BioWare and EA have announced that the new 'free to play option' for Star Wars: The Old Republic has officially launched as of today. According to the press release, players can now hit level 50 without ever paying a dime for a subscription.

“We want to give our players the freedom to enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic when and how they want,” said Matthew Bromberg, General Manager of BioWare Austin. “There has never been a better time to start playing with us.”

Also today, BioWare released Game Update 1.5: HK-51 Activated, which adds new areas to explore, a new Companion character and more.

Read more on the Star Wars: The Old Republic site (though as of this writing the site is down for maintenance).

i bet Saturday before we can log on any advances

mind you cant see what the problem is obviously it was tested so something has gone seriously wrong

“We want to give our players the freedom to enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic when and how they want,”

or not so much freedom as the case may be.

they still have a big "1 day until, find out more" banner at http://www.swtor.com/.

2+ hours delay already so i think they really mean 1 more day.

Originally posted by spookydom

Episode IXXXIIIXXXX

The Revenge Of The Neverending Maintenance Strikes Back Clones

It is a dark time for Star Wars The Old Republic. Disappointing sub retention has forced the game adopt a free to play option. Despite the lack of side Hot-Bars, around the galaxy millions of eager players await to launch the game for the first time now there is no barrier to entry......And when I say millions of players I mean thousands........When I say thousands I mean hundreds.......OK! Probably about 10-20 new players. However, what was meant to be a simple patch implementation from the test servers has been sabotaged by the E.Avil Empire, striking from their hidden multi-storey mac daddy Death Star office building they have once again conceived to snatch cluster monkey from the jaws of victory as the maintenance is already three hours overdue. The last valiant employee of the once great BioWare struggles to update all the servers in time and restore disappointment to the Galaxy.

 

 

(posted for fun. I like the game myself )

 

restore disappointment? :) I think we have plenty of that already... but it's cool, I hope someone make an intro video from it.

before you go and create an account, take some time and look at the F2P vs Prefered/Sub customers options. THIS IS NOT A F2P. no bank, no trading (2 slots lol), limited inventory, more grind to lvlup, you get your mounts 5-10lvls later, you CANT HAVE MORE THAN 200k! Which means, you cant buy the high lvl mounts. You cant equip epic items and so on.

To sum it up: you will be able to play the story mode, but only of the available races and classes, not all are free.

fuck those guys srsly

Originally posted by Gaoxin

before you go and create an account, take some time and look at the F2P vs Prefered/Sub customers options. THIS IS NOT A F2P. no bank, no trading (2 slots lol), limited inventory, more grind to lvlup, you get your mounts 5-10lvls later, you CANT HAVE MORE THAN 200k! Which means, you cant buy the high lvl mounts. You cant equip epic items and so on.

To sum it up: you will be able to play the story mode, but only of the available races and classes, not all are free.

fuck those guys srsly

And you expect what for free? The entire game? All the mounts and money you can have? no restrictions what so ever?

They need to get subs and cash shop money to survive just like Lotro AOC and EQ2 etc. But all I hear is people slamming games with subs and then slamming f2p for having parts you need to pay for.

It is a business not a charity for freeloading gamers.

Originally posted by Stuntie

Originally posted by Gaoxin

before you go and create an account, take some time and look at the F2P vs Prefered/Sub customers options. THIS IS NOT A F2P. no bank, no trading (2 slots lol), limited inventory, more grind to lvlup, you get your mounts 5-10lvls later, you CANT HAVE MORE THAN 200k! Which means, you cant buy the high lvl mounts. You cant equip epic items and so on.

To sum it up: you will be able to play the story mode, but only of the available races and classes, not all are free.

fuck those guys srsly

And you expect what for free? The entire game? All the mounts and money you can have? no restrictions what so ever?

They need to get subs and cash shop money to survive just like Lotro AOC and EQ2 etc. But all I hear is people slamming games with subs and then slamming f2p for having parts you need to pay for.

It is a business not a charity for freeloading gamers.

Locking races and classes of certain ones makes sense. They need people to pay for something.

Locking toolbars and UI elements ? Moronic.

Originally posted by Ozmodan
How big is the download? Deleted it off the hard drive and seem to have misplaced the disk.

Not sure about the dl but file size on my HD is 20.4 Gb

Has there been any update on what's going on with the game?

Originally posted by shck56

Has there been any update on what's going on with the game?

 

With regard to what?

Reading the posts on the official forums with many people not getting their cartel coins or getting the wrong amount or even a three digit negative amount, not able to create new characters even if they apply to the less than 2 char slots filled, and...

bleh I'll wait till December, it is too unerving atm.