First expansion for BioWare's Star Wars MMO arriving spring 2013; increases level cap to 55, adds new planet Makeb.
The first expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic will arrive during spring 2013, Electronic Arts announced today. The Rise of the Hutt Cartel add-on increases the massively multiplayer online role-playing game's level cap to 55, adds a new planet called Makeb, and features fully-voiced conversations.
Additional information regarding the expansion will be shared in the coming months, EA said.
The Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion will be available by digital download for $20 (subscribers can grab the content for $10). Those who preorder by January 7 will receive five days of early access to the content.
The Rise of the Hutt Cartel will not be sold as a boxed product in stores.
Star Wars: The Old Republic launched a year ago this month behind generally favorable reviews, selling 2 million copies in its first three months. Subscriber figures fell and the game added a free-to-play option last month.
For more, check out GameSpot's review of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
Good news. More material for a great game. I just re-uppped my subscription again, have been playing since beta. I see lots of posters whining about non-important issues, but to each their own. TOR is still the best MMO on the market at this time. That may not be saying too much, but TOR is still young and evolving. The F2P aspect is the future of the MMO genre, and a damned good idea. Nice work, Bioware.
2 Like Boring , boring , boring !? More crap at sight in close future ? Or you finally gonna wake up and make Batlle Front 3 ?
Great and not so great, I much rather they fix the performance issue this game engine has, cause ever since 1.3 patch every patch has seem to compound the issue and make them worse use to have a minimum of 40 fps at all times including in WZ, now WZ framerates resemable what the Open world pvp on Ilum framerates look like which was below 20fps for 30+ people, except wz has like 16 and it has identical frames rates to what ilum open world had
SWTOR is like a painting. There is a gorgeous model, and to be fair, two very talented painters. Regrettably, both decided to paint on the same canvas. The clash of conflicting motifs was evident even in the first iteration. Then, incredibly, they decided to fix it by continuing to paint together on the same canvas. The result is SWTOR today: nothing short of a masterpiece in grotesquery.
Whether SWTOR ultimately fails spectacularly as I see it's doing or redeems itself like in so many Star Wars stories, it will forever stand as an iconic case study in business of video gaming. The game for me has transcended beyond its relevance as a game; I just want to see how the story of the game, not any in the game, will unfold.
1 Like I love how they keep adding to a game that needs some serious code and bug fixing, instead of fixing it first. My guild an I now call this game Glitch of the Old Republic. It's really getting bad.
No reason for Disney not to flood the game with characters now. That'll put asses in the seats!
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What story could a KotOR3 even tell? Revan's story has been told, as has the Exile's, both in the Revan novel. TOR's filled in all the backstory on Revan and the Jedi Civil War era, making a KotOR3 moot. If you've read the Revan novel, the Jedi Knight's story in TOR is basically KotOR3, particularly since KotOR's writer, Drew Karpyshyn, wrote the JK storyline.
Plus as I said below, TOR's F2P now so you don't even have to pay anything to experience the JK story. :)
@RogueJedi86 @Ultra_Taco You express a very valid concern, but I expect all TOR-type games to be open-ended NOT based on any canon sources like novels or fact books. KOTOR 1 and 2 are great because there was no canon at the time. For a long time after KOTOR 2, many players refused to accept Meetra Surik and her story as relevant to their experience. I feel the same way today; Surik's personal journey is much lamer compared to mine, for me that is. Redemption... Hah! Light side... Hah! A true force sensitive craves not such things. Any BioWare TOR games with definite one path storyline is almost guaranteed to fail, and I hope for it.
TOR got boring so fast I barely had a return from my investment in this game... :( BioWare should stick to single player experiences. This is a 'meh' product at its best...
1 Like I would go back but the F2P is a terrible deal and the P2P isn't worth the money (same as with all other subscription based MMOs). To be honest if they had the GW2 strategy I bet they could have really made it.
Not overly excited about this expansion. What is being offered seems pretty small for the price. I will be cancelling soon anyway and won't play the "f2p" garbage.
@Tribesmaster Some of the responses make me feel that some folks are missing the point of KOTOR entirely. Since when did KOTOR games ever come after novels or other so called canon sources?
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Play the Jedi Knight storyline, particularly in conjunction with reading the Revan novel. That's KotOR3 right there. Especially plausible now that you don't have to pay a dime up front to experience the story.
@RogueJedi86 @Tribesmaster Why does it have to revolve around characters from either the novels or SWTOR? The Exile met Revan's companions but the story, when KOTOR 2 first came out without any other canon, was entirely his own (yes, my Exile will always be a guy).
Only one planet and 5 levels worth of content? So what you're telling us is that it's going to be as lacking in content as Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria were.
At least Bioware is only going to charge $20
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To be fair, BioWare never claimed TOR would be a WoW Killer. The overhyping fanboys did that, the same ones who quit it in a month and moved to overhyping GW2 until it came out and then quit it and etc. So no sense trying to throw WoW Killer in BioWare's face when they didn't make the claim.
@RogueJedi86 @wexorian It's amusing to see it in that way in retrospect, but I also don't remember any EA or BioWare personnel making definite statements to that effect.
5 Like @RogueJedi86 @wexorian exactly.
Bioware is only guilty of following the formula that wow established and even that was likely more on the higher ups at EAs request then anything.
At the end of the day it is still a very solid and entertaining game.
I loved this game, but EA continually ruined it and ran it into the ground with their money hungry scheming.
