Inevitability. Right now when you look at the MMO market, it is only a matter of time before a game will turn to the free-to-play model. While it is understandable for publishers and developers to try to get as much as they can from early adopters to recoup the massive cost of developing an epic MMO title, almost every title soon falls to the free-to-play model or it simply vanishes. Even with the juggernaut of being a part of the Star Wars franchise, it was only a matter of time before Star Wars: The Old Republic went this direction too.

Players who opt for the free-to-play method of Star Wars: The Old Republic will receive story content for all eight character classes and be able to get their character up to the current max of 50. They will be restricted from playing new content and only receive a limited amount of time in the game’s PvP warzones. Players can access this content by paying a monthly $14.99 fee or using a new in-game currency being created known as Cartel Coins. With this updated payment method, Bioware looks to roll out this new content every six weeks, creating more incentive for players to subscribe or purchase Cartel Coins.

One thing we’ve learned is there are too many games and too little time to play them all. This also means there isn’t even enough time to give all of them awards, but we try our best. Today we take a look at both the most time consuming efforts of the past year as well as give some awards for games that deserve some notable mentions as well.

Game Most Likely to Consume Your Life: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Two Hundred and Fifty Hours. By most estimates, this is how long it’ll take an average player to explore MOST of the content of Skyrim. To give some perspective, if the average person works a 40 hour a week job, Skyrim would take six and a quarter full work weeks to complete. Now, we realize that most gamers work jobs outside of the gaming industry and cannot devote a full forty hours a week to a single game.

The Bitcast returns this week with their record setting 8th Episode featuring the Flickcast’s own version of Mario & Luigi, though JC and WallE will both always lay claim to being the star of the episode.

In the News of the Week, JC and WallE discuss the upcoming Spike Video Game Awards show and speculate on the upcoming announcement from Epic Games, the makers of Gears of War and the Infinity Blade franchises. They also discuss the 10th Anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III coming to iOS before getting into detail with South Park: The Game coming from Obsidian. They even talk Beta numbers for Star Wars: The Old Republic and announce the current and upcoming DLC for Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, sadly with the absence of Sean Bean.

In the Long Grind in Skyrim this week, JC gets in detail on both the dragons and music of the Elder Scrolls V.

For the Topic of the Week, WallE shows that he can handle both movies and gaming as he discusses the scores composed for some of the most influential titles in gaming history.

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As always, one of our favorite parts of any convention is the sights and NYCC was full of them this year so we had to share them with the Flickcast audience. The level of dedication by the men and women who attend the con every year is staggering.

Some are picture perfect renditions that rival movie quality costumes like the Anakin Skywalker we saw wandering the floor. Others come from careful collection of legitimate television costumes and props like the classic Power Rangers Green Ranger. Still others take their own imagination and run wild with custom Mandalorian battle armor for both human and giant chicken alike to life sized Castle Crashers.

One of the things this gallery sadly doesn’t do justice is give an idea on just how huge NYCC was this year. Though it is yet to overtake the surrounding neighborhood like SDCC does, the New York Comic Con feels every bit as big and as important as its west coast counterpart.

The entire Javitts Center was filled with every major comic company to movie studios and video game publishers in every corner. This year the Flickcast was only able to spend a day on the Con floor but if things keep looking up for NYCC, we may have to tackle this show the same way we do San Diego Comic Con or E3.

Take a look below to get just a glimpse of the many sights at this year’s convention. See you next year New York!

The Flickcast’s very own Cortney Zamm has been covering the amazing video game previews and news hot from the show floor at PAX East 2011 like nobody’s business. And yet, there is one game in particular that I felt deserved a bit of extra coverage.

That game is BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, a story-driven MMO developed in conjunction with LucasArts. There’s a whole lot of anticipation for this game and with good reason: SWTOR will be the WoW of the Star Wars Universe. And the story will be deeper and more personal to each character. If you’re familiar with BioWare’s previous titles, you know how important story is to their game developers.

I’ve been following the developer’s blogs and various updates on this soon-to-be released title and recently, I was excited to hear that Bioware made a big showing at PAX East 2011 in Boston, offering fans a few new glimpses at this ambitious project.

Be sure to hit the jump to watch the developer’s walk-through video showcasing some of  SWTOR’s flash-points with tons of developer commentary and some amazing in-game footage.

The expo floor is bigger and better at this year’s PAX East. If you’re a little overwhelmed by how much there is to take in, or if you’re one of the readers at home hoping to hear as much as possible about the con, here’s my guide to everything you might be missing on the show floor.

Child of Eden

The spiritual successor of Rez, an obscure rhythm-shooter released for PS2 before the time of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, Child of Eden is a game you may not have heard of, but should be really excited for. It’s another rhythm based shooter, where your shots release music that goes along with the background music and sound effects in the game, also similar to games like Lumines for the PSP.

What’s really exciting about Child of Eden is that it’ll have Kinect support, allowing you to shoot and navigate through its kaleidoscope world without a controller.

If you’re at PAX East this weekend, you can check out Child of Eden at booth #824.

As you’ve seen, there’s been a lot of excitement here on The Flickcast with the two upcoming non-fantasy genre based MMOs. Between Star Wars: The Old Republic and DC Universe Online , the MMO world currently dominated by World of Warcraft is going to be getting a run for its money. To help further the hype, Star Wars: The Old Republic put Beta Key signups live on their website today. This would allow a group of selected players to try out and test the features of the game before it became available to the general public for sale.

The response was so intense to this announcement that the sheer volume of people going to SW: TOR’s site caused the sign up page to crash. Doubtful that Bioware didn’t expect this level of hype, it is still amazing that so many people found out about the Beta signups and came on so quickly in hopes of the limited spots that the site was brought down for repairs by noon on its first day.

On the plus side, it’s better that the developers find out their problems now and get as many testers as they can for the game. As seen in the past, a glitch and bug filled launch day for the retail release can spell doom for many MMO’s.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for more on Star Wars: The Old Republic and we’ll let you know if we get one of those Beta spots to take an early peek at the game.

Like we reported back at E3, Star Wars: The Old Republic is making its way to PCs in hopes of doing two things. The first is erase the sour taste that was left in the mouths of players from Star Wars: Galaxies, the first attempt of making a Star Wars MMORPG. In addition to getting rid of that sour taste by establishing a new Star Wars online experience, it looks to take the fight head on to the dark Sith lord that has dominated the online gaming world for the last four years, World of Warcraft.

No longer calling itself an RPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic considers itself a Massive Multiplayer Online game with action and roleplaying elements. Even with Blizzard’s response of a new expansion for WoW called Cataclysm, Star Wars: The Old Republic from Bioware may have the best shot of any upcoming MMO to unseat the Warcraft powerhouse.