How to Upgrade a World of Warcraft Account

The moment a World of Warcraft trial account expires, a player can no longer continue playing the game.  When this happens, you may find yourself in a bind if you have not already upgraded your game to the next expansion pack.  You have 10 to 14 days to figure out if you like World of Warcraft when you sign up for a trial account.  Once you have signed up for an account, you can begin playing a character with certain restrictions in effect.  However, once you upgrade, you have full access to the game.  So, when your trial account runs out, you will have to upgrade but you can always upgrade before that if you decide you want to continue playing.

Blizzard makes it easy to upgrade a World of Warcraft account.  You can either purchase the software from a retailer or buy a product registration key online.  If you do the latter, you download the game directly from Blizzard's web site.  However, if you purchase the software at a retailer, you just install it like any other software and then enter the product code from the box into your account manager online.  Once the code is entered, it generally takes a day or two for your account to be fully activated.  You will then have a full version of World of Warcraft to play and be eligible to upgrade to the next expansion pack when you decide to do so.

There are two major expansion packs for World of Warcraft with a third one to be released sometime in the fall of 2009.  The first expansion pack is The Burning Crusade and allows a player to continue leveling up to 70; it introduces the Outland, several new dungeons, a few raids and brings the Blood Elves and Draenei into existence.  The second expansion pack, The Wrath of the Lich King, raises the level cap to 80 and creates a whole new continent in Azeroth.  Wrath of the Lich King also introduced the Death Knight hero class which allows players to create a single Death Knight per realm once they have a single character who reaches level 55.  In the fall of 2009, Blizzard plans to change the whole Warcraft world by redesigning many well-known zones, raising the level cap to 85 and introducing two new playable races: Worgen and Goblins.