Remember, these are TWO extra extra days so everyone's a winner in the end!" This poor sap actually believes that they decided to out of the goodness of their hearts to give us two "extra" days. Do you? If you're that gullible then I have beach-front property to sell you in Arizona. This was all planned from the get-go. Under-promise and over-deliver. All (good) design firms (architectural, engineering, graphics, games, etc.) operate under this model. Make no mistake, folks. This is launch day disguised under the marketing ploy of being "early access." That's the only way they could get around the inevitable backlash that would result from them doing this without the marketing speak cover. "This is a big day for us; we are launching Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, BioWare’s largest and most ambitious project to date, and we’re very proud that you’ve been able to join us. It’s an honor to be able to share this game with you. A huge team of talented, passionate people at BioWare, Electronic Arts, Lucas Arts as well as many other partners all over the world poured their hearts and souls into this game. We want to thank every single one of them for being part of the team that developed this game; it’s a monumental accomplishment. Another group of people that we depended upon was you, the players. We had hundreds of thousands of players spend millions upon millions of hours beta testing this game. Without you we never would have been able to build it; thank you for your contribution. This game is yours just as much as it is ours. And finally we want to emphasize that this is just the beginning of a very long journey together. The game is launched, but it’s not done; it will probably never be done as we’re committed to working on Star Wars: The Old Republic in order to keep improving it and delivering exemplary service to you, the customer. It’s going to be a great ride. Finally, we can only think of one appropriate way to sign off on this auspicious occasion: May the Force be With You! Ray Muzyka & Greg Zeschuk Co-Founders, BioWare" Imagine if any other game launched but didn't allow everyone who purchased the game to log in on day one. People would be raging and gaming media would be all over it. That's exactly what is happening here, except many gamers and media outlets are buying it hook, line, and sinker because they've used marketing lingo to cover up what they're really doing. Think critically. We're being played.

If you honestly care about the health of this game you shouldn't be laughing. Masses of people will remember this among the worst mmo launches ever. Not only that, but I wonder how many preorders are being cancelled as a result of all of this? Probably not a huge amount, but some will be. On top of that, the game is off to a hugely negative start with a rioting community, this bodes ill for the game.

The game launched today, it's official, it says it on the client login screen under news. SWTOR launched today. A bad launch could be thought of as a launch where less than half of the people who want to play can actually play, this is normally caused by server crashes and massive queues. The last few games to launch, Rift, Aion, Warhammer, they had large preorder numbers, and the launches although not perfect, did manage to get most of the players ingame on day 1 of early access. SWTOR has probably less than 10% of players who want to play the game actually playing the game, possibly less. Now if you estimate how bad a launch is based on what percentage of your playerbase can't log in, then SWTOR has had a very bad launch. (except for the lucky few who got in today, but they are the minority).

It's true, Bioware were so desperate to have a smooth launch, they forgot that locking 90% of the playerbase out of the game and letting 10% in would cause the exact rage that they were trying to prevent.

There's an auction site where people are selling early access flagged accounts that can already play for up to $200, and that doesn't even include the full game account code, that's just for early access, you'd still need to pay for the game too. That just goes to show you how important it is for people to play from day 1, people are paying a fortune for the chance to play.

The forum is plastered with complaints about how this is being handled. There's a new thread every second and 10 new posts every second on the subject. The stickied thread grew to 350+ pages at a rate of about 1 page every 5 seconds and the new thread is at 500+ pages also now. Yep, it's a few vocal minorities that are doing all of this, it's them meerkats i tell you, it's all a plan to take over the game and ransom it for 1 BILLION dollars! The people who are in game are calling this a smooth launch - Yeah, i'm sure it's great for you guys, you can have your enjoyment so that the other 90% of the playerbase can rage on the forums about all the problems this staggered access is causing. Pre-emptive against "it hasn't launched yet" numpties" The game has launched, Bioware officially announced that SWTOR launched today, you can read it in the game client launcher on the news section.

