Prepare yourself young Padawan, for the great purge. It will soon be upon us!

No, not the Jedi purge, the purge of names. Coming this November to a SWTOR near you.

Okay, without the pomposity and theatrics this time. As of Nomber 12th, many existing characters will be asked to renew their names. Which is possibly both more, and less, dramatic than it may sound. Both at the same time. There are a few caveats attached that make this a little more overly complex than it needs to be.

Short version, inactive characters will lose their names to allow active players to choose them. Which is simple enough, but it comes on a sliding scale based on a number of different factors. Those affected include:

Free to play users with a character below level 10 that has been inactive fo 60 days

Free to play users below level 30 inactive for 120 days.

Preferred Status, such as people who bought the collector's Edition (guilty as charged) below level 10 inactive for 90 day.

Preferred below level 30 inactive for 180 days.

Simple enough for you? Good.

Everyone else who has either logged in, at least once, during the relevant time periods, or is over level 30, will be unaffected. Though there's still a little confusion regarding multiple characters on the same account. My recommendation is, if you care at all about this, just log in and have a quick run around with all of your existing accounts and characters just to be on the safe side. It's a free game now after all, so there's nothing to lose but a little of your time.

In fact, that's most likely what BioWare and (more likely) EA are banking on. Create a bit of a kerfuffle that sounds a lot more scary than it really is > encourage the affected demographics to log back in banking on them sticking around because they like the game again > proft!

It's kinda' a sleazy way to do it, if that is the case, but it is still a free game. And that's all that matters.

Right?