With today's blockbuster announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be adding a F2P option, we took the opportunity to chat with BioWare’s Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Matthew Bromberg, Studio General Manager, BioWare Austin about some of the new features players can expect. Read on!

It’s happening, and sooner than you might think. BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is going F2P with a hybrid business model this fall. Players have been wondering about it, journalists have been begging for it, and it seems that all this time BioWare’s been listening and reacting. After being informed of the then embargoed announcement this morning, I had the rare opportunity to sit in on a call with BioWare’s Jeff Hickman and Matthew Bromberg (who recently took over as GM of the Austin studio. We talked about the timing, the reasons, and the way in which they believe SWTOR going F2P is just finally giving the players what they’ve wanted, and breaking down the barrier into the Old Republic once and for all. The call was brief, but this is what I’ve learned.

Read more of Bill Murphy's Star Wars: The Old Republic - Free to Play This Fall.

first again...

Originally posted by garrett

first again...

Garrett's on a roll today.

....time marches on on on.....................

Looks like the anonymous bioware employee dude was right on the money. to bad.

Originally posted by garrett

first again...

I'll get you, Gadget!

F2P i guess is the model for crap. Real games are subscription :P

It’s happening, and sooner than you might thing.

Not surprising, very aggressive move given launch of GW2 and MoP this fall too.

"any shift in staff they’ve made over the past few months has been to sort of rebuild the studio for this new F2P venture."

In other words, they were fired due to making a piss poor P2P game.

Anyway, to honor all the fanboys that have been posting to defend this great game since the last 4 months of Beta...nothing to see here, move along...move along...all is well...move along.

Such a shame, the game could have been great if so many didnt work so hard to shut down everyone that was pointing out what the game was missing.

Not that I hate the game, it wasnt for me...buuut...anyone notice the game doesn't seem to have any hardcore defenders on this site anymore?

F2P isn't the future for all games in the west.  It's for games that have very little future.

Content delivery "every 6 weeks".

*eyes DCUO CE on desk

Ya, I'll believe that when I see it.

Oh yeaah.. I predicted this after I tried beta. I said it has to go F2P by december 2012 or go down.

Serves them right for not listening to fanbase. Crappy models, awful animations, story-based singleplayer mmorpg (o.O), and space-on-rails.. How COULD it be succesful?

I guess DCUO won't be as lonely anymore.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Content delivery "every 6 weeks".

 

 

*eyes DCUO CE on desk

 

 

 

Ya, I'll believe that when I see it.

clean off your desk

I can see a lot of people that DIDN'T give the game a try trying the F2P version. I'm not so sure about those that already played tho. I guess it'll depend on what is included in the F2P matrix. 

Apparantly f2p IS the future.... for games that can't hold a candle to other p2p offerings.

Originally posted by fascism

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Content delivery "every 6 weeks".

 

 

*eyes DCUO CE on desk

 

 

 

Ya, I'll believe that when I see it.

clean off your desk

You sound like my wife.............

But wait... SWTOR was supposed to make Rift go F2p wasnt it?