[Best class for beginners.]

Having rolled a Gunnery Commando during the beta, I'd question its idiotproof-ness given how useless Aric is as a companion.

 

I'd say Consular/Inquisitor works rather well for beginners. The rotation is fairly smooth out of the box and, more importantly, you get a tank as your first companion. Throw in the fact that you get the ability to heal your tanking companion as a privilege of taking the class even if you don't spec into Seer/Corruption, and you've got a winner that'll take you at least as far as the first world beyond Coruscant/Dormund Kaas.

 

I hesitate to call it idiotproof, though, because even smart folks are capable of getting ahead of their tanking companion in aggro generation by insisting on initiating pulls themselves.

[Delay between early access and entering retail code - what happens to characters?]

They should still be there. Early access is just a soft launch: Unless Bioware decides to do something absolutely insane like purge all of the servers to "cure" the PvP leveling "exploit", your characters will just quietly gather dust until you can enter your retail code.

[Welcome to Vanilla SWTOR]

If this is Vanilla SWTOR, can I get access to a time machine, so I can go to Cata SWTOR and enjoy years of accumulated improvements to the user interface, class abilities, and talent trees? (The analogy only goes so far, though, for if the writing in SWTOR's expansions ever approaches that of Cataclysm in terms of its vapidity or utter stupidity, I'll be forced to /wrist at the degree to which Bioware has fallen.)

[What spec are you leveling with?]

For what it's worth, I've opted to try Combat, though my baby Sentinel has only hit L11. (And I haven't left the Republic Fleet yet!)

 

Combat looks, in terms of its play-style, a good deal like a Fury warrior. So if it does limp along in mediocrity for a while...well, I'm ready for that, too. As I took my Fury warrior up to L85 with Cata, and you don't really get to start truly playing the spec until you hit L70 and can grab Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury.

[In a magic perfect world, How would you launch an MMO?]

What's behind Door #4?

 

A staggered launch in which admission is granted on the basis of preorder date, with an e-mail going out two or three days before EGA opens up explaining the scale of the endeavor and outlining broadly the timeline they intend to use for shepherding folks into the EGA. If we're being optimistic, it'll include what tranches of preorder dates they hope to invite during each day of the staggering.

 

There'd still be nerd rage and plenty of teeth-gnashing, but at least you'd be able to then separate out the quality complaints from the flotsam.

[Mistakes WoW has made (and how TOR can learn from them)]

What, no frothing about the Random Dungeon Finder? Or the corrosive impact of Recount?

 

I'm surprised. In a good way, mind you. Too many of these threads tend to boil down to gauzy-eyed remembrances of the "awesomeness" of Vanilla and The Burning Crusade, back when you had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get your attunements, and you were darn grateful for the opportunity to inflict a setback upon Kael'thas.

[Bioware you are loosing customers in every hour.]

On the OP's main point:

 

Yes, Bioware's losing money in the form of canceled preorders and the future subscription fees that go with them due to their handling EGA.

 

But every minute they're also losing money due to the cancellation of preorders due to changes is financial outlooks, the loss of the time to play a game like TOR, social circles imploding and removing someone's impetus to play, and a thousand other reasons. Similarly, they're also making money as well, due to folks preordering for an equally diverse number of reasons.

 

The only way Bioware could actually lose money due to their handling of the EGA is if the number of canceled preorders is so great that it not only rises above the statistical noise of other reasons for cancellation, but that it also dampens or even sends net preorders into the negatives at a time when the final surge of preorders would be underway. In short: While it is entirely possible that the community has a bad taste left in it's mouth due to the handling of the EGA, it's rather unlikely that the handling of the EGA will prove to be a direct financial liability to Bioware.

[What grade would you give Bioware today?]

Bioware has earned itself a solid B so far in the EGA roll-out.

 

The concept of a staggered launch to avoid the problems typically associated MMO launches is a sound one. The method for allocating access by the date one's preorder was registered with SWTOR.com is broadly equitable. Judging by feedback from those who have gotten into the EGA, things have been executed quite well. And with the uptick in invites dispatched today, roughly half of those who've preordered have gotten their invites as of Wave 4's going out on Day 2. (Based on the infamous boxed preorders graphic, as roughly half of all preorders had been placed by the end of September, which was about as far as has been gotten thus far in the invites.)

 

Bioware's great failing has been one of PR. Simply put, it has done an atrocious job at managing expectations. The communications void -- both real and perceived -- has exacerbated the situation, as the player-base is both immensely eager to start their journeys into the Old Republic and is equally excitable as well. The utter lack of information originating from Bioware as to when folks could expect to get in, beyond vaguely affirming that admittance would be based on preorder date, meant that there'd be an invariable eruption of angst and teeth-gnashing in the first few hours of the EGA as folks found out where they stood. (It's worth noting that things seem to have calmed down immensely today, something I would wager is equal parts the development of credible wave models by users and the fact that large numbers of early-but-not-first-week preorderers have gotten the assurance they want of how long to wait.)

 

I think Bioware also deserves some props for responding to its PR nightmare yesterday, as I suspect that one of the drivers for moving as many souls as they have through today's waves was the blow-up from folks who should be stalwart consumers, in the early-but-not-earliest preordering groups.

 

[Edit: As a disclaimer, I registered my preorder code on 9/22, and got my EGA e-mail in Wave 4 of 12/14.]

[SW:TOR Vs. WoW]

WoW has all of the advantages that come with being a seven year-old incumbent that has absolutely dominated the market segment in which it operates, in no small part through its constant deployment and incorporation of features and functionality that users have requested. Its great flaw is that it is seven years old, which is unheard of within the MMO'ing world, and it shows.

 

TOR is a fresh MMO capable of deploying the lessons learned from observing seven years of WoW's trials and travails and mates it to Bioware's signature panache for storytelling to create what is probably the most robust story-based experience in the MMORPG genre's history. As it is ultimately unproven, it is plagued by all of the doubts and concerns that accompany new MMO launches, regardless of their scale.

 

Ultimately, one is no better than the other, and there's certainly nothing wrong with playing one to the exclusion of the other. Or you may well end up rolling both, because the fulfill different niches in the MMO ecology. (As I'll be doing for a time.)

[IGN: No GoTY award for SWTOR?]

World of Tanks is on that list for Game of the Year?

 

World. Of. Tanks.

 

The game based on driving around various interwar and WW2 American, German, and Soviet tanks for fun and profit?

 

That World of Tanks?

 

The same World of Tanks with a matchmaker so broken that, if WoW used the same, it'd routinely feature battlegrounds in which 2200+ rated PvP folks beat up on dungeon-geared L70s?

 

That World of Tanks?

 

Pills. I need pills. Only pills can make the utter despondency from realizing someone actually thinks World of Tanks is one of the best games of 2011 go away...