that you can borrow the install discs off, the FAQ says you can install the full version of the game and play your free trial account on that. So you could avoid FilePlanet.

I might see if it works with the install I have hanging around from closed and open beta. The game wasn't good enough then to be worth buying, but maybe it has improved.

Banquo said on 6:34PM 2-26-2009

Ignore my above post, it seems I was totally wrong. This trial is ONLY for paid Fileplanet subscribers, even if you have a client install from elsewhere, you need to log in to your paid Fileplanet account to create a trial account.

So it seems Mythic aren't interested in introducing any new players to Warhammer, they just wanted a quick kickback from Fileplanet.

Kelathos said on 5:17PM 2-25-2009

As THAC0 said: "Oh you have to be a paid subscriber to try it. screw that."

Let me know when there's an actual free trial.

Leshrac said on 10:06PM 2-25-2009

Seeing that the game only has about 10 days of content this will work out well.

The Claw said on 10:50PM 2-25-2009

Oh snap!

Jack said on 12:59AM 2-26-2009

Fileplanet... worst choose ever they suck so bad! And the trail is kinda sad also please people come try or game its better now please play it!! EA will fire or asses!

moo said on 3:41AM 2-26-2009

The game is shit anyways you might aswel just play the much better WoW.

Bowlzee said on 7:08AM 2-26-2009

At least in the America/Oceania you can offer free trials to your buddies. here in the Europe we can't even do that! GOA are extremely slow in implementing anything like this!I have several friends that want to try it before they buy it and move away from wow....Mythic should kick GOA up the A&%$.... They made an awful decision in picking GOA to host European servers, we've been plagued with problems....