The day that we’ve all been waiting for has finally come to pass: after much hemming and hawing and three pre-rendered trailers, BioWare has seen fit to announce the release date for their highly anticipated Star Wars MMO. The Old Republic (TOR) will be brought into being on December 20, 2011 in North America and the 22 in Europe. People who have pre-ordered the game will also be given early access, but there’s no specific time-table for that yet.
In addition to the launch day, BioWare also dropped The Old Republic’s pricing structure. Every copy of the game will come with a 30 day subscription built in, but anything past that will be subjected to the typical MMO monthly fee. The breakdown goes thusly:
- 1 Month Subcription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
- 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
- 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)
So there it is, folks, laid bare for all to see. I’m kind of surprised that TOR is going with a traditional pricing scheme when every other MMO (even World of Warcraft to an extent) is going free to play. Indeed, there’s one MMO I’m looking forward to possibly more that TOR and that’s Firefall which is going to be supported by microtransactions.
I’ll still give TOR a shot anyways, just because I’ve been waiting so long for it, but the subscription might be a deal breaker in the long run. What do you guys think about this news? Excited for TOR? What are your thoughts on the pricing structure?
Source – The Old Republic
I couldn’t be more excited, especially now that I know it is in fact coming out this year. Also, the pricing doesn’t bother me at all, I’m used to it from experience with WoW.
They must be really confident on their fan-base for this game, given that they mostly only released prerendered goodness.
If I’m putting $15 a month on a game, I’d like to at least see some gameplay. Is that too much to ask?
[quote comment=”17730″]They must be really confident on their fan-base for this game, given that they mostly only released prerendered goodness.
If I’m putting $15 a month on a game, I’d like to at least see some gameplay. Is that too much to ask?[/quote]
Um…they have released tons of gameplay: http://www.gametrailers.com/game/star-wars-the-old-republic/10449
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the awesomeness.