Now this is the way to encourage subscription. BioWare have used their stick to dig a trough in the earth and plant carrot seeds. After six months spent slowly relinquishing their stranglehold on free players, the developers have pledged access to their first and only expansion to new, old and returning subscribers for a fee of zilch.
So: if you became a subscriber today, you’d receive a digital copy of Rise of the Hutt Cartel within two hours. Active subscribers already in possession of a copy will receive a (pretty paltry) new in-game title, ‘The Raven’, in its stead. That token of BioWare’s thankfulness should arrive in in-game inboxes by Wednesday of next week.
And what of the subscribers who bought the expansion very recently? Say, between August 11 and September 12, when this deal began? Their tears will be dried by the 1050 bonus Cartel Coins due to arrive in their game accounts by Monday.
500 Cartel Coins will also be added to the inventories of all returning subscribers. What’s more, those who return (or create a free-to-play account, for that matter) before October 20 will become proud owners of a JA-3 Subversive Battle Droid Mini-Pet and a JA-3 Subversive Speeder.
The consequence of all this is that there’s now nothing between subscribers and SWTOR’s end-game content, which stands to widen considerably with the addition of PvP Warzone Arenas at the beginning of next month. Seems sensible, wouldn’t you say?