You do realize that 3-4 Million players is still about 15 times as many players as the next largest MMO currently on the market and about 10 times as many as the running player rate on the next largest MMO to have ever existed?

True, because no other MMO compares to WoW, in fact as of this moment no other significantly developed MMO released on a major platform (please do not bring up Farmville) is even living in the same universe as World of Warcraft. You can complain all you want about anything you want to about WoW, or Blizzard for that matter. You can complain that they cater to casual players, that there are too many hardcore elitests (funny how both of those arguments exist). That the game engine is broken (nothing is perfect and if that's what you are looking for you'll be sorely disappointed by anything you do.) and that nothing is balanced. But the fact of the matter is that on a comparative scale WoW is NOT Goliath and every other MMO is not David. WoW is the Death Star, and as of right now every other MMO is just praying not to become Alderaan. As far as some of the features that exist in WoW also existing in SWTOR, I'd like to point out something. Entertainment (in any form) is a COPYCAT business, if it works for someone (and so far WoW is the ONLY THING that works.) then someone else is going to try it. As a gamer myself do I find it disappointing that WoW is the only truly successful MMO out there? Yes, I wish I had choices to go somewhere else and try something else. Am I impressed that even given the COMPLETE LACK OF COMPETITION in the marketplace that Blizzard continues to upgrade/innovate on their product. Yes, frankly when someone has a stranglehold on a market it's common that companies spend time and money destroying their competitors not trying to improve their product. So KUDOS to Blizzard. In all honesty all I can hope for is that Bioware and EA have figured out the key ingredient that Blizzard brought to the MMO table that made their game so unbelievably successful where so many others had only seen marginal success in the past. Whatever it is, I hope that Bioware, and EA found it, and that they USE THE EVERLOVING @%#$ out of it. Cause I desperately want SWTOR to be as successful as WoW. And I'm not afraid to say it.

This is pure unadulterated WIN

None of them will. For example my company used to give everyone free bagels and donuts every Tuesday and Thursday. When the economy crashed they cut back to giving bagels and donuts for FREE just on Tuesdays. The reaction to this was lots and lots of people complaining about how "cheap" management was. Managements reason for cutting back, so they wouldn't have to lay people off.

December Pre-order here. Wasn't sure I'd have the cash to upgrade my system in time for launch but everything worked out. Otherwise I'd have pre-ordered sooner. Kind of happy about the fact that I'm not stressing about early access. It'll happen, looks like Friday, which in the long run is sooner than I thought it would be.

Realistically once they get past the July preorders it should start going rather quickly... Conservative estimate that 50% of preorders happened in July. If that's the case and it takes them 2 days to get through all of July's preorders.. then it would take 2 days to get ALL of the rest of the pre-orders in. I'd guess that by the weekend everyone will be in.