Even though it was EA that was showing hesitation at setting a date, and whose head had floated the idea of a possible delay, Bioware and LucasArts are apparently very confident of the progress made and announced in a joint conference, that it will be December 20, 2011 for the final release date of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Of course, this change of heart and official announcement does bring our speculation to an end, but it also sets a high bar for the game to reach that goal.
This does not mean that they’ve given up on beta testing after their big weekend at the start of the month. While they don’t have any official dates planned, they have said that they will be giving those that have signed up to be beta testers their due before the game starts. Also those with a pre-order will also be allowed to have early access to the game before the official opening of the MMO, but they have not said what that date will be. But the promise is in all three versions of the game.
It’s almost a given that in any Star Wars related game or book or movie or merchandise, that there is a Collector’s Edition which is usually quite costly. In this case, this version will retail for around $150 and will feature the music of the game on CD, a security authentication key, a galactic map, a statue of Darth Magnus, and seven awesome items like a Flare Gun and Training Droid, a mouse droid, your own transportation vehicle (STAP), a holographic journal and dancer, and access to a special store in the game. Bioware does, however, say that while these things are cool, they won’t give a tremendous advantage in the Star Wars universe to be fair to every player. The Digital Deluxe package only features five items which are the STAP, the holo journal and dancer, the Flare Gun and the Training Droid and that goes for $80. And finally there is a standard version for $60 that is just the game without the extras. All versions also feature a color stone, which is a virtual item in the MMO itself.
Everyone will get 30 days free to play when buying before billing kicks in. There are then monthly dues of $14.99 if you want to continue, but you can save money by buying 3 month subscriptions of which are $13.99 a month or 6 month subscriptions which comes out to $12.99 a month.
Pre-orders are still available through retailers and through SWTOR’s main website, so you can still get in on the pre-action, but hurry because as we’ve reported before, they are only releasing so many copies before waiting to make sure that the servers are properly tweaked to handle the load. So acting later may wind up delaying your enjoyment. Plus you don’t want to be trying to beg people for their copies a few days before Xmas for the kids or for that gamer that you are or know.
