I missed mentioning this a couple weeks back (I think), but you should soon have the ability to rename your Star Wars: The Old Republic character(s); update 2.1 is slated to add that feature. Also in said update: armour dyeing, at least for those armours in-game that have dye slots added to them. Here’s a preview video of how the dye system works.

Of course, update 2.1 was slated to release today — has anyone had the chance to play with the new system yet?

By the way, it would appear that SWTOR’s monthly revenue has doubled and then some since the switch to free-to-play. If you’re curious about how the game’s free-play experience stacks up, there’s an ongoing series at Massively looking at that very topic.

Speaking of Star Wars, EA recently signed an exclusive deal with LucasArts, meaning that they alone will be able to publish new titles using that IP. Not everyone is happy about this, although not everyone is rending their garments over it either. And it has already been announced that Visceral Games, DICE, and BioWare have Star Wars games in the pipeline, all of which will make use of the Frostbite 3 engine. So at least EA is diving into the deal with its best studios. One wonders if the as-yet-unannounced sci-fi RPG idea that the former Mass Effect team at BioWare Edmotnon were working on might now be repurposed into this forthcoming Star Wars title. Producer Casey Hudson would likely jump at the chance to return to the galaxy far, far away.

At any rate, EA’s share price certainly reaped some benefit from the announcement.

There has also been some talk of Mass Effect spin-off games, featuring some of the more notable characters from the original trilogy. At present, that’s just a speculative thing, though; don’t put much stock in it.

One thing that you can put a bit more stock in is BioWare’s affirmation that they will be considering the lessons learned with Mass Effect 3 as their Montreal studio crafts the fourth game in the series (not counting the mobile titles). We still don’t know a lot about that game, although Forbes is hoping it won’t be a prequel.

A couple of different sites have also revisited the Mass Effect games in recent days, including D+PAD and Ars Technica. Do check out the Ars article, in particular; it’s a great read.

Oh, and hey…the BioWare store has a snazzy new replica Mass Effect pistol available.

There hasn’t been much news on the Dragon Age front lately, although that should change at E3:

I was unclear! Yes, there will be some DAIII at E3. Not just “stuff.” DAIII stuff.

— Mike Laidlaw (@Mike_Laidlaw) May 7, 2013

And there’s also this blog entry about the Qunari symbol that might be worth checking out. It’s by a guy I sang with in this choir, many years ago now.

Gamasutra’s ongoing look BioWare’s Q&A process also has a new entry this week.