The fully voice-acted MMO was a bastion of high hopes in beta, and at its launch in late 2011. The game was developed by BioWare, although it was first announced in late 2008. Development costs for the project were never disclosed, but it was estimated to be somewhere between $126 million to $150 million. If this is true, this would make SWTOR the most expensive game ever developed.
Some overzealous fans dubbed it the latest in a long line of “the WoW Killer.” (This happens every time any new highly-anticipated MMO is announced, a la Rift, Tera, etc.) It did have a pretty good start, gaining 1 million subscribers within the first three days of launch; unfortunately it didn’t really work out quite like that. A few months after launch, subscriptions dropped rapidly, and doomsayers began predicting its fall to free-to-play.
They were half right. The game is now a hybrid free-to-play model with the option to continue paying a subscription for increased playability.
However, if it’s a bit beyond your budget and you’re still in hopes of leveling a new character quickly, this summer BioWare is bringing back the Star Wars Double XP event.
Set to roll out starting this weekend, players will receive double the normal XP, and level-capped players will also be able to gain double legacy XP as well.
This summer’s double XP weekends are:
June 21, 2013 (1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT) to June 24, 2013 (2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT) June 28, 2013 (1:00PM CDT / 6:00PM GMT) to July 1, 2013 (2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT) July 4, 2013 (6:00AM CDT / 11:00AM GMT) to July 8, 2013 (2:00AM CDT / 7:00AM GMT
What do you think? Is the double XP worth catching up on all those updates?
