Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) has come out with many new changes since moving to free to play. SWTOR members talk about how many similarities there are to World of Warcraft (WoW). However, Bioware has made some significant changes to its approach.
Just like WoW, SWTOR allows players to change just about everything about their character. Changes include everything from sex and name of your character, to the actual hair and eye color, after the character has been created. Both WOW and SWTOR charged real, hard-earned cash to make these changes on a person’s in game character. SWTOR gives “Cartel Coins” with a monthly subscription, and also grants them for in-game achievements. Of course, don’t underestimate the mighty dollar, as Bioware also allows you the opportunity to buy as many Cartel Coins as you want, to try and give players complete customization and control of their characters.
It is not secret that WoW has lost many of its players recently. It is probably safe to assume that some or many of them went to other MMORPGs, like SWTOR. I wonder though if the money hungry grab at F2P players, attempting to get them to subscribe, will keep players coming back for more. According to swtor.com, game update 2.1 brought with it a new race and many new customizable options for players to tinker around with. Time will tell if these new updates will be significant enough to tip the scales, as WoW did so many years ago.
