TOR Worst Release Date In History ?
Ok, first let me start by saying like many other followers I’m stocked that we have a release date at long last.
But could SWTOR have picked a more awkward date to release a MMO ?
Also the way it was announced was very strange indeed, with no sign that the formidable train was entering the station.
I See No TRAIN !!!
The announcement came like a blot out of the blue. It’s like waiting for the new year to tick over, me and my family always turn on the TV and wait for Big Ben to chime the coming of the new year. This build up makes the passing of the old and welcoming of the new way more enjoyable.
This is the type of thing we kind of expected with the TOR release. The build up was almost as important as the date itself. I and many other wanted to celebrate what was about to transpire.
Yet the way it came out was like waiting for new year and at 22:30 Big Ben struck the last chime and it was over. We all missed the hype and excitement we as followers were looking forward to, and truth be told it was a little disappointing.
It’s been said that we would see TOR coming from a mile away like that of Christmas, and many signs would lead up to this point and anyone following TOR would be in no doubt that the time was coming. It seems very much like outside influences may have something to do with the way this came out. Who knows? All I know is that now it was nothing like the way we were led to believe.
As for the timing, the 20th of Dec for NA and 22nd of Dec for the EU.
I may be the only one here that is just stunned about this release date. Nothing about it sounds right.
Maybe BioWare just wanted it out the door before 2012, and stick it to all the doom sayers that have come to the front of late. This is a time of year when almost everyone has a focus on other things. Work commitments, shopping for goodies among others, we will all be knee-deep in the holiday season. The last thing on most people’s minds is playing a game and MMO’s do tend to take up way more time than any other game genre.
It could be a last fling from BioWare to have that smooth launch that it has talked about in full ever since the time they announced the pre-orders. Getting the game out so close to Christmas would make this transition happen more easily. With players preoccupied with other things at this time of the year. The whole red-zone debate with a short staggered launch at this time of year. Is BioWare using this as a way of coping with the mass influx they see joining the game?
BioWare is well versed that they will only have one opportunity to have a smooth launch and if the game takes a bad turn there really is no turning back the clock. It could be a good move for TOR yet I find little in the way that will benefit the followers that just want to take time out and enjoy the game and spend a great deal of time in the world when the game hits.
This will limit the time I’ll spend in the first week as it will for many others. Yet this seems to me at least is what BioWare has in mind. Why else would you place yourself in the firing line with the problems that the time will bring. With late arrives of box copy’s that may take weeks to come after the game is available in store. Here in the EU will be waiting weeks for the box copy to arrive, with no box we can’t put in the codes to unlock our in-game items.
Also will the codes we have already entered be valid and continue after the release date has come and gone ?
Just like the prequels I’m a little confused about the whole release thing. How and Why are the questions that may never be answered at any time.
Sure we will bitch about this until we are full on playing and nothing else matters, but until then I have no idea why this date was picked. A week before or possibly the 2nd week in Jan would have went down a lot better.
We’ll that’s it for now.
Until next time, MrWarlock signing off.
28 Responses to “TOR Worst Release Date In History ?”
1. They had to announce release date because Diablo III gave announcement about release date
2. With this release date there will be no queue at the launch:)
@Genius
Both good possible answers yet I have no idea why TOR would fear a release date of Diablo3.
I’m in college so it perfect, right after break I ll be Playin and don’t go back til second week of January, don’t think negative man it ll be great!
I agere, it is a weird choice for a launchdate. AND I completely agree that the whole springing the date on us, has left me feeling a bit sour on the whole thing
[…] Read On […]
Well they way i see it, this have nothing to do with other games at all.
STAR WARS IP have nothing to fear from other IPs these days when it comes to gaming market. Remember the MMO market is 100 times bigger atleast now then when SWG launchet.
