BioWare Gives Level 50 Characters A Free Month Of SWTOR

Written by: Jason Winter (Twitter @winterinformal - Google+) | April 12, 2012 3:30 pm

29 Comments

Yesterday’s article on Update 1.2 for Star Wars: The Old Republic asked, “Is this enough to keep players coming back for more?”

It looks like BioWare‘s not taking any chances with that.

Any active account on a payment plan and in good standing with a level 50 character as of April 12 has been granted an additional 30 days of game time.

SWTOR launched on Dec. 20, meaning that accounts with a three-month subscription — along with the free month that came with the game — would have expired in little over a week. This gives players more time to fully experience everything 1.2 has to offer, something BioWare no doubt hopes will keep players paying past next month.

As an added bonus, all accounts, old or new, active as of the 21st will receive a tauntaun ram pet. Finally, from April 13-19, inactive accounts that previously paid for a subscription can re-join the game at no cost — a great way to showcase 1.2 to players with lapsed subscriptions.

So, now that you can try out 1.2 for practically nothing, do you think it’ll be enough to get you back into the game?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below!

BioWare Gives Level 50 Characters A Free Month Of SWTOR

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christopher murray

I unsubbed after 2 months because the game is just a gear grind at end game which I dont like. It is wow in space with 1/5 the content. The rated warzones where something that interested me but those where pushed back to who knows when. Although huttball was great, that I am missing from the game.
Time_warp

Incentives to keep people playing is good business. It’s interesting how companies are competing for gamers with these types of promotions. I do have to wonder about timing of this though. Those 3mo subscriptions are about the lapse as Jason mentioned. Is Bioware/EA artificially extending subscriptions to inflate their numbers for the upcoming earnings report (in May)?
- http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting
  
  Not a good business when you piss off a massive amount of your player base that have been playing since early access and don’t have a level 50 because they have been too busy with life. I have a lvl 50 and even I think this takes the piss and others should also get this 30 days.
  
  It’s a PR disaster.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Ronny-Sunrock/100002737688676 Ronny Sunrock
    
    It does not take that long to get a lv 50 char. And if you had not have time to get a lv 50 by now playing from early access you don’t have time to play games at all and should give it up all to gather.
    - http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting
      
      Dumbest reply ever. People have lives, family and work, not everyone can waste their life away playing games all day. Some people ended up on a dead server so had to switch before 50, others tried out several classes before deciding on one they like.
      
      With a comment like that, you’re the type of person in an MMO I hate and always avoid. Elitist attitude with your head up your own arse.
    - loki4687
      
      Probably not a good argument. In the end their choice of just providing it to 50′s does not completely cover everyone they wish to target.
      
      It’s like only providing free car maintenance only to people owns a car that has more 200k miles. If I bought a car at the same time as all these people, and because i dont drive as much I miss out?
      
      but hey, it doesnt take much time to get to 200k miles.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R35J5EUERGS3E6JRIQMBCDTRRY Nathan I
  
  pretty much yeah. They did the same thing with their free weekends, it’s to inflate the “registered users” number so their shareholders won’t panic.
scottsummer

Too late Bioware, i am puzzled by their incompetence, Bioware Austin has hundreds of developers (including tons of MMO veteran) yet they constantly screw up patch after patch. What were they thinking? They made so many mistakes.
- loki4687
  
  Cyclops!
http://twitter.com/Vazzaroth Josh Hagood

God dammit! I wish I had a 50. I had the 3 month sub, and I was kind of pissed that 1.2 was taking so long since I have been waiting to play my 35 until it came out, since the classes are changing so much. Then when they announced it was so close to my sub running out, I just kind of wrote SWTOR off altogether.
- http://twitter.com/mohler Roly Miller
  
  I’m with you, had a 3 month sub, with a Lv38 Main & alts on 5 servers, Finally found one with a thriving community & scored a helpful guild that I could level a new main (less my legacy experience) just to find out that in my effort to find an active server to level I’m penalised by Bioware’s mis-management & tollarance of Low Pop Servers.
  
  I’m just about to blow my re-sub cash on Guild War 2′s Pre-Purchase.
  - http://twitter.com/Scargrim Josh
    
    @twitter-10284322:disqus I’m almost in the exact situation you are. I had been playing since early access on Republic. I have a lvl48 Consular that I abandoned March 1 when the Oceanic servers came out.
    I’ve made some alts on a PvE server that I left aside after finding a good guild on the Oceanic PvP server. I have a 39 Op main there and I play almost every day. I’m just enjoying the story/pvp and in no rush. This $14.99 reward for only people with 50′s has me pissed. I had no thoughts on cancelling my sub before but this has me really considering it. Slap in the face for loyal players that like alts.
    
    Also paid for my GW2 prepurhase and if Bioware doesn’t rectify this that may be the only one of the 2 I play.
    
    Its just a sloppy decision to reward only those with 50s. Wow.
http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting

It’s a piss take and they’ve totally cocked this up and a MASSIVE PR disaster. Because all the loyal players from early access who don’t have a 50 are being pissed on, according to this, they aren’t loyal enough to get the free trial. And me, who has a 50, because I sub on a month by month bases (I sub, cancel, play for 30 days, then resub) I don’t get the free month.

This is a big cock up and even more of a PR disaster than patch 1.2 is. And even worse that Gamebreaker hasn’t spotted this glaring issue, that it’s a piss take to other people that have been loyal but not hit a level 50. So I think I’m out of SWTOR and VERY disappointed in Gamebreaker for not seeing this as a PR disaster.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ADEN6X6TYCORSSGEHKWMBIHDHY Eclipse
  
  Not that I’m one to defend TOR, but “active subscription in good standing” simply means that you have game time currently on your account – and not be banned.
  
