Larry Everett at Massively has been exploring Star Wars: The Old Republic’s free-to-play experience recently, and his report is that the first ten levels of character progression are largely unchanged from the initial experience. That’s a good sign at least, although it’s worth noting that after level 10 is when SWTOR starts limiting the experience gain rate of free-players. Methinks Everett’s next report won’t be so positive.

As well, there is now, finally, a timeline for the appearance of the Cathar as a playable race in the game; they’ll be in the version 2.1 update. Naturally, there’s a trailer for that.

SWTOR will also be getting barbershop functionality very soon. Now if only they could do something about their community management.

Writer Mac Walters will indeed be working on the next Mass Effect, a fact which has irritated some fans of the series. Also, it would appear that the mainstream gaming press have finally realized that Ian Frazier and other former Big Huge Games developers have accepted positions at BioWare Montreal, where they’ll be working on said new Mass Effect game. Astute readers will recall that I posted about this about two months ago.

Tibby, as most of us here known Ian as, was of course the leader of the Ultima V: Lazarus remake project.

Also, it would appear that BioWare are preparing a Dragon Age video, or possibly a series thereof, to show off at E3. Could this signal that the next Dragon Age game will see a large preview at the event?