Star Wars: The Old Republic Free-To-Play Details Arrive
For a little while now there has been talk that BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO would be going free-to-play. The game hasn’t done as well as the developers had hoped since its launch, and some have coined that to the free-to-play market. The development team has come together and made the decision to roll the game over to a free-to-play model in hopes that some of the life will be revitalized in the game.
The breakdown for the free-to-play model is quite simple: all of the story-related content will be completely free while the other content that’s available will come in limited access. Free-to-play users will be limited to three attempts each at PvP Warzones, Flashpoint missions, and Space missions weekly. Players can purchase unlimited play through a weekly pass, however. Operations, which are the Old Republic’s version of raids, won’t be available at all to the free-to-play users, but again there will be a weekly pass available for purchase for these as well.
Free-to-play users will also see a limitation on their inventory and cargo hold. Quick travel cooldowns will be longer, a limited number of field revives will be available, and a restriction on equipping purple items without a license will also fall on to the free-to-play users.
Most of these issues can be dealt with by purchasing in-game licenses or coins with real money, as is the way with most free-to-play titles. What’ll be available isn’t exactly small, by the way, as each character’s main storyline includes up to 100 plus game hours worth of time. Playing the game for free isn’t looking like a bad thing in any way, and if you like what you see you can get something extra for your buck.
