Free-to-Play has yet to launch for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but that isn't stopping BioWare from from making changes to their planned offering.

Last week, BioWare posted a new update to their Public Test Server, and with it converted all accounts on the PTS to Free-to-Play status in order to get feedback from players on the new systems. As a matter of course, feedback came in (very) loud and clear that some of the choices BioWare made weren't turning out to be too popular with players.

 

Star Wars: The Old Republic is going into Free to Play very soon, which means the test server needs to stretch its legs. And now is that time. Latest patch notes for the Public Test Server have added the F2P changes, including the Cartel Market being added, perks and boosts are available for purchase, and changes for subscribers have been put into place, such as respeccing, speeders, and mods. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Star Wars: The Old Republic has been in F2P conversion for a little while, but cemented details about the difference - someone who is subscribed versus someone who is not - have been scarce until now.

This is the first of the preview videos, where they explain racial and battleground restrictions. Namely that, as a freeplayer, you only get Human, Zabrak, and Cyborg, and can only play three warzones per week. More details to be coming soon!

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Star Wars: The Old Republic recently updated the 1.5 patch on the Public Test Server, and it comes with all sorts of goodies, such as Nightmare Mode for Operation: Explosive Conflict, the new world boss Dreadtooth, and - best of all - HK-51, the assassin droid that shot right into everyone's hearts in the original Knights of the Old Republic (because that's what he was aiming for, and you were his assassination target). 

Remember that things on the Public Test Realm are not absolute, and there will be bugs and glitches as Bioware works on hammering everything out before public release.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Bioware's Damion Schubert found himself in an interesting pickle on his latest project - as a systems designer, write some story for Star Wars: The Old Republic that embraced all the best parts of MMORPGs while also keeping the experience fresh for single player. And he's opened up a bit recently to Gamasutra about how he did that, including the ups, the downs, and the humorous. 

"We had too many quests," says Schubert. Players had trouble keeping track of the storylines, and quest delivery mechanisms would have to evolve to avoid the problem of overwhelming people with too many quests per hub. Unfortunately VO was often recorded and localized before problems with the quests emerged. For example, in one case a nearly-defeated boss springs back to knock the Jedi Knight out, and the player is meant to wake up on another planet a year later.

"What happens to your group in that situation?" Schubert points out. "It just didn't make any sense. It's something that works great in a single-player game but in the context of the MMO is a lot more problematic."

I'm imagining a team of five players getting knocked out for a year and honestly buying it as a storytelling element and having a good giggle. 

Julian "Mirai" Williams

If you were amped for Terror From Beyond, today is the day - SWTOR has launched it's 1.4 patch.

This includes the new operation, Terror From Beyond, the Legendary Dread Gear, the improved Group Finder, companion color alterations, and a new bout of facial expressions. And, as with all patches, there's a full list of patch notes with class and gameplay tweaks.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

BioWare recently held a Q+A on Livestream, covering a wide variety of topics on their subscription-turning-F2P The Old Republic. Darth Hater was not only kind enough to record the entire thing, but they also recapped the important information that was said.

Here's most of the details; Free to play players will not have rest experience, but will get mid level gear sets and  experience boosts. BioWare will test F2P before the official launch on the public test server. Paid character transfers and hood toggles are planned for the future. HK-51 is coming before the end of the year, and Cathar are coming when they're ready (they're cats, they do that).

For the free-to-play store, it's planned that it will have pets, mounts, non-endgame gear, class/faction unrestricted items, and grab-bag packs of random items. The idea of the F2P store is to have cool items, but not powerful stuff.

Nightmare mode is planned, Denova first on Explosive Conflict, and after that Terror from Beyond. It'll be a fully fledged mode with differences from Hard.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

Bioware is making your time in the galaxy far, far away a slightly longer time ago a little more interesting. On the Public Test Realm for SWTOR, they're rolling out high population tech for the servers. For right now it's just on PTR, but there's little doubt this will lead to more merges, with higher population caps and more dense cities. 

Given that the empty cities have been a criticism leveled to SWTOR before, pushing the population count up is an excellent way to address those complaints. I'm sure Bioware will just have to live with lowering the number of servers to manage and maintain!

Julian "Mirai" Williams

You know how League of Legends had a two-week schedule for over a year straight? Remember how nice that was? SWTOR, now that it's Free to Play, is adopting something similar, with a six-week "major update" for the game, as revealed in an AusGamer interview with Matthew Bromberg -- reconfirming what our own Gareth "Gazimoff" Harmer discovered in his terrific interview with Jeff Hickman on August 30.

AusGamers: In terms of the content going forward -- at the press conference you guys talked about [new] stuff coming out -- is there a kind of quantifiable volume that you can talk about, in terms of what you would like to see by the end of the year, and then maybe the first quarter of next year?

Matthew: Well we’re committed to: about every six weeks, doing a major update for the game -- which would be a new Warzone, a new Operation, a new Flashpoint, a new event -- and to doing that on a really frequent cadence, every six weeks. So we’re going to stick to that. 

For the most part, the interview has a lot of general discussion about SWTOR and Bioware's plans for the future, but (obviously) he didn't have a lot he could say about what to expect, aside from details on the change from subscription accounts to free-to-play. But this kind of spaced out content? Reasons to keep coming back to SWTOR and find out what Bioware has created in the Star Wars universe? That's enough for me.

Julian "Mirai" Williams

The plot thickens - it's always a treat to see Bioware work really hard to make The Old Republic's story compelling, especially given the constant updates stringing together an overarching plot.

A villain from previous Operations returns with the Dread Masters, six Sith Lords who mastered Battle Meditation. It brings this, plus the Gree species, all together into a horror-themed Operation dealing with the mysterious Hypergate and the Terrors from Beyond it holds. The developers talk more about the encounters, the story and the treats they have in store. Be warned though - if you wanted to go into it blind, spoilers abound. 

And, in case you want to take a shot at 1.4 before it's live, it's up on the Public Test Realm.

Julian "Mirai" Williams