This have to do with if one takes the time from now until launch with beta weekends, the new build with even more bug fixes the timing is actually perfect. And yes to launch right before christmas is very smart for a smoother launch. But i also agree on that will all the DOOM threads/posts in the last weeks they wanted the game out before 2012.And lets not forget a launch in Desember is quite smart $ With the pre orders getting in atleast a week before everyone else and right before christmas this should indeed be a very smooth launch.
December sounds good to me. It comes out during holidays and it keeps from mad rush with everyone playing on same time. Bioware has the right idea, I am not sure why people are complaining, you have release date.
The only thing it was announched in such a small event with no spark behind it. I guess they did it this way on purpose.
Not even mad.
Deal with it.
I was also a tad bit confused about the lack of build up for the release date announcement. My gut impression of this after being so hyped by Stephen about how we would see the train coming and no body will be able to miss it type of talk, was that this was a knee jerk reaction to something or a few things that had built up lately within the community.
My heart tells me that they have some master plan to all this that I am just not experienced with the industry enough to see, (although I do have over 13+ years involved with MMO’s) and that they have made the best possible decision.
My gut tells me that maybe they wanted to use this event as a way of smoothing things over with the EU community for the fear and stress that has been placed upon them from the release issues and if they will even be able to play or not type of fears.
possibly other industry indicators as well, one cannot just dismiss the release date announcement of Diablo 3, sure they are different types of games but in a time of economic stress where money is tighter than ever before and top that off with holiday spending that has most people strapped for dough, competing with anything for the few dollars a customer has nowadays is bad business sense. The time to strike for them is first rather than waiting so I think it had something to do with the decision as well.
just some random thoughts I wanted to add to the discussion. 🙂
great piece my friend. 🙂
i find it so funny … people just wanna bitch…. WE WANT A RELEASE DATE…. THE RELEASE DATE ISNT GOOD ENOUGH…. please go back to wow or play gw2 when it comes out cause thats where you people belong…
@josh
oh don’t get me wrong I am stoked for the date I like it,!!!!!
just don’t understand it, that’s what the discussion is for
🙂
Seriously? I myself am stoked that we have a date to look forward to. It’s like being the 28th of December and knowing; “Okay, in three days, it’s a new year, and it’s going to be awesome.”
I don’t know why this is surprising. It’s just before christmas, and just after (in Dutch speaking regions) Sinterklaas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas).
It’s a smart date, and even though the people that will be staying with their families, won’t download the games and stress the servers even further. The stress on the servers will be less because of that date.
Ofcourse I could rant on about other games that are being developed/released/revealed, but people already done that above me, so I won’t go in there.
All I’m saying is: BE GRATEFUL BUNCH OF HUTT-SPAWNS!
I won’t lie I was hoping for a NOV date. But I am super happy we got date even if it was DEC. I suspect Bioware need all the time left in the launch window they could get to ensure the product was up to snuff. Which I can appreciate, and want. In general I disagree about the time constants. As sad as it may sound, a lot of us don’t have lot family to spend the holiday with. And those that do have family while it enjoyable we also like reasons to sneak away and get some private time. I think in general we have more time over the holiday to do leisure activity. I think it was excellent choose on Bioware’s part, besides who doesn’t want to go a galaxy far far away for Christmas!
It was most likely announced with the Dec. date because it gives kids that are still in school the ability to be part of launch in a massive way.
I don’t completely understand it, but I’m sure it had some meaning to Bioware.
Having early access it won’t really bother me, as my wife does all of the holiday shopping anyway…
I think you miscalculated that early access will begin at least 2 weeks before the actual release of the game. So its actually more time for people to play before the holidays. Also a lot of kids will get a shiny new MMO to play from parents as a holiday present. I think they put a lot of calculating into this and released swtor at the right time.
Its out. If you have any complaints I think you need to just relax and be happy you have a release date, I believe its perfect b.c people will be so preoccupied with other stuff the servers wont be overloading and crashing. Perfect logistics and research by Bioware and LucasArts…are you not going to buy it b/c of the release date? Of course NOT! Yet you will be busy so its no where near the amount of people trying to log on at once. You’ll wait until after the holidays and be right on after everything is already up and running, I honestly think no one has anything to complain about.
