After news broke that Team Fortress 2 was going to be free-to-play, it comes to no surprise that another big online game would follow suit. MMO Giant, World of Warcraft will now be available as a trial that lets players grind their way up to a level 20 cap instead of the 14-days of play the trial used to offer. After hitting that cap, players will be offered an upgrade to get access to a higher level cap and get to enjoy the rest of the first expansion, Burning Crusade.

Blizzard was also generous enough to give players the choice to either create a Draenei or a Blood Elf, characters that were only available if you had the Burning Crusade expansion. Upgrading will now bring you both the original game (updated with the somewhat newly destroyed azeroth) and Burning Crusade for $19.99 at the Blizzard Store. (Subscription is still needed.)

For those who are already playing the rest of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, patch notes of Rage of the Firelands is up.

[Source]