The "preferred player" status is a joke and the fact I have to resubscribe to get my so called "earned" cartel coins from being a dedicated subscriber since the beginning, and having this "offer" expire in January is the biggest kick in the face of those hardcore fans who have been around since the beta. Many of us left because of too much came too late, but people like me stuck through it. I came back glad that it was F2P only to realize I was worth nothing for giving them all that initial money and praise when the game launched.
1 Like Do the Hutts ever move from the same spot? This video made me think of Stargate. That was weird how that dimension was all like ancient Egypt.
@USAPATRIOT21 Your question got me interested too. I do seem to remember a scene in Episode I where Jabba slowly moved into position to watch the pod race.
3 Like I find the name "Rise of the Hutt Cartel" to be extremely comical....I don't know why....
1 Like Typical EA. Even if you're a subscriber to this game - after they promised subscribers free add-on content - you still have to pay.
1 Like You can't get mad at EA for that when all MMO's do it. Just a few months ago Mists of Pandaria launched and cost everyone $40 which didn't include your $15 sub fee
1 Like @Ghosthunter54 Well they are still adding new free content. A new raid and space missions came out recently. Expansions still cost money, just like they do for pretty much every other MMO out there. Even Guild Wars 2 will likely charge for expansion packs, whenever they get to them.
2 Like I don't know about you guys but I'm going back, to play Knights of the old Republic again it has one of the best Twist to a story that make M Night Shyamalan jealous
@snakefantasy10 I recently went back to play KOTOR 1 and 2 because I couldn't stand the disappointment of SWTOR F2P.
6 Like lol Free to play my balls
Force to pay ore like it
beca.. *sorry you have exceeded the maxium character to write you need to buy more cartel credits to unlock more characters*
3 Like @abroche Only an idiot would ever think something was truly free. That's like getting pissed that a demo didn't include the whole game. *Sorry you have to purchase the game to play its content.
1 Like Worse year EVER for EA 2 MMOs only to fail as soon that guild wars 2 comes out and MoH war fighter too
2 Like So in a game with an acute lack of content; they're going to release an 'expansion' with one planet zone (that they promised was going to be free back at E3) and charge $10 for it if you're a subscriber. *sigh* I bet the long-promised Cathar race is going to be in an 'expansion' too that subscribers will have to pony up $5 - $10 for too...
No wonder this game has been going downhill so fast... that is if you're not one of those who *still* firmly believes that this game is doing extremely well, of course.
1 Like @BigFeef how the hell is it going downhill? it currently has more active users then it ever has.
And if you could define "acute lack of content" please. Id love to hear it
@ThreeVo Ah yes; the perfect example of one of those people who *still* firmly believes that TOR is doing extremely well...
"More active users then it ever has."? What the hell are you smoking and where can I get some.
@JASAEric First you call someone ?bio drone? for defending the game?and then use a straw man. ThreeVo was talking about numbers, not disliking the game.
The complainers are just sad. You dislike something, so clearly it?s very close to dying. You?re just as bad as the WoW players who still cry and bitch about the panda people. panda people.
@Unfallen_Satan @ThreeVo @BigFeef With regard to the Cathar race mentioned above, they have said that it isn't part of the expansion, and sold separately on the cartel market.
Second, directed at the BioDrone, how can you seriously say there are more players now then ever? At release there were about 20 servers for America alone (with only one or two being "light"), now there are 6. Something around 2 million pre orders, do you think there are 2 million subs now?
Bioware has been bleeding subs because they refuse to address any issues. Still no server transfers, no fix to the memory leak effecting many people. Instead they are essentially taking 2 content updates, delaying them a few months, calling it an expansion and forcing players to pay for it.
This is a dangerous precedent, if this works out for them you can expect many more content updates to cost you extra. They have already adding tier 7 ship upgrades to the cartel market as an experiment to see if people will buy end game gear, I promise we will be seeing end game armor sets on there soon.
A good solution IMO would be to allow people to buy the expansion with cartel coins, that way subs can use their free coins to buy the expansion for free (since makeb was originally announced as free anyway), F2P/Preferred could still pay to get it, and that way Bioware would still get many, either by direct purchase or by sub monthly fee.
@ThreeVo @BigFeef The actual number may be good, but since BioWare hasn't released it, no outsider knows for sure. However, server merges, transition to F2P, multiple extensions to the deadline for claiming "complimentary" Cartel points," snapshot impressions of some gamers and news reporters that I've read, AND the fact BioWare has not used higher player number for publicity, all of this are evidence to me that SWTOR is not doing better, if not doing worse.
@ThreeVo Oh yes; the game is bestest thing since sliced bread; why would I want to "ignorantly" state that EA/BioWare has broken each and every promise they've made to the players of TOR since *beta*... Why would I want to "ignorantly" state that while there's a bunch of F2P players clogging up the starting areas and fleet; everywhere else is still a wasteland. Less than 60 people on Hoth, Quesh and Voss during prime-time today on the Jedi Covenant *and* Prophecy of Five servers means that the game is overflowing with people; "more active users then it ever has."... on all of the *many* servers now active!
I'll say it again; you're the perfect example of the people who *still* think this game is the biggest MMO success ever! Keep listening to EA/BioWare's bullshit; they've *never* lied to us before; they've *never* broken any of the promises they've made... Keep believing that crap and the game will only get even better!
BioWare reveals new user milestone following business model conversion; thousands of new players join every day.
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