Not too long after the rumors and leaks of The Old Republic Collector’s Edition, BioWare has made the news official. Right now, three editions of Star Wars: The Old Republic are available for pre-order. The standard edition is your basic copy of the game with software, game time, and pretty cover.

The Digital Deluxe Edition, which is only on Origin, comes with special in-game items. A Flare Gun, Training Droid, HoloDancer, HoloCam, and a STAP (Single Trooper Aerial Platform if you aren’t a Star Wars buff) are all included.

The biggest set is the actual Collector’s Edition of The Old Republic. The massive set contains all of the in-game items from the DDE along with The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural, a Darth Malgus statue, The Old Republic Galaxy Map, Security Authentication Key Fob, a Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD, the game in a metal collector’s case, an exclusive in-game Mouse Droid, and access to a Collector’s Edition in-game store which I assume is better than other stores.

Also, those who pre-order the game will get Early Access to the game. Sounds great for big Star Wars fans and gamers but what about that release date, BioWare?

In what seems like an attempt to get more hooked on the MMO lifestyle World of Warcraft has adopted an endless trial mode. The endless trial makes the game free to play up until lvl 20 with all of the base games content intact. Players who want to progress further can then buy the game bundled with the Burning Crusade expansion pack for $19.99 usd. As an extra bonus Blizzard also threw in the Burning Crusade expansion to all owners of base game for free.

Current WoW subscribers should expect a massive increase in gold farmers and spammers shortly.

Hellgate: London, the post-apocalyptic MMORPG created by former Blizzard employees, is coming back free to play at the end of the month under the name of Hellgate Global. On June 30th, the game will start off it’s next public beta phase, allowing everyone who missed it the first time around to give this dark, fast-paced hack n’ slash a try.

Starting this August NetDevil’s Lego Universe will start offering a free to play trial version of the massively multiplayer online game .  The free to play version is said to “make the game more accessible to new players” while allowing them to “experience LEGO Universe at their own pace”.  These free players would be limited to 2 of the games zones and would also be unable to trade or chat .  Players who wish to go beyond these limitations could then choose to sign up for a subscription to gain access to full game.

Seeing as how I swore off these types of games late last year I wont be touching this with a 10 foot pole, but if you were ever curious about Lego Universe at least it wont involve taking a hit to wallet for trying it.

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Bioware and Lucasarts have announced a new MMO for you to be sucked into and possibly die from: Star Wars: The Old Republic. The MMO will take place in the Old Republic, 300 years after KOTOR 2 and 3500 years before the films. There will be two factions to choose from, the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, each with their own sub-classes. EA will publish the games, and a release date has not been announced.

-Chris Weng

Source: Joystiq.com