The forum is plastered with complaints about how this is being handled. There's a new thread every second and 10 new posts every second on the subject. The stickied thread grew to 350+ pages at a rate of about 1 page every 5 seconds and the new thread is probably at 300+ pages also by now. Yep, it's a few vocal minorities that are doing all of this, it's them meerkats i tell you, it's all a plan to take over the game and ransom it for 1 BILLION dollars! The people who are in game are calling this a smooth launch - Yeah, i'm sure it's great for you guys, you can have your enjoyment so that the other 90% of the playerbase can rage on the forums about all the problems this staggered access is causing. Pre-emptive against "it hasn't launched yet" numpties" The game has launched, Bioware officially announced that SWTOR launched today, you can read it in the game client launcher on the news section.

The forum is plastered with complaints about this. There's a new thread every second and 10 new posts every second on the subject. The stickied thread grew to 350+ pages at a rate of about 1 page every 5 seconds and the new thread is probably at 300+ pages also by now. Yep, it's a few vocal minorities that are doing all of this, it's them meerkats i tell you, it's all a plan to take over the game and hi-jack it for 1 BILLION dollars!

A million of your customers raging at you on the forum is really considered "going smooth" Or are they really interested only in it being smooth from a technical server standpoint? Bioware severely underestimated the rage that would occur when they decided on this staggered release idea.

Launch is TODAY! It's official, read the news on the game client login.

The staggered method they've chosen has caused problems for many people, beside not starting the game along with everyone else, friends and guilds have been split up and can't level together as a result. A large number of people can't play, how is that any better than server login queues that would likely result if they had let everyone in? It's worse. This also creates a split in the community, between those who can play now and those who can't. It also means that the majority of players first experience with Bioware is going to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth. The game has gotten off to a negative start for the many who can't play. Pre-emptive against the not launched yet nerds: Load up the client patcher, login, and read the system messages. It's official, the game has launched by Bioware's own standards.

Thousands of people raging on the forum that they can't get in yet and you call it a smooth launch? The majority of players want to play and they can't, how is that in any way a smooth launch?

Bioware say this is the launch, but I guess it's only their game, what do they know right? Just read the client login news information. SWTOR has launched today!

READ the system message on the client login. "This is a big day for us, we are launching SWTOR today etc etc".

I don't play WoW, robmancool. You're so cool, to have cool in your name, why didn't I think of that, i'd be like so cool. It's cool to call yourself cool, all the cool kids are doing it!

All servers med-full, with only the lucky few able to play. Most players are still locked out of the game. Sounds just like a major fail mmo launch with crashing servers and queues. At least in the latter you'd have a higher percentage of players able to actually play and we'd all have an equal chance to play at that.

I've been a part of all AAA mmo launches since WoW, i wasn't a part of WoW launch itself, but all since. They all let everyone in from day 1 of servers going up, and they all did just fine. For me, this is the worst launch ever, it's the first time i've ever preordered an mmorpg and i can't play on first server up.

So you have that little faith in the SWTOR servers? Aion, Rift, Warhammer, all more recent mmos, they had a million preorders each and they did just fine, yeah there was some long queues for some servers but at least everyone got a chance to play.

People are refering to wow's launch problems even now, i've heard it repeated many times today by people as an example of a failed launch. They seem to forget that WoW's launch was almost a decade ago and many mmos have launched without many problems since.

Exactly as i've been thinking. This is a highly negative start to the game for a lot of people, and that won't go down well for Bioware. This launch will be talked about for years, as an epic fail, where most people could not play. Yeah, there's a chance that some people would be stuck in queues and perhaps even some server crashes and lag if they had just let everyone in, but it would have been hugely better than the current situation. Bioware tried to play it too safe, but the plan has backfired and angered many customers. For me, this is the worst mmo launch i've been a part off. I'm sure the people who already in game would disagree, or those people who are not ready to play yet, they arn't going to care one bit.

Total and utter fail by Bioware, one of the worst MMO launches in history