SWTOR Free to Play???

Now that I have levelled my first character to 50, I have got a pretty good opinion on how Star Wars Online works and among the mmorpgs I have tried so far it is the second in line that captured me enough time to care to level my characters and it still does.

Just to be clear though this is not a discussion on whether the game is worth playing or not because in my honest opinion it is a game very well worth purchasing.

But it is it Free to play?

Lately a lot of companies have been playing fast and loose with the term free to play and Bioware/ Lucas Arts' Star Wars has recently become one of them. It is a lovely little marketing trick to lure in more players and earn from quantity rather than quality both game and content wise. My most beloved game LOTRO had been periodically destroyed after it had gone free to play because the company did not care about keeping loyal players satisfied any longer but rather adopted a corporate philosophy of "dont look back and keep 'em coming". But we are not discussing LOTRO here.

The same worries do not apply to Star Wars however because it aint free to play. Guild Wars 2? It is Free to Play, you purchase the game once and then play for free with all essentials and quests intact in the package.

Star Wars? Not so much...

When you have to buy the "hide helmet" option it aint free to play.
When you have to buy skill bars so that you can use your damn skills it aint free to play...
When you have to pay for each and every essential point that allows you to play a game, that game aint free to play.
Unless what you mean by free to play is make rounds to do some sightseeing in your helmet....

So what is it:
It is a delusional lie to excite the expectations and try to entice new customers if you can.

But then again I knew that it would not have been free to play from the beginning; the very beginning when I first purchased the game and for the first time in my gaming life was I subjected to extra 2 months payment to log in to the content I had just purchased. Now that was very very very cheap on Bioware's part. Shame!

Did I do it though? Hell yeah! Their philosophy might be cheap but the game they came up with is simply superb. Lets face it, it is much better than not getting your money's worth. That was the reason why I quit LOTRO and I was not even paying for it due to my lifetime subscription. I was not getting even my imaginary money's worth.



So my point? Game time card or monthly payment in Star Wars, kicks free to play in the crotch.