Should You Subscribe to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™?

In this guide, I will do my best to help you figure out whether you should subscribe to Star Wars: The Old Republic. To best help you with this I would like to explain the key differences between being Free-to-Play and Subscribed.

Here is the YouTube video version of the guide:

For a full list of all the benefits of Free-to-Play vs Preferred vs Subscribed please check out my guide specifically on that! https://swtormadesimple.blogspot.com/p/swtor-free-to-play-vs-preferred-vs.html

Free-to-Play vs. Subscribed: To begin with, let us briefly explore the differences between being free-to-play and subscribed in SWTOR:

Free-to-Play: Star Wars: The Old Republic allows you to experience a significant portion of the game without spending any money. This includes all the 8 original class stories that were introduced when the game launched, and the first 2 expansions called “Rise of The Hutt Cartel” and “Shadow of Revan”. However, there are quite a lot of limitations when it comes to the content outside the main class stories and first few expansions. Some of these restrictions include:

·         Limited amount of character slots (F2P only have 4 available)

·         Limited amount of multiplayer content access (Like no access to Operations at all)

·         Limited amount of gear available

·         Limited amount of credits you can hold (Right now it is 1 000 000 credits, which with the current inflation in the game will buy you almost nothing on the GTN)

Playing Free-to-Play in SWTOR will allow you to experience a fair bit of the single player stories in the game. However, the rest of the stuff around that will be restricted in some sort of way.

Subscribed: Subscribing to the game, is the only way you can have a completely unrestricted experience in the game. Even with the amount of unlocks you can buy that help loosen some of the restrictions as a F2P player, you won’t be fully unrestricted unless you are subscribed. You will have to subscribe if you want the following benefits:

·         No credit cap

·         Access to Operations (Large group content)

·         No limits on XP gained

·         Unlimited access to multiplayer content

·         And a lot of extra perks (Again, see the full list)

Most of the other benefits can be loosened up with account unlocks. However, account unlocks can only be obtained through buying them with Cartel Coins on the Cartel Market or from other players for a lot of credits on the GTN. However, they offer the closest thing to an unrestricted SWTOR experience without paying the monthly price for it.

Content Updates and Expansions: SWTOR has seen various expansions over the years, introducing new storylines, planets, characters, and gameplay features. This means that even though the game is over 10 years old, it is still receiving updates and most likely won’t be shut down for the next 5 or more years. To get life-time access to all the expansions that are currently in the game, you will only need to subscribe for 1 month. That’s why I often recommend all players to subscribe at least for 1 month at some point.

Personalization and Customization: If personalization and customization is important to you, you should also consider that when thinking about subscribing to the game. While F2P players have access to all 8 classes and the different combat styles, character customization is more limited. For example, F2P only have access to 3 different species: Human, Cyborg and Zabrak. So, if you want to be able to create multiple different characters with different species, subscribing might also be something you would be interested in.

 

Should You Subscribe to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™?

 Whether subscribing to Star Wars: The Old Republic is worth it to you, is not something I have an answer for. But I hope that this guide, along with the list I’ve made, will help you answer the question for yourself. Ultimately, the decision to subscribe is up to you.

If you found this guide helpful, don't forget to share it with fellow SWTOR players who might be pondering the same question. And as always:

May the Force be with you!