It has just been announced that less than a year since launch Star Wars: the Old Republic will be going free to play. They are adopting a hybrid model where you can choose to be a subscriber and get full access to the game or a free player and have (severe?) restrictions to what you can do. You can see the official page comparing the free and subscribed players’ restrictions and advantages.

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

  
Together with the announcement about the conversion to free to play we have also seen a promotion of the page detailing all the new content that we’ll see “by the end of the year”. The page also details that current subscribers and those that keep a subscription going will be rewarded with “Cartel coins” with which they will be able to “buy unique items as a part of our Reward program”. You can see the official page detailing the Cartel coins and the cash shop (or Cartel market as they call it) here.
  
I’ll be doing an editorial about this in the coming days and we are still waiting for official subscription numbers that will be released within the next 2 hours.
  
I would love to hear your opinions about what this means for SWTOR and whether this is a good or a bad thing. I would also love to hear what you think if this means that SWTOR has failed, succeeded or just changing plans according to the current state of the MMORPG market. Any community feedback is welcome.