Expansion purchases, sequential only?

#0 - Oct. 6, 2010, 10:37 p.m.

With the upcoming revamp of the 1-60 experience, I'm enticing two people (a friend, and a family member) to join me in Azeroth. As in, once 4.0.3 hits, I'm sending each of them Recruit-A-Friend 10 day trials.

Obviously neither will be able to create a blood elf, draenei, goblin, or worgen character right away. And I will no doubt have to explain that these character races are exclusive to their respective expansion sets, and that worgen and goblins won't be available until Cataclysm proper is released.

What happens if they want to purchase Cataclysm to start a goblin or worgen character, but don't want to spend an additional 70 dollars on the other two expansions right away? It could be many weeks before they reach level 60 and need to purchase The Burning Crusade, or Wrath of the Lich King at 70... or 55, if they want to create a Death Knight.

My question is, is it mandatory to purchase and activate the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions on a new account before the Cataclysm expansion can be activated on that account? I already have both current expansions, so it doesn't matter for my account, but I would like to stave off any problems if my family member or friend want to make a worgen or goblin character.

(Yes, I'm being deliberately vague about their identities; this is because I'm not sure how much it's appropriate to reveal about them on the official forums when they don't even have trial accounts yet.)

Thanks for taking the time to answer this question!

Vrakthris

#4 - Oct. 7, 2010, 4:43 a.m.

I'm sorry, Lupiko, but the others are correct. In order to apply Cataclysm you'd need to have the previous expansions on the account thus it would go Standard: World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King an then Cataclysm.

Though Cataclysm does include two races, it also enabled characters to go from 80 to 85. In either case each expansion builds on the content of the previous one.

Though picking up all the expansions may be a daunting though, keep in mind that there is available the Battle Chest, which contains the standard version of the game plus Burning Crusade, you can often find Wrath of the Lich King at a discount in some retail stores. If you do a little hunting you or your friends may be able to pick get nearly caught up for a fraction of what it originally cost to upgrade.

Good luck and I hope your friends enjoy the game. :)