Can I buy "World of Warcraft" on Black Friday to get game time?

I played like two months during Burning Crusade and then another 3 during Cataclysm. I did not buy/play Mists of Pandaria or Warlords of Draenor, however the expansions are now showing up on my battle.net account?! (every account got "upgraded" to Warlords of Draenor for free?)

Over christmas I would like to play with some friends again. Can I purchase "World of Warcraft" now (Black Friday sale) and get game time this way? Because I got some mail stating "WoW 50% off: Black Friday sale" and so on.

I am confused, since this discount looks like a new copy of the game including the expansions, nethertheless it is showing up as "buyable" in my battle.net shop...but since I already have WoW I guess I can not buy it and have to regularly buy game time? ( which hasn't any Black Friday discounts :/ )


Solution 1:

If you already own WoW you can not buy another copy of it in order to get its free game time if you want to keep your old account. There is no game time card or code in the package (it will be tied to the new account once it's created). You need to buy game time separately and of course the new Legion expansion, if you plan to play all the way through.

You can buy a new copy of WoW and create a new account, but all your previous progress will be lost, or...

If you have an old WoW account (the one before WoW got migrated into battle.net) on your name there is a trick to keep at least the progress of that account (titles, mounts, etc):

  • Buy WoW and create a new account
  • merge your old account into the new one on battle.net

The previous expansions have been merged into the base game, so you don't have to buy 5 games in order to play one. They always did that, but before Pandaria you had to buy the previous expansion as well as the base game and the newest one.

Solution 2:

previous accounts have been upgraded to Draenor for free, the only thing that you'd need to buy (for a full experience, including brand new content in a few days!) is the new Legion Expansion and GameTime.