SWTOR Switches Allegiance, Goes F2P Next Week

Michael Dunaway
By Michael Dunaway, News Editor Posted:
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I remember it like it was yesterday, the loud beating of nerd chests everywhere as people pranced around, declaring the upcoming super MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic would be the saving grace of the Pay-to-Play world. An MMO to finally take away a sizeable pie chunk of World of Warcraft subscribers. I'll admit, I bought it.

SWTOR showed us though, that even with hundreds of millions of dollars, voice acting galor, and an IP whose fans are about as loyal as they are rabid for the series, doesn't mean anything when it comes to shouldering a P2P MMO in an inevitably dying payment model.

So, with just under a year of P2P time under its belt, the Sci-Fi, almost monumental in size MMO will be making the inevitable F2P switch on November 15th. Something we have known about for a while. This is EA though, and you can bet a switch to F2P without would not be complete without a few annoying restrictions.

Some of the restrictions, are of course, limited to cosmetic items only available in the new Cartel Store (cash shop). I did find it funny that you can purchase cosmetic axes to replace your lightsabers; didn't I want to wield a lightsaber? Is this now a fantasy MMO?

The deal breaker for some though, will be the fact that a F2P user cannot participate in raids, and only has access to a limited amount of PvP Warzones and instance loot per week. EA recently altered the system to allow for 2 more Warzones per week. But when that brings the total to just 5 and you figure an average Warzone only takes 15 minutes, that is not a huge increase.

SWTOR is not a bad game, it has great voice acting, cool classes and a well-crafted story. But when gaps like this are created between the F2P users and the P2P users, and it is made to appear as if the P2P user is sitting on a luxury island filled with all the things the F2P user could only wish for, that doesn't help your case for F2P transition. Check out the official F2P preview above for more info on the upcoming SWTOR changes.

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In this article: SWTOR.

About the Author

Michael Dunaway
Michael Dunaway, News Editor

Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.

More Stories by Michael Dunaway

Discussion (45)

Bierno 11 years ago
This is a great way for people to level up and try the game..
if you dont like it then dont go premium.. if you enjoy it then support the game so there be more patches by paying monthly for the game so you can PvP and Raid as much as you want

alot of people havent tried the game before so atleast people are given the option to try the game and levle up all the way to level 50 and even try a bit of PvP

Kibzo 11 years ago
All this rage makes me laugh, all you guys and gals are doing is bitch and moan about a F2P game.
I played it from the start for 4 or 5 months, and it is a great game, I had to leave due to personal problems irl, else i would of stayed.
I have a level 50 jedi knight, wich i can be playing again.
Raids in this game aren't even that fun to do to begin with, so you won't miss a thing.
For the roleplayers among us, This is all you need.
This game will satisfy your roleplaying need ( if you like the star wars lore ofcourse )
But yea, be glad it goes f2p, if you can't even bother to buy the game, and pay the monthly fee for it, wich isn't even that much compared to WoW, you have no ground to stand on. Stop bitching and play it, else stfu and leave it alone.

(>^-^)> Now have a hug, to chill yer rage.

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ChewieFlakes 11 years ago
This is not free to play, this as consumer-unfriendly as it gets. Which is to be expected of EA, greedy out-of-touch monsters.

Valakias 11 years ago
Ea Games is the cancer of gaming industry, never saw a company be so awful with his game politics

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dfgdfg 11 years ago
game will die in a few months, as I see at f2p, the more you limit free players, the more your game will die. RIP SWTOR

Vic 11 years ago
I wish EA would just die already...

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phonz 11 years ago
Honestly, I don't think this is that bad of a model. You still get the ENTIRE story, right? Levels 1-50? That alone is worth the free price of admission. It's like you get an entire KOTOR game for free and all you have to pay for is the multiplayer end-game portion, which you may or may not intend to play by the end of your journey. In my opinion, this is great for the end-user because the real meat of this game is the story. The rest of the game (imo) wasn't worth sticking around for.

