I was having the same issue last night. What you need to do is first, close all instances of SWTOR and any Bitraider running on your PC (even though the game doesn't work, your computer is still running the processes) and then go to your SWTOR folder in program files, find the Bitraider folder and delete it, then run launcher. Hope this helps!

Doesn't Guild Wars have in game advertisements? Or is it GW2 they were planning on having them? I seem to recall reading something to that effect a while back. But no, I wouldn't want to have them in game, especially with a subscription fee.

It's no better or worse than any current gaming "community". Personally, having played these games (MMO's) for over 15 years now, I don't really like the way things have turned out, the communities have gone to crap, the industry has moved further and further away from being a fun, creative and desired occupation (especially when you work for big names like EA, Activision etc), micro-transactions all over the place, F2P starting to take over all lead me to feel that SW:TOR will be my last MMO. I'll be here until they either close it down or I no longer have fun, but after that I think I'm done with them. Unless a Mass Effect MMO is made, then all bets are off.

^This. Not much point in coming to these forums as it's just mostly back and forth between those who like the game and those who don't, with barely a constructive thread between them.

WoW side-stepped the whole issue by adding in the cross server group tools. There are (and have always been) dead servers in WoW, and every other MMO (except games like EVE which use a "single" server). I suspect we may see the same thing with SW:TOR (cross server tools) at some point .

MMO forums never fail to disappoint Controlled server transfers, which is what they appear to be going with, is the best way to do it. Likely they will have specific servers they want to "fill" and offer free transfers to those from anywhere, and once those fill up they will target others to repeat the process as needed. If they had offered free transfers from anywhere to anywhere, it would be a complete disaster as everyone and their mother would try to get on the highest population servers causing the massive queues that people whined and cried their little heads off at launch about.

Sarcasm aside, it's not the game devs that over-hype these games. Obviously they are going to talk up their product, it's in their best interest to do so. In the case of GW2, I don't recall seeing any of the devs saying it will be the messiah of MMO's, what I have seen (as I'm sure have many others) is a group of rabid fanboys/game hoppers to the "next big thing" making that claim, before ever having tried it. The E-rage should be pretty epic. What's truly funny is these people should know better, from experience, to take developer claims with a grain of salt and wait to pass judgement on a game until they have actually gotten their hands on it. Instead they do what we see with some people's reaction to SW:TOR, and what will happen to GW2 and whatever "next big thing" comes along that will again fail to live up to their expectations, they build it up so much in their own minds it's literally impossible for anything to live up to, and then rage all over the internet when it fails to meet the self created hype. It's both funny and sad, but they do it to themselves so it's mostly funny.

It's a no win situation that I've seen repeated over and over in many an MMO. Game launches and the initial influx of players, many of whom take time off of work/school, are all trying to get on at the same time which causes queues. Players then proceed to whine and cry about said queues, threaten to quit as they are "not paying to wait in a queue!!!" and demand more servers be opened. More servers are opened to accommodate the masses, and in the case of SW:TOR, servers had their capacities increased as stability allowed. While there are still queues on most servers at this time, the wait in most cases is much shorter. After the initial rush wears off and people return to their normal lives, queues are gone on most servers and then the same playerbase that whined and cried about lack of servers proceeds to whine and cry about there being too many servers, and cites a lack of queues as an indication that the game is "dying" and begins to demand server merges, which right or wrong, still carries the stigma of being perceived as the "death knell" of an MMO. It's a no win situation for any game dev. While the claims of "most servers are dead" are greatly exaggerated, there are of course servers that are indeed "dead" and in need of help. Server transfers are in the works, which should help a great deal for these servers. I suspect that we will see cross server tools for group activities (already in the works for PvP I believe) long before server merges are even on the table. The game is 5 months old, and according to the last investor call (and recent articles) still holding at ~1.7 million subs, it's far too early to start merging servers. If you can't handle waiting for transfers/cross server tools, then rerolling is an option at this point. Hell, in the time some spend complaining and demanding merges on these forums, they could easily have leveled at least one character to 50 on a more heavily populated server. I do find it curious though, that this keeps happening game after game. All it would take is a dev team to stick to their initial servers and explain why there are queues, and that they will diminish as time goes by and people return to their lives, and not give in to the crying.

It's a nice gesture that they were under no obligation whatsoever to give. Thank you for the gift(s) BioWare. What I personally would have done however, would be to give the free 30 days to those who are truly loyal, that is, to those who have kept their subscriptions active and never unsubbed from the day they activated their account (with a minimum of say, 2-3 months already active).

Server merge threads are in every MMO, including WoW (yes they have dead servers, and people have been asking for 7 years now and have not once received a reply). What Blizzard did, and what I expect BioWare will do long before they entertain the thought of merging servers is to implement cross server tools for group activities. I believe they are currently planning on cross server WZs in the near future, and once the tech is in place and working to their satisfaction it's quite possible, even likely, that cross server FPs and possibly even OPs will follow. As far as transfers go, it will likely be restricted to prevent already full, or near full, servers from becoming overpopulated and causing long queues like the ones people cried and whined about at launch. For example, transfers would be allowed off of heavily populated servers but not to them.

^This right here. Even worse though, some on these forums openly admit to being here to cause grief, in effect taking out their anger at SOE and LA on those who had absolutely nothing to do with any of it, SW:TOR players. Not only is it extremely childish, it is entirely misdirected.

You do realize the NGE was SOE's attempt to "WoW-ify" SWG, right? They saw the success WoW was achieving, at the same time their subscription-base was dropping at an alarming rate, thus the infamous NGE was born, effectively killing their game. It may have taken several more years to officially die, but it never recovered. Those few who stuck around post NGE were/are fanatical in their devotion, there just wasn't enough of them to sustain the game any longer and it was finally put out of it's misery on December 15th, 2011. Of course, there's always the EMU for the diehards.

I believe you know the answer and just refuse to admit it, but I'll give it to you anyways. Why do MMO's release "early" or "unfinished" or "lacking x"? Quite simply, because people keep buying them in droves on preorder/launch day. Why would MMO devs/publishers not release when the above is and has always been true? Why would they spend more time and money (generally investors money, investors that want to see a return on their investment sooner rather than later) to seek unattainable perfection when they can do so after the product has launched and make money while adding content and features? It's your responsibility as a consumer to inform yourself about the products you intend to purchase. If someone cannot handle the way these games are at launch, the logical solution would be to wait until 6+ months have passed (or a free trial is offered) and then see how things are before purchasing. Instead, people continue to buy these games on launch day (or preorder) knowing they can't handle/stand the way things are, and proceed to complain about it. The only way things will ever change is if enough people (read: vast majority) refuse to buy these games at launch, something I don't see happening anytime soon.

Incorrect, RIFT did open "a zillion" servers at launch to deal with all the whining about queues, they've just closed a bunch down since. Edit: For the OP, glad you are enjoying this great game that will keep getting better.

I doubt we will see an NGE from any developer anytime soon. As to the possibility that SWG might have had a different outcome if not for the NGE, no, not really as the whole reason for the NGE was because the game was doing very poorly and SOE along with LA needed to do something to try and turn things around. Their gamble failed, instead of turning things around, it backfired big time and made an already bad situation much, much worse. I do believe there is talk about ship decoration, guild capitol ships and even player bounties down the line. Also, they are currently working on a "secret" space project so who knows, maybe we will get a more robust space game, I would certainly welcome it.