It is to close to 24/25th, add in winter weather and the chances of mailservices getting our pre-orders out could very well vanish in a white snowcloud 🙂
Sad, we got what we wanted and this article wreaks of malcontent. If it’s that offensive that an article needs to be written about it, you should probably boycott it. I mean we’re even complaining about the way it was released? Come on! The only thing that should come from this is the knowledge of how long we wait. Discuss something that matters, like lifting the NDA so we can prepare…
Maybe this release date is part of their plan for a smooth launch. They realize some people won’t be logging in that much at the time of Christmas and that’s what they want.
The train metaphor was, to be fair, something that got over-hyped. It was all fun, but at the end of the day BW had a schedule and plan of how they would announce the release date (whether that was ‘by x date’ or ‘in reaction to x news’ is another matter).
I personally didn’t expect a release date to come out of Eurogamer, I knew there would be something but honestly thought it would be EU beta testing information.
It’s not an ideal date as many have pointed out, but I’d be very surprised if everyone who has keyed in their preorder code isn’t given a link to download the client – and this will be prior to the headstart, which could be anywhere between 3-7 days in advance. This means for a lot of us we could be playing from the 13th/15th of December.
At the end of the day, we’re all going to be playing in a little over 10 weeks 🙂
I personally see no problem with the Dec date, although I was hoping for Nov. And I agree that the timing of this announcement was odd given what they’ve said in the past.
It doesn’t matter if course, and it’s not a complaint, but I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when they made the decision to ditch their previous plan and release this info so suddenly.
Ps: Warlock, I loved the article and your
Choice of pics to go with it! Haha
i’m actually pretty excited because this coincides with my school break perfectly! 10-15 full days of TOR before i have to go back!!
The date works quite well for me. If it releases on the 20th, then my early access should start around the preceding Thursday – I get one full weekend and maybe a full Monday of game time, switch to evenings only for the next three days and go full tilt during the Christmas holidays. Can’t wait.
I still wonder if they quick released the date due to Best Buys mass email to their customers with the release date in it…Pretty sure from what people who got the mail said it was before the good dr.s revealed the date…
I among others believed Bioware’s statements that they’d give us a warning on the announcement and wouldn’t spring it at a convention without notice.
I am all hyped about it though..
I predicted it being a Tuesday between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was a more aiming at smack in between…
With grace periods in place for people to get their retail code in, Any mail mess at Xmas aren’t an issue.
Now we all await the early access info…So far all we know is its NOT WEEKS like someone here though… They’ve said quite a few times Days not weeks early–I hope for 13 days which still fits their anouncment and fits when I thought the game would be launched..
There really is too much complaining going on about this, but…that is life with MMOs.
If they hadn’t announced the release date, there would be an article by someone on “We are getting dangerously close to Holiday 2011 with no release date yet, the game is going to get pushed to 2012”.
We don’t even wait till Halloween anymore to start the Christmas season (the stores I’ve been inside of in the past week are already setting up Christmas section with decorations, artificial trees, etc) so people were going to start freaking over “Holiday 2011” very soon.
If the release date came out and it was Nov 22, then there would have been all kinds of complaints about they haven’t given enough time now to get everything sorted. “The NDA hasn’t even dropped yet, how am I supposed to plan my character in less than 2 months???” and such.
As far as the train, now that we have a date I see the train metaphor working a whole lot better. Now we know when it is supposed to arrive and so now we get to watch to make sure the “stops” are made and it is on pace to arrive “on-time”.
We still need a larger beta pool, more beta weekend stress tests, lifting of the NDA, early game access and I’m sure other things I’m not thinking of.
OMG, What do you people not bitch about? You complain incessantly about the lack of a release date, then you have one and now THAT is a problem. Stop finding random things to bitch about and be happy for once.
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