"Star Wars: The Old Republic" Discussion Thread

[Teddybrown]

Is it true this is becoming free to play?
I really hope it is!

[Livestick]

Is it true this is becoming free to play?
I really hope it is!

It's becoming mostly free to play. But there are still some restrictions.

[DigiFluid]

http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20120731

Starting this Fall, there will be two ways to enjoy the game. First, you can continue as a subscriber, which gives you unlimited access to all game features and future Game Updates at no additional charge. Second, you have the option to play free to Level 50, with game play restrictions that limit game options and access to certain game content. Our goal is to ensure that our current players continue to receive the AAA content they are used to and enjoy the new rewards. To that end, I am proud to say that we have a lot of great new content coming your way, and that it will be coming more frequently. We have a great lineup in development including: a new Operation, Terror From Beyond, a new heroic mission series on the planet of Belsavis; a set of level 50 space combat missions for those looking for the ultimate challenge mode; introduction of a dangerous new Companion to accompany you; and for our PvP fans, a new warzone, Ancient Hypergate!

Starting today, you’ll be earning rewards as part of our new rewards program, making your current subscription more valuable than ever. Current and lapsed subscribers will earn 150 Cartel Coins for every paid month prior to today (July 31, 2012) and then 200 Cartel points from August 1st until the Free-to-Play option launches. For those who purchased the Collector’s Edition, we have an additional bonus reward of 1000 Cartel Coins for you. With Cartel Coins you can purchase convenience items, boosts, visually unique gear, collectibles, and more. The new Cartel Market gives you the option to add to your game play experience with items that fit your play style and allow you to customize your character.

[Teddybrown]

Do we know when this fall is by any chance?

[DigiFluid]

Well fall this year is between Sept 22 and Dec 21, so likely sometime between those two dates

[Replicator Todd]

I definitely play on checking out TOR when it becomes F2P, I pretty sure I now own a PC that can run it. I'm so excited!

[Ouroboros]

I definitely play on checking out TOR when it becomes F2P, I pretty sure I now own a PC that can run it. I'm so excited!

Sorry to say but if your new PC wasn't made by Cray it might still drop frames.

Hell who am I kidding. You could get this thing to drop frames if you ran it on Skynet.

SWTOR is a pretty fun game but it's also probably the worst programmed game I've played in my entire history of PC gaming. The optimization and hardware compatibility is shockingly bad, and bears more in common with some sort of ancient voodoo curse than conventional game performance issues. It's basically a random lottery as it whether or not your machine will run it. Some people get perfectly decent performance on dual cores and 5+ year old video cards. Others get to grind along at 10fps with i7s and top of the line cards in sli.

I'd check it out though, now that the price is right. Playing through the single player campaigns, especially with a couple of friends, is a lot of fun.

[DigiFluid]

First I've ever heard such silliness.

[Ouroboros]

First I've ever heard such silliness.

Really? It was all over their forums for months after the game came out. Not sure if they ever improved matters, but my friend could get his i7 to choke on the game just by jumping and opening his inventory at the same time for example. Same story for my i5. My old dual core that the i5 replaced would run pvp at 0.1 fps at minimum settings despite running literally everything else I threw at it for years in the 30-40 fps range with decent settings.

[SaberBlade]

First I've ever heard such silliness.

It's half true. The game can run perfectly fine on slower machines, but ever since the server merge my i5 (2500k if you're into such things) with 8gbs of Corsari DDR3 has a massive frame rate drop when there is a big population about. While my graphics card isn't the best, 1gb DDR3 Nvidia, it has in the past been able to play the game very well. Just being on the main ring of my fleet can slow my system down.

If people turn all their settings to low, it should run much smoother.

[DigiFluid]

Yep. Never had any performance issues myself (occasionally it'll slow down slightly in the Promenade plaza on Nar Shaddaa) and I've never seen anyone in-game complaining about performance problems. Or any of the Wookieepedia folk I chat with regularly.

[DigiFluid]

Incidentally, did you guys find the current World Event a little...underwhelming? I finished it off today and couldn't believe how small the final reward was =\

[SaberBlade]

The current world event was crap. The previous was fun because it involved a planet wide treasure hunt for the pet, multiple world boss fights, getting people to PvP different factions, plus we had good prizes (the crystals mainly) and the added bonus of infecting people.

If they had at least made the Sand People gear Bind on Legacy it wouldn't have been too bad because I'd use it to trade columi/rakata pieces between my characters but apparently we need to wait for that. Not even BoL lightsabers either or normal pistols. Prizes were very one sided.

[DigiFluid]

I'm wondering if it's a prelude to new story in 1.4. Maybe a new Op?

[SaberBlade]

One of the mails I got at the end of the quest mentioned the Gree. It's my understanding that the newest Op planned (Terror From Beyond) that was supposed to be released during 1.3 involves a Gree planet. So this could be an introduction to the quest line that leads up to it.