Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play on November 15

In a move Electronic Arts has been prepping for months, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be going free-to-play on November 15 in a effort to renew interest in the MMO that has seen its subscriber base dip below 1 million.

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In a move Electronic Arts has been prepping for months, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be going free-to-play on November 15. EA is hoping to renew interest in the MMO, which has seen its subscriber base dip below 1 million.

Current subscribers will get 250 free Cartel Coins as well as coins for the number of months they have paid for their account, the announcement said. Prior subscribers that reactivate before December 20 will get coins for the months they had paid up to the free-to-play launch.

BioWare Lead Designer Damien Schubert told fans that free-to-play players will gain experience more slowly than paid players, and some aspects of play will be limited, but they will still be able to hit level 50 and access most of the main story and side quests as paid players.

The next content update 1.5 is coming soon, featuring the HK-51 Assassination droid and Nightmare more. Check out the developer dispatch that discusses the pending changes.

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 8, 2012 9:05 AM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play on November 15.

    In a move Electronic Arts has been prepping for months, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be going free-to-play on November 15 in a effort to renew interest in the MMO that has seen its subscriber base dip below 1 million.

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      November 8, 2012 9:13 AM

      "featuring the HK-51 Assassination droid"

      aww yeah

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      November 8, 2012 9:24 AM

      the game is EXTREMELY restricted. I was hoping they'd go more the "everyone has access to everything, just slower" of Star Trek Online

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        November 8, 2012 1:24 PM

        yeah :( or world of tanks. star wars needs a good bump in audience, and restricting things off the get go isn't a good way to do it.

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        November 8, 2012 2:29 PM

        Total Biscuit basically said the same thing and said the restrictive nature of the F2P design isn't going to get people to stay.

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      November 8, 2012 9:33 AM

      Lowered xp now? What the hell, guys.

      I was pretty interested in this at the first announcement, but now it seems every time I read something about it, the F2P option just seems more pointless.

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        November 8, 2012 10:43 AM

        I'll still install it and check it out for the story alone. Don't care about the PvP or any of the other fluff. Hopefully, I'll be able to enjoy the story missions enough to where I DO NOT have to grind to level (see lowered xp).

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        November 8, 2012 12:36 PM

        I could probably live with that, but did they change their mind on the "no running for free players" thing?

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          November 8, 2012 12:38 PM

          Well if you've never paid them then no - but if you've paid them at least $4.95 once, ever then you can use the sprint power.

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            November 8, 2012 1:36 PM

            I'm pretty sure that for FTP'ers you get sprint at level 10 like how it used to be in the first couple of months. It should be level 1 for prefered players which is anyone who used to subscribe or has bought any cartel coins.

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      November 8, 2012 10:46 AM

      The lower XP is a good thing given how the basic XP rate is stupidly high so you out level every area you are in by a good 4-6 levels hell by the time i was in the level 40 zone i was level 50.

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        November 8, 2012 12:12 PM

        The short time I played I ran into this as well. By the time I was done with all the missions on a planet I was at least 3 level passed green/grey. At least one planet I remember even the bonus missions were green/grey.

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        November 8, 2012 1:12 PM

        I was going to post the same thing. If all you are doing is the free stuff you'll still get enough XP to see it all.

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      November 8, 2012 10:55 AM

      Another thing that I wasn't able to find is will Origin be required or is this a game we can install outside of it? I believe you could play it without Origin before, but now with the new non-payment plan is that the same case?

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      November 8, 2012 12:31 PM

      if they're doing this with their over-anticipated cash cow, all the few remaining WAR players will likely expect the same...Tier 1 F2P just won't cut it anymore after this announcement. Not that anyone cares, but I do.

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        November 8, 2012 3:20 PM

        If TOR had the budget of WAR it would probably still be P2P, the games don't have the same expectations. It also remains to be seen if their F2P model takes off.

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      November 8, 2012 12:36 PM

      They sent me an email telling me I had Cartel Coins and to visit my account page to see how many. (Zero)

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      November 8, 2012 1:18 PM

      Chore 2 Play

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      November 8, 2012 1:19 PM

      I hope people that bought the game get a bonus to come back and check it out :(

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        November 8, 2012 1:25 PM

        I will if I can figure out how to reset my phone app :(

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          November 8, 2012 1:27 PM

          my authenticator is borked since I reloaded android so I gotta call in :(

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            November 8, 2012 1:29 PM

            I think I will too. I have a different phone now and forgot to unhook it from the old one before wiping it. :(

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              November 8, 2012 2:07 PM

              yeah, the blizzard one has the restore function I use all the time, the SWTOR one didn't, I don't think.

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          November 8, 2012 1:44 PM

          You have to call a number, wasn't that bad though

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        November 8, 2012 1:44 PM

        If you ever subbed beyond the included month you'll get some cartel coins for those months. Otherwise it's just preferred player status which just removes some of the restrictions that FTP's have to deal with.

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          November 8, 2012 2:28 PM

          I think you have to have an active sub prior to F2P as well in order to get the bonus cartel coins. So if you want them need to resub for a month before next week.

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            November 8, 2012 9:29 PM

            Hmmm, looks like you don't have to be an active sub before but you'll get an extra 250 cartel coins. You will need to resub before Dec 20th to get the cartel coins for being subbed before.

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      November 8, 2012 2:28 PM

      [deleted]

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        November 8, 2012 3:30 PM

        Restrictive F2P seems to have worked for Turbine. Other P2P games that have gone F2P retain premium subscription models as well, I can only assume this means they are also restrictive in some way.

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          November 9, 2012 8:33 AM

          did it? seems like I read that Turbine just laid off a bunch of people. Seems to not be working all that great.

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      November 8, 2012 2:34 PM

      [deleted]

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