Weekly Preorder Numbers (Physical)

[Ratio]

Code: [Select]

Date     Preorders
Jul 30     119,260
Aug 06     203,931
Aug 13     264,924
Aug 20     301,650
Aug 27     334,330
Sep 03     359,782
Sep 10     386,137
Sep 17     402,915
Sep 24     426,136
Oct 01     463,513
Oct 08     518,222
Oct 15     548,505
Oct 22     606,078
Oct 29     654,810
Nov 05     698,589
Nov 12     753,132
Nov 19     825,840
Nov 26     900,756
Dec 03     916,490
Dec 10     939,358
Dec 17     958,073

[Fuse]

That's a lot.

[Tbone]

These are physical numbers only, but using these, the NEW days for early access MAY be the following:

December 13: by August 1
December 14: by August 13
December 15: by September 14
December 16: by October 9
December 17: by October 29
December 18: by November 15
December 19: by December 3

[Jesseria]

I want to put some perspective on this briefly, as I think posts like this scare people we pre-ordered in October/November, time frames which are more than worthy of extended early access.

MMORPGs are judged heavily by their launches. Rift, one of the more recently developed competitors to SW:TOR (which is also doing quite well) managed to bring in all of their pre-orders at the same time, five days early. It is now the standard to offer pre-orderers of an MMORPG early access, and never have I seen the entrance staggered.

BioWare and EA are both relatively smart companies, and they know what it is going to take to market this game appropriately. If anyone must wait until December 19 for Early Access, they failed. Their goal should be to get as many people in by the 15th as soon as possible. Based on their e-mails and correspondence, I think this might very well be the case.

Remember that over 750k players logged in over the Stress Test Weekend. The average /played time for each of those players was 12 hours. This was a great test, and they learned a lot from that. Furthermore, it was obvious to me from my testing experience that the servers are very ready for prime time, minus a few quirks here and there.

Since they announced the 13th as the new beginning for Early access - they have told us that we would not be getting any e-mail indicating when players would gain access. They said that they are doing this to remain flexible - both to maintain server stability, but also to see if they can get more players in sooner. They want to make sure that they can live up to the promise of offering 5 days early access to their players like their competition has.

So, with all of that said, I would not be at all surprised to see people who ordered in October or November in by the afternoon tomorrow. I think everyone who pre-ordered had a good chance of getting in by December 15.

That's my viewpoint - and I hope that I'm right. It will be difficult for those who pre-ordered late to feel part of the team if most of the FA players are level 20+ (which is more than possible considering our BETA experiences).

Good luck to you all on getting in tomorrow - and have hope. I really think they are trying to get us in as fast as possible. I pre-ordered in October, and I am truly optimistic about being in on the 13th. We'll see.