  Even if you have canceled previously, as long as you are able to technically log in – your account is considered active and you’re considered a subscriber.
  
  TLDR: You’re getting your free 30 days. Look it up on the dev tracker, this question has been asked and answered.
  - http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting
    
    Yes just seen it, is has now. But before it read that you had to have a recurring payment method attached to the account, which I no longer do.
    
    But I’ll say again, this is still a PR mistake as it’s pissing on all the people that were MUCH more loyal than me. I’ve been playing on a off since early access. Got a level 50 but certainly don’t feel I deserve 30 days over everyone else who’s been there since launch but doesn’t have a level 50.
- http://www.facebook.com/bazeltine Brian Azeltine
  
  They changed the free month to Legacy Lvl 8, not just lvl 50 alone, so 2 mid lvl toons, or 3 mid-low lvl toons will get the free month as well.
ChristopherMitchell1

Mike-’Do you think this can fall into the same category when we immediately labeled WoWs scroll of resurrection desperate?’

Jason-’Yes.’

I fixed the dialogue for you guys >.> And about the whole ’1.2 is how the game should have been released’ nonsense is that we have seen time and time again that there is no second chance for MMOs. This patch is releasing some stuff I thought should have been in at launch and because of that I never picked it up. Am I going to pick it up now? No.
Semperf1delis

Once again EA shows why they are one of the richest and most succesful gaming houses around.

30 days for free has so many different variables how they are going to increase the amount of peeps in the game and decrease the amount of people playing the coming competitors.

Just amazing, frigging amazing!
- jazzbrownie
  
  Actually, they’re one of the richest gaming publishers around because they buy out people with talent before driving them, their development studios, and their franchises into the ground with a generally anti-consumer attitude.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle
    
    that pretty much sums it up
    - http://www.facebook.com/chaz.rpg Chaz Davis
      
      I dont like EA, but I wouldnt call giving millions of dollars worth of subscriptions for free an anti-consumer attitude.
      
      Of course I would have prefered if they spent that money into cross server infrastructure for swtor, but at leas they are owning up to that mistake and attempting customer retention, which is a standard of pretty much every big company.
      
      When I try to cancel service with my ISP they also offer me promos and stuff, and its not “desperation” as fourm goers call it, my ISP is not about to go broke, It’s just standard procedure, and Im glad they are doing it.
      - http://www.facebook.com/bazeltine Brian Azeltine
        
        It’s a calculated move to attempt to stop hemorrhaging subs from the sub-par release and patch cycle they’ve had so far.
        
        They know 1.2 is make or break for SWTOR.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle

Nice of them, but i will not go back to SWTOR
Played it for a month and it bored the sh.. out of me, to be honest.
Story is nice and all, but the gameplay is the same as i have been playing for the last several years.
Ryan Fisher

- 1.2 w/o rated warzones, plus the backlash from implementing wide sweeping changes requires damage control and within hours of the servers coming up a free month is given (to anyone who leveled to 50, sry super casuals lol!).

- 1.2 patch is pushed out early, partially downloaded by many which causes them to spend a day deleting the game and re-downloading the whole thing. An extra 3 days of play time is issued to compensate people for this.

- 1.2a is released the day after 1.2 is live. Patch, some how, deletes the majority of the content added by 1.2, guild banks, and leaves large segments of the in game population in “limbo” unable to log into the game. Servers are taken down with an estimated downtime of over 9 hours during EU primetime, on a Friday, to restore backups and “rebuild server assets”.

What the hell is going on in Austin?
loki4687

I think this goes back to Jason’s article on MMOs cannabalizing each other because a lot of us are bored of SWTOR not because the games bad, but rather its no different from its competitors which we have played to death.

A sign of this would be Blizzard saying players have been so good at consuming content, Cata was consumed too fast. Perhaps BW is starting to feel the pressure of lost subs, just like blizz and trion.

I’m going to try 1.2 and see if its worth my time, if not I am going to *try* and hack out some hall of monuments…
Revanhavoc

I feel like we are always asking the question everyday on Gamebreaker…”Will this be Free to Play?” about everything…I don’t think SWTOR will ever be free to play, they will throw themselves off the the cliffs of Kaas City before they ever…ever let people play that game for free.
http://www.facebook.com/bazeltine Brian Azeltine

I’m of the opinion that the “typical WoW clone mmo” is becoming stale. I think Rift would’ve been a lot better if they would’ve decided against static pathing mobs and “kill/collect x” quests, and made the entirety of the game world based on rifts, invasions, and zone events. A true dynamic world, unlike the static mob filled one they delivered.

Maybe my opinion is like this because I’ve been playing in MMO static amusement parks since vanilla WoW, and I’ve had enough of it.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ellie-Burns/1033357193 Ellie Burns

Yea, we got a free 30 days! Woohoo! And…. the PvP still sucks. I tried logging back in again this past week. Haven’t played since the ranked let down of 1.2 and wz’s are still trash. No consequences for bailing out of wz’s, crafting is still crap, no real world PvP, and the desire to level again isn’t there since I have 3 50′s on my original server that died and rerolled a new 50 on the Fatman. There just isn’t anything to hold interest.
- http://www.facebook.com/michael.thomas.121398 Michael Thomas
  
  My sentiments exactly…
  
  When, or should I say, if they release an endgame pvp system that is deep and robust, something similar to that of DAoC, then I will gladly come back. But unfortunately the current state of the game is for that of the extremely casual player and maybe casual role player.

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