First World of Warcraft free to play model announced

Last night Blizzard revealed a new free to play sub model for new players joining Azeroth.
There has been speculation that World of Warcraft could at some point go free to play due to its age and increased competition in the MMO space.
Blizzard has been running numerous friend invite schemes and two week trials and this latest development is the next stage to entice new players into Azeroth.
All players can now play World of Warcraft free up until level 20. This includes content from the Burning Crusade so that means new players can also try out the Blood Elves and Draenei and gives new players the chance to get a real feel for the game world before committing fully to the game.
A lot of new players usually quit at around level 10 so this is a great way to give a real taste of a lot of the early content.
With good deals on offer for all the expansions, this new free to play portion of the game will make the game a lot more accessible. Can this be seen as the first stage of a completely free World of Warcraft? Who knows, but it it’s certainly a step in that direction.