WoW: When Eleven Million Players Aren't Enough

Blizzard have launched a new drive for their rapidly ailing World Of Warcraft player base, in a last-ditch desperate attempt to drum up interest in the game, before it has to switch off its servers. Called Recruit A Friend, they're hoping that by giving incentives to the smattering of players they currently have, they'll be able to encourage new blood and rejuvenate the MMO.

Ha de ha. Honestly, there can't be bank vaults big enough for storing all of Blizzards dosh, but they can't stop. Recruit A Friend has players email their non-WoW-playing chums (is that possible?) to give them a trial activiation key. The motive? A zebra.

The website explains,

"For each person you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases two months of game time, you will be able to give a character on the account you sent the invitation from an exclusive in-game zhevra mount. This unique mount can be claimed through the website, is only available to Recruit-A-Friend participants, and can only be applied to a single character."

If the recruited player only upgrades and pays for one month rather than two, the recruiter will gain 30 days of free play time, which is none too shabby. And if you can convince a bunch of people to sign on, those free months stack up.

There's also to be some spooky linking between recruiters and their recruitee that lasts for 90 days. This will allow you to summon one another once an hour, and if playing together, gain triple experience. And a third, more confusing thing that I'll not attempt to paraphrase: "For every two levels the new player earns, the new player can grant one free level-up to a lower-level character played by the veteran player." Take away the number you first suggested - who is the tallest son?

There are, inevitably, 284 complications and sub-rules about this, all explained here

And hopefully Warcraft will be able to scrape through the 12 million player mark that all MMOs must fight to reach.