Bioware announced that previously unveiled free-to-play restrictions for Star Wars: the Old Republic will be lessened due to "community and internal feedback."
In a post on the game's forums, lead designer Damion Schubert explained that after receiving feedback from fans, Bioware is makings changes to the original restrictions.
The new guidelines for free-to-play will give gamers a second quickslot bar, as well as five Warzones runs each week. The original restrictions did not give free-to-play gamer a second bar and only allowed three Warzone battles a week.
"Originally, the second quickslot bar was part of preferred status, but this morning based on feedback here and what they were seeing in the community we decided to give it to everyone," Schubert wrote. "Perhaps the most interesting point regarding the Warzones limitation is that some players have concerns that putting limitations on Warzone runs might make Warzone queues less likely to fire. While it is possible that this may happen, we don't think it will -- our subscriber base likely will not shrink much, and for some of our competitors, converting to Free-to-Play has resulted in a subscriber increase! Which means that Warzone queues should likely see improvement from what you experience in game, and at minimum be relatively unchanged in experience."
Schubert also wrote that the game's conversion to free-to-play "should not cheapen the experience for paying subscribers. If it turns out that the Free-to-Play conversion results in a degraded Warzone experience once we go live for subscribers, you can rest assured that we will quickly make adjustments to the system to ensure that subscribers have an optimal experience."
He also made it clear that paying subscribers are still the company's priority and that they will have "tangible benefits" over non-paying players.
"It is important conversely that the subscription offers subscribers strong, tangible benefits over the Free-to-Play experience," Schubert wrote. 'We value our subscribers greatly, and they are crucial to the success of Star Wars: the Old Republic."
The free-to-play version of the game is still being tested and no launch date has been unveiled, but it's expected to be available before the end of the year.
What do you think about the lightened F2P restrictions? Are you a paying subscriber who is worried about your experience being cheapened by F2P? Comment below...
