Stephen Reid has once again come to the forums and reaffirmed something that should not need to be said.

 

Since the pre-orders went out we all knew was that it was a first come first serve basis and that by entering your pre-order code would determine when you would gain access to the game.

I took this as a given, and this is not a debate about who got shafted by what company’s on the pre-order codes that got held back. I know mine did as many others in the UK.

 

This following yellow text post was just to say that nothing had changed and that access would be granted to in the order of which the code where entered on the site.

StephenReid

Shacknews apparently got confused, and they’re confusing you, so allow me to clarify. Nothing has actually changed since we announced pre-order access in July.

Everyone who pre-orders Star Wars: The Old Republic and redeems their pre-order code will get Early Game Access. Those who do this will be able to download the game client and play the game ahead of the release date.

While we aren’t ready to talk about the exact timing of when Early Game Access starts (that depends on a number of factors including Game Testing and pre-order numbers), we’ll announce that before the start date. Our planning accounts for allowing people to download the client before the Early Game Access start date, too.

However, when you actually gain admittance to Early Game Access will be determined in a first-come, first-served manner dependent on when you redeemed your pre-order code.

While we understand all of you want to be in Early Game Access on Day One, part of the point of a head start program like this one is to allow us to gradually ramp up the population of our servers so that on launch day, the general play experience is as pleasant as possible. While we’re going to be allowing a lot of people into Early Game Access at regular intervals, we cannot allow everyone who pre-orders in at once. That would defeat the point of a gradual head start.

The next obvious question is “I pre-ordered on Day X, when do I get access?” While we cannot answer that for everyone, I will say (as I did in July) that those who pre-ordered early will be getting Early Game Access, well, earliest. At this point we still have pre-orders available and therefore, anyone who pre-orders will still gain Early Game Access, but as they’re redeeming their code later, they’ll get Early Game Access later. As I’ve said before the difference between ‘early’ and ‘later’ should be a matter of days, not weeks.

I hope this helps clear things up a bit. I’d encourage everyone to review the pre-order FAQ and specifically the section on Early Game Access, too.

 

So nothing has changed. We still don’t know how many pre-orders will get in at the first leg, and nothing to say how many days you would get in before the next phase would get to play.  Also still nothing to say what the cap on pre-orders will be before BioWare runs out.

 

At this moment it could be as little as 20K players or as many as 500K. Only one thing is true at this time is that everyone that pre-ordered TOR will get early access.

 

BioWare is taking great care that no matter when you get to play the game, it will go as smooth as possible. Remember first impressions last and a bad first day will do the game no good at all.

 

So until next time MrWarlock signing off.