Now, I know the forums are currently SLAMMED with people complaining that they are not in yet, or wondering when they will get in, etc. The long and short is, everyone will eventually get in, and it WILL be on/before the 20th. I counted myself as lucky to have gotten in yesterday, however I DID pre-order back in July, so I was hopeful. Quite honestly, I was excited to get in on the 15th which they originally said was going to be the start of early access, so getting in on the 13th??? That was like an early Christmas present. It will happen, everyone will get in, all the complaining is going to do, is clog up the forums, and make everyone a little more agitated. NOW... on to more important business: My wife and I logged into the game around 7:30 last night. (Had to put the little kiddies to bed first, and deal with all the the "I want a drink" and the "I have to go pee" and "My brother hit me" nightly routines.) Now, I was not in beta, and since I was away visiting family over the Thanksgiving testing weekend, yesterday was the first time that I have actually SEEN the actual game. I've read all the articles, and dev posts, and watched the trailers.... But not until yesterday did I actually get my first taste of what the game actually IS. 1- At first I was frustrated at the limited options to customize the UI. But I eventually decided to leave it the way it was setup by default, and try to get accustomed to it. After a short time, it started to feel a lot more intuitive, and my initial frustration diminished almost entirely. 2- The graphics settings are fairly customizable, but not as much as some other games I've played. All in all, that wasn't a big deal, because after screwing with things a little bit, I found that I could just about max everything out and still got smooth as silk gameplay on both my and my wife's computers. My PC: Athlon X2 3.4ghz, 8gb DDR3 and 1gb Radeon 6670 My Wife's PC: Athlon X2 2.8ghz, 4gb DDR2 and 1gb Radeon 6670 I turned off "Bloom" and "Shadows" but that is more of a personal preference, than a performance choice. All in all, it ran a LOT smoother than I thought it would based on what I was reading about system hardware requirements. 3- The game is quite visually stunning. The landscapes are terrific, water reflections are nice, skills/abilities/animations are terrific. (Force Leap rocks my socks!) And with the graphics settings I am using, the actual gameplay is not too terribly far off from what the cut scenes/cinematics look like. I was very happy with the visual-nature of the game, and the graphics engine seems to be quite efficient. 4- The character creator is very basic. Although, the last MMO I played before SWTOR probably had one of the most in-depth character creation utilities in history, so it was actually kind of a nice change, to not spend an hour trying to create your character. I wouldn't be surprised if some future patch didn't expand the character creation/modification options, but quite honestly, I don't think it would add/detract from the game enjoyment level. 5- SO now I have made a character, I have watched the awesome cinematic, and I am a level 1 noob, dropped into the world and I am ready to play. WHAT DO I DO? WHERE DO I GO? What are all these NPCs? And who do I talk to? How do I use taxi's/speeders!?!?! I felt so lost.. SO very lost. But that dissipated quite quickly after a little bit of running around. A little bit more direction/guidance when you are dropped into the game would be welcomed/helpful... But like I said, with a little running about (aimlessly at times) you can certainly figure it out. 6- Class Missions: It is a little frustrating that same-classes can't help with class-missions. I.E. My wife is playing a Consular, and I am a Knight. We can help each other with our class missions, but my friend who is also playing a Knight, I cannot help him with his missions and vice versa. I understand the reasoning behind it, with story progression, rewards, spoilers, etc... but there has to be a way that a "team" can all together do class-missions without worrying about who can and can't enter. 7- Side Missions: Awesome. Shareable amongst the team/party... Nice rewards/loot, and equally impressive cinematics to the class-missions. CONCLUSION: My wife and I played from 7:30pm to 1:30am last night. (I had to just about force her to log off at 1:30 because she was loving the game... hehe, I am a lucky man.) In that 6 hours, we created our first characters, ran around aimlessly for a while figuring things out, doing some solo class-missions, teamed class-missions and teamed side-missions. We didn't skip a single cut-scene or cinematic, and by the time we logged off, we were both around level 8 1/2 and had just created our first lightsaber. NOW... 6 hours to go from level 1 to level 8, by any other MMO's standard is really quite slow. HOWEVER, I see it this way: SWTOR isn't like other MMOs. It's a linear, story-driven game, that deserves for the time to be taken to immerse yourself in enjoying the STORY every bit as much as the actual gameplay. That is what made KOTOR (1 & 2) so good, and it's nice to see that it has transferred this well to the online environment. That is my initial reaction to the game, after seeing it in person for the first time... I have a few very minor complaints, but they were massively outweighed/overshadowed by the pure FUN I had in game last night, sitting next to my wife in a galaxy far, far away. And remember... Early Access woes are temporary. Everyone will get in.

July 25th.. Still waiting with my fingers crossed and hopes high! (I figure at least, I will certainly be in by tomorrow, if not today... but as with everything, that is pure speculation.) "Order on the first day, I did not.... Stupid of me, that was."

July 25th pre-order... Crossing my fingers, toes, eyes, arms, legs and anything else that can be crossed for good luck!!!!!