Patch 1.6.2 hit live servers yesterday, and with it came one addition to the Cartel Market that’s been requested since SWTOR’s free-to-play announcement was first made. Players are finally able to purchase additional character slots! They cost 600 Cartel Coins each and work across multiple servers once purchased. BioWare also increased the total character amount allowed across servers, raising that number to 350 characters total. Players of all subscription types can raise their cap in this manner. For example, a Free-to-Play player could have 8 character slots instead of the restricted 2 after purchasing 6 slots.

Later in the day, we also received a dev tracker post explaining one important detail– all players can gain up to 10 additional character slots in this manner, but this doesn’t extend the total amount of 350 characters between every server. Here’s the announcement, which was posted by Joveth Gonzalez:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Just wanted to correct something I said earlier. The information I received earlier was incorrect. Players may have their base character slots and up to ten extra character slots. For example, a subscriber with 12 character slots may increase their character slots up to 22. You can still have 350 characters overall. Apologies for the confusion.

For all of yesterday’s Patch Notes, check here.

Recently, Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, talked a bit about how important player feedback has been to the BioWare team during the transition to free to play. He cited some examples of just how the team has changed things due to feedback, and talks about future changes that will make the Preferred Player status much more enjoyable for players. Here’s what he had to say:

Recently, we’ve seen your feedback on some of the other aspects of our Free-to-Play option and once again, we are working to improve the experience for all of our players.

Starting today, Preferred Status Players will see an increase to their default Quickbars from two (2) to four (4). If you’ve already purchased additional Quickbars, don’t worry: we will be refunding your Cartel Coins for any Quickbar-related purchase.

Additionally, in an upcoming patch (no exact date yet, but players won’t have to wait long), Preferred Status Players will be given four (4) additional character slots, which means that they will have a total of six character slots. As always, Free-to-Play Players can reach Preferred Status simply by purchasing anything from our online store or purchasing a physical copy of the game.

Last but not least, I wanted to share the news that the 50 character limit on Global Active Characters for Subscribers will be removed and increased substantially in the same, aforementioned patch. If you wanted to, you can truly create your own army of Troopers or a legion of Sith Warriors.

Good news all around with this announcement! BioWare in the past hasn’t been overly receptive to player feedback, but so far, the free-to-play adjustments being made seem to mirror a turnaround in that regard. Make sure and check out the full developer blog for all the details.

Yesterday, Blaine Christine, Sr. Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, answered some questions SWTOR’s forum community raised in a thread specifically made for player questions. Most of the answers were recently provided in the announcement of the Preferred Status player model, but there was some new information available in this Q&A of sorts. One answer in particular that delivered new information was one regarding character slots. Currently on the PTS, there is no restriction on character slots even during the time when our accounts were temporarily flagged as free to play.

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Ripster: There is a welcome screen that lists a benefit of subscribing as 10 additional slots. Will this mean subscribers will have 22 or that F2P will have 2?

Blaine: Great question and we want to make sure we’re clear on this one. Subscribers will still have 12 character slots available on a single server. F2P players will have 2 (as will Preferred). At Launch, we are not enforcing the penalty on subscribers who convert to Free-to-Play, but we will in a subsequent patch. A further wrinkle is that if you have more than two and you delete characters at Launch, you will not get that slot back. Example: I have 10 characters as a subscriber this November, but in December I cancel my subscription. When I login, I can still use all 10 characters (for now), but I cannot create new ones and if I delete one, I will have 9 and not be able to create another until I go down to 1. Make sense?

Very detailed answer, and great information for players who are still on the fence about which subscription model is right for them. I would naturally assume that players dropping to one of the lower models will be able to choose which characters they want to access, and which will remain locked, as that’s how it generally works in other F2P games.

Earlier this week, BioWare allowed players to test out the new high population server tech they planned to implement on our current servers. Today, that server tech is being added, and as a result, we’re seeing the final phase of our rather lengthy SWTOR server transfer and merge process. This final phase includes the consolidation and eventual removal of the originally-announced origin servers that had designated destination servers, and also, as a surprise– a few extra servers.

Yes, that’s right, some of the servers players were encouraged to moved to are now forcefully being consolidated into another server altogether. These players will find themselves having to play the choose-the-name game again today. There only seem to be a handful of new servers that were added to this consolidation list, thankfully, and the end result of all these server merges will hopefully be better in the long run. All players on any of the affected origin servers who didn’t take part in the transfers will find their characters moved.

Yesterday, BioWare launched a brand new test server to specifically test some new high population server technology. Remember back in May when the team talked about “mega-servers”? This is that tech. Here is a preview of the news article:

In order to provide a better overall gameplay experience we’re getting ready to introduce new high population server tech that will allow us to significantly increase current server populations. Once we introduce new high population server tech, any characters remaining on an origin server will be moved to a high population destination server.

With this change, we’ll finally see the final phase to our server transfers and mergers. When the server tech fully launches, characters already on destination servers will find their servers upgraded with the new tech, which means that our servers will hopefully be more stable for the upcoming free-to-play model switch. Our servers will also, of course, house more players.

Thanks to the somewhat-confusing manner that SWTOR server transfers were handled, some players are left in an odd predicament. These players have characters on both their designated origin server and designated destination server, and not enough new character slots to accommodate their characters. Without the ability to transfer characters elsewhere and a limited number of character slots available, what exactly happens in this situation?

It seems unfair to expect these players to delete the higher-level characters, especially since SWTOR is currently one of the most alt-friendly MMOs on the market and actually rewards players with alts. BioWare hasn’t said much on this matter, until last Friday:

Originally posted by JovethGonzalez (Source)

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Hi folks,

Just wanted to hop on here to let you all know that at no point will we be deleting your characters later this summer when we automatically move any remaining characters from origin servers onto designated destination servers. More details about how this will work out will be forthcoming, but I can assure you that automatic character deletion is not going to happen for this upcoming move.

Thanks everyone!

Hey, look, another one of BioWare’s Soon™ lines! However, for players in this predicament, at least it’s something.