SW:ToR Going Free-to-Play This Fall

<p>Bioware &amp&semi; EA have &lpar;finally&rpar; announced the date on which<em> Star Wars&colon; The Old Republic<&sol;em> will go free-to-play&period; With the relatively unsuccessful launch of SW&colon;ToR in December&comma; this news has been expected by the general MMO community for&&num;8230&semi; roughly six months&period;  The model for SW&colon;ToR will be changing sometime in November 2012&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Matthew Bromgerg&comma; the general manager of Bioware Austin&comma; was quoted in this announcement as stating&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p><em>Players want flexibility and choice&period;  The subscription-only model presented a major barrier for a lot of people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately&comma; this kind of PR statement isn&&num;8217&semi;t enough to stem the tides of &&num;8220&semi;SW&colon;TOR IS DYING&&num;8221&semi; articles that are bound to be popping up all over the interwebz for the next couple weeks&period;  Now&comma; although the game is clearly not raking in cash the way that its competitors might be&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s still not &&num;8220&semi;dying&&num;8221&semi; by any means&period; When a game developer decides that it&&num;8217&semi;s time to transfer their paid-subscription-based game to a F2P model&comma; they are making a business decision to make it an easier decision for players to get into their game&comma; regardless of what kind of press it&&num;8217&semi;s received&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Much like LotRO&comma; the game will be switching to a hybrid F2P game&comma; meaning the subscription model will still be implemented for players that feel the game is worth the &dollar;15&period;00&sol;Mo sub fee&comma; and these players will be treated as VIPs with an allowance of currency to spend in the online store&period;  On the other side&comma; players that would rather not pay a sub fee are able to download the full game&comma; as well as play up to the level cap of 50 absolutely for free&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>&&num;8220&semi;Which way should I play&quest;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Well&comma; there is really no definitive answer&period;  If you&&num;8217&semi;re currently playing and love the current content and want to supply Bioware with funds to continue releasing content for you to experience&comma; then by all means&comma; continue business as usual&period;  On the bright side&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll be able to receive extra <em>phat lootz<&sol;em> via the cash shop that those using the F2P model will have to pay separately for&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you love the game&comma; but you don&&num;8217&semi;t quite think you&&num;8217&semi;re getting your money&&num;8217&semi;s worth&comma; then you&&num;8217&semi;ll be able to remove your sub fee and still receive new content no different than paid accounts&period;  Should you choose to&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re also able to purchase the items found in the cash shop to help you out with leveling or farming or what-have-you&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Possibly the only good news that can be derived from this situation is that players who have never played SW&colon;ToR are finally able to jump into the game with no worries about buyers&&num;8217&semi; remorse or feeling that they&&num;8217&semi;ve wasted money should they end up not enjoying it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;