Star Wars: The Old Republic offering free character transfers for Asia Pacific users

Beginning June 4, gamers on Star Wars: The Old Republic's Asia Pacific servers will receive a free character transfer leading up to the server's closure, according to an update posted on the game's official site by BioWare community manager Eric Musco.

"Starting on Tuesday, June 4th, you will all be allowed a free one time transfer for each character you have on an APAC server," Musco wrote. "In the last update I gave I told all of you that we were expanding where your one-time transfer could go to include all NA-West servers. After seeing quite a few requests to expand it further, we are going to allow you a one-time transfer to any SWTOR server."

In March, BioWare announced that it will close the APAC servers and will transfer users to the North American servers. At the time, the company considered merging the three APAC servers into one highly populated server; however, that was decided against as players would have to sacrifice their preferred play-style.

Polygon reported last week that Star Wars: The Old Republic double XP weekends will resume June 22. It will also receive Update 2.2 in June 11 that will introduce guild bonuses and Nightmare Mode Terror From Beyond. Update 2.3 is scheduled to roll-out on Aug. 6 and will add a new daily area, flashpoints and a new recurring event.

Launching as a subscription-based model, the massively multiplayer online game based on the Star Wars universe went to free-to-play last November allowing users to play for free until they reach level 50. It initially launched in North America and Europe on Dec 20, 2011 and was later released in Australia on March 1, 2012.