On July 10, 2012, Star Wars: The Old Republic did something every young MMO eventually has to do. It asked people to come back. Not dramatically. Not desperately. Not with a funeral violin playing over the character select screen. But clearly enough. BioWare and LucasArts launched the “Come Back and Play at No Charge” campaign, giving eligible former players up to seven days of free access from July 10 to July 17 so they could check out Game Update 1.3: Allies. The official promotion pointed returning players toward the update’s biggest new systems: Group Finder, Ranked Warzones, Legacy Perks, and Adaptive Gear. That may sound like a standard MMO promotion now. In 2012, it said a lot. SWTOR Was Still Young, But the MMO Pressure Was Already Real SWTOR had only launched in late 2011, but the honeymoon period for big-budget MMOs is brutally short. One month, everyone is calling…
