STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC Now a Free Game?

I just looked at Origin's Free Games page and this was listed... What's the catch? Is there still a monthly subscription fee, - just no cost to download and install it? Probably back in Dec 2011 it was a $79 game to download and install, then you had a subscription fee. I tried it on the free to play weekend but I didn't like it, and this reset my original Origin password too.

So what's the catch?

 

The only catch is that free to play accounts are pretty restrictive. It is indeed free to play now, though.

 

There's no catch, just restrictions:
(hover your mouse over each circle for its description)
Features | Star Wars: The Old Republic

Free-to-Play:
You are new to the game, never had an account before, and do not wish to pay a cent.

Preferred Status:
You have played the game before but cancelled the monthly subscription, then your account is automatically set to this.
Or pay $5 and upgrade your Free-to-Play account to this.

Subscription:
Same as before - monthly fee, but has no restrictions whatsoever.

 

I have an account from the free to play test weekend, but I never subscribed. How does this fit it?

And it doesn't appear in my Origin - My Games list.

 

To qualify for the "Preferred Status", you must have either bought the game (comes with free 30-day) or paid for at least one month of subscription.
Your account does not qualify for that since you did not purchase the game or subscribe to a monthly fee.

I don't remember, but I think you have to associate your SW:TOR account with your Origin account in the account settings of SW:TOR.

 

its heavily gimped unfortunately. I got another 2 months code but I'm saving it to play during the summer or something.

 

Im wondering if its worth it? I never actually played mmo games before

I have downloaded it, it just took me shy of 14h to do it (1.2mbs speed in the download and higher), thats a very heavy game

any basic tips would be appreciated

also the subscription is pretty expensive, for a year Im paying 156? really? no wonder the game is not doing well enough

 

I believe you get preferred status as well when you spend 5 dollars on the cartel store.

You can try it free, which isn't too gimped until you reach level 10. Don't spend the credits you get on upgrading your equipment since the loot you get will be good enough. You'll also get commendations when you complete missions, which you can use to buy gear. Also, get slicing as your crew skill so you can farm nodes you come across for credits. Save your credits for speeder unlocks, and if you choose to stick to playing for free, you can buy cargo/invenotry unlocks from the GTN.

 

Thanks!

I played and enjoyed, thinking of getting 3 months out of it, so I go and do all that must be done, now Im waiting for that mail from then for half an hour, gladly Im at my house, if I were in store I would have left 20 min ago. I guess those real life experiences doesnt translate well to web transactions

 

The game is now free to download, install, and play without a subscription. The subscription option is still available, and it's still the "full" game experience. F2P players have some restrictions compared to subscribers, notably the ability to do Operations (raids) at endgame, as well as caps on rewards from Flashpoints (instances) and Warzones (battlegrounds), and credits your character can have, as well as how many characters you can have. That said, you can create a character of any class and level all the way to 50 (the current cap), do your entire class story, and every quest on every planet along the way.

I'd recommend F2P for anyone just looking into the game. It'll be enough to familiarize you with the mechanics and skills of whatever class you choose to play, and the stuff that non-subscribers don't have access to really doesn't matter until endgame anyway. Hopefully by then you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not endgame is something you want to invest time and money into.

If anyone wants to hit me up in-game for any help, I'm on The Bastion server, my main character is Dongus, a Commando healer. You might also find me on Mastershroom, my Jedi Sage, or Crackerjak, my Scoundrel.

 

ok iv actually been playing SWTOR for the last month or so. for the first 2 weeks as a F2P and then the last 2 weeks as a preffered status player.

ok so the rundown on F2P
you pretty much get full access to the storyline for all the classes this is very doable as I played though the knight storyline and had a blast.

the problem with F2P is that once you play through the storyline there really is not much content left. your credit cap is limited to 200k. this keeps you from upgrading to any decent gear since most of the endgame gear requires something called artifact authorization which cost 350k credits typically so you are pretty much limited to questing gear.

If all you want to do is play through a couple class storylines though F2P is very viable

whats up with preferred status.
basically this gives you access to a few convenience stuff some extra character slots and a 350k credit cap which gives you access to the endgame unlocks. Also any cartel purchase gives you preferred status so you can get it with a $5 purchase. I highly recommend doing this if you want to do anything other then the storyline quests.

 

oh yes! 7h later after the first 5 tries of purchasing a subscription I didnt even received the mail with the whatever answer they want me to answer, I even changed my mail accounte that is registered there and tried

EDIT: and now after 8h I have payed finally for the subscription, really how hard can it be to send an automated mail?