BioWare revealed today some fantastic changes to the limitations of Free-to-Play and Preferred status players coming in July with the next update to Star Wars: The Old Republic! Several of the most severe limitations are being extended or removed. Come with me, let’s take a closer look!
Game Update 5.10.4 to Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced a few weeks earlier and today we get the first news about some of the features included with it!Some significant changes are coming to the game that will greatly benefit the F2P and Preferred playerbase. But first, let me remind you of what the difference between these statuses is:
Free-to-Play (aka F2P) players are those, who have never purchased anything from the Cartel Market nor have subscribed to the game. Ever. This type of account has and will continue to have a hard level cap limit of 50.
Preferred status players are those, who have made at least one purchase on the Cartel Store or have previously been subscribed to the game for at least a month.
Subscribers (aka Premium players) are those, who are currently paying a monthly fee of ~$15 for a full and complete access to absolutely all features SWTOR has to offer – both in terms of content and character/access limitations.
Update 5.10.4 is coming in July (no set date yet) and will lift up or extend several limits of the F2P and Preferred players. BioWare is hard at work revisiting old systems and this is one of them!
“While the team is hard at work revising some systems for the ‘Onslaught’ Expansion, we also wanted to show some love to the Free-to-Play and Preferred players. Most notably these changes will be to the credit cap, Quickbar, Medical Probe, and Quick Travel limitations. Let’s take a look at some of the quality of life changes coming for these players.”
Here is what is coming for F2P and Preferred in July. The text below is a direct quote from BioWare’s news article.
Increased credit cap
Long gone are the days where you could buy a gallon of Bantha milk for five credits. Initially when we developed our Free-to-Play and Preferred models, a cap of 200,000 credits and 350,000 respectively seemed like a fair amount. Over the years, it’s become a simple truth that those credit amounts don’t buy what it used to though. As our game has grown, so has the economy. Taking this into account, we will be raising the credit cap of both Free-to-Play and Preferred members to 1,000,000 credits!
Extra Quickbar
Quickbars are another feature that has been limited between the various account types. Currently Subscribers have six available to them, while Preferred have four and Free-to-Play accounts have just two. When this system was initially designed, only four at most were available. Keeping this in mind, we’ll be adding an additional Quickbar for both Preferred and Free-to-Play accounts – increasing the number to five and three respectively. With this addition, players will be able to have more abilities, Mounts, and Mini-pets available to them for immediate use.
Medical Probe and Quick Travel
Lastly, we will be making changes to Medical Probes and Quick Travel. Medical Probes allow a character to revive where they died instead of recovering at a Medical Station. Quick Travel allows characters to immediately travel to a discovered point on their current planet. Both of these features have been primarily available to Subscribers, while Preferred and Free-to-Play players could only obtain consumable versions via the Cartel Market. Both of these features are being removed from the Cartel Market and every player will be able to revive or Quick Travel where applicable!
If are among the players, who have been asking for a higher credit cap or an extra toolbar, you will get them in July! If you are ready to step up and try out the Subscription to the game, where all limits are lifted and you have full access to absolutely all of the game’s content, check out my recently updated article about current SWTOR deals and promotions!
