In case any of you hadn’t heard, BioWare Austin’s MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic, is now free to play until your character hits Level 15. Which, actually, is quite enough to get you a decent little taste of the game; you should be able to obtain your starship. The catch?

…the promotion is good only for those who have never held a previously active Old Republic account. Additionally, Free Trial characters may only play on their origin world, capital world, the Fleet, all Warzones, and their first Flashpoint. Players will be denied entry to any regions outside these areas.

On top of those restrictions, Free Trial players will not be able to send or reply to mail by other trial characters, use general chat, trade chat, or PvP chat, use the Galactic Trade Network, or trade with other players. Lastly, Old Republic Free Trial users will only be able to reach a Crew Skills ranking of “around” 40 and will not earn Legacy XP.

Which means I’m out of luck. Pity. That’s not to say that BioWare isn’t also trying to lure back previous players, but it’d be nice (even so) to be able to partake of the free-to-play offer for a bit. Of course, then they wouldn’t get any of my money, and I’d have a boatload of Level 15 characters…

Oh hey, look: the latest SWTOR community Q&A!

Meanwhile, the latest multiplayer DLC for Mass Effect 3 has been announced. Entitled “Earth”, it seems to offer an especially cool new range of armours and powers for players. It’s free, of course, and it looks pretty cool. If, you know, multiplayer is your thing. (It isn’t my thing.)

Of course, if BioWare keeps thinking up multiplayer weekend scenarios like this, I may yet change my mind.

Oh, and Mass Effect: Paragon Lost — the upcoming animated feature starring James Vega — got its first trailer last week. Predictably, it’s explosion-heavy, but not everyone was all that impressed by it.

And in the “assorted” category, BioWare Mythic’s vice president, Eugene Evans, has been opining about platform proliferation and why it is a good thing for developers. Given that Mythic’s latest announced game is a cross-platform RPG of some relevance to regular visitors of this site, it’s not hard to see what he’s basing his remarks on. And for the record, I don’t think he’s wrong.

Finally, here is Dr. Who wearing Commander Shepard’s omni-tool. Your argument is so very invalid.