It's nothing too fancy. It's my story in SWTOR.
I played in the beta during 3 weekends. Leveled a trooper Republic side. The most I made it was level 18. I loved the game. It was a definitive buy for me.
Then came the pre-release week.
Started my trooper again, made it up to level 27. At that moment, one of my friends wanted to play too. Empire side.
So I played with him for a while. Made a Sith Inquisitor, and I leveled him up to level 37. Then , my friend had to stop playing because of work issues.
After a while, another one of my friends, who is as crazy as me about Star Wars decided to give the game a shot. We started on another server. We're playing steadily since then. Some other friends joined us as well. We're regularly in a full group, clearing instances and heroics.
Some of us are almost level 50. I'm almost level 40 myself.
That being said, real life has its obligations, but it doesn't stop us from enjoying the game from time to time. And we're clearing content at a steady rate. While the game has its share of flaws, we're still enjoying it much.
Keep it up, Bioware.