Don't get me wrong though, it would be even better if it was entirely f2p, but with the amount of money they poured into developing this game, I really couldn't expect anymore than what they've given us.

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Stacy 11 years ago
My question is - Will it be B2P? Meaning, will I be able to download the game for free or will the download cost me?

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DeviLee 11 years ago
Meh...

philtothetop 11 years ago
i bet that lego mmo that went f2p a little while after this website has opened will have lived longer than SWTOR as f2p

Mainwolf9 11 years ago
It's shit. Never play it.

lazy_hamster 11 years ago
That video is laughable. "Awesome features in f2p, click and buy awesome things"....epic facepalm.
It's like going into Sahara with the glass of water and when someone asks for it you pull out the bottle of Coca Cola and ask for $10. I mean, what's the point of having the glass of water when you are actually selling Coca Cola?! "You can have it, but you actually can't".
When will some company buy that atrocious EA and end up its pathetic existence I wonder....

geololj 11 years ago
Doesn't even worth the download! It has idiotic restrictions, which will destroy an already dying mmo. Thanks but no thanks...

steelslinga 11 years ago
what a mess.. and for once i agree with all of the above posts on here. we are f***ing tired of the "f2p" gimmick that alot of these companies are trying to spoon feed us. not to mention spending money on founder packages or pre ordering games so we can get 3 days early access, then watch the game go nowhere after 3-4 months like the secret world did ... NEW content coming this month ! and they add 5 quests in the starter area.. and change the hair color of some random NPC

i am glad to see the gaming community is finally waking up .it is rather obvious that games get so much hype and backing from gaming sites at launch .. they sponge up alot of money and then go f2p.. yes it is a business and they are in it to make money but at the same time many of us are tired of getting a dutch reach around .. just release it f2p and lets move on.
i for one will not be throwing money out anymore for games.. only to watch them sit idle for a few months and then go free to play with retarded restrictions. it is just another game that i will be throwing into the back of the closet along with my old EQ2 game case...

WOWness 11 years ago
I've been looking forward to this transition ever since I played the LV1-15 trial. Now knowing EA is pretty much attempting to fool us into spending a few bucks, I'll be sure to let all my friends know not to even DL this crap. HUGE let down *sigh*

chefmadness 11 years ago
The worst thing about any free mmorpg is the damn chat restrictions & social panel. they make it all most imposable to find players to party up with, post for a quest & even general chat restrictions SUCK!!!!!!!!!! this goes for all f2p mmorps's. i thought faking friends & killing shit & having a blast doing is what gaming online is all about. what the hell is going on with this industry? can't the programers just make a good social panel in most games it sucks!!

jesterhead 11 years ago
when are these idiots going to realize that a restricted game isn't worth playing even if its free....

a variety of features bring players... restrictions just scare them away..

Dizzyjay 11 years ago
Great..... restrictions.... Moving on. Basically its saying, here is the game, but if you want to do all those stuff you can do in other games, you gotta pay. In my opinion, if I am gonna spend money on a fully playing game, I rather just go buy guild wars 2 or something, since I am gonna be spending money anyways.

Nyro 11 years ago
Very disappointed in the restrictions to this games F2P system. The game is better then the reviews and population suggested BUT the market system and limited restrictions to F2P users makes the game pointless to play.

nubcandy 11 years ago
wish ea could be sued for calling this f2p instead of free trial

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cacalips 11 years ago
Even if everything was open up to F2P I can't install this for reasons of Moral and Ethics. Some of that coming from the extreme hatred of Lucas ruining the Star Wars franchise.

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Marinkovich 11 years ago
I would understand if this type of Freemium happend to a games like Wow and Guild wars which are ultra popular,but to SWTOR? XD

Curst 11 years ago
Good. I have some unfinished storylines...

Aladeen 11 years ago
Freemium not F2P

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MelonCider 11 years ago
MOUNTED!

View 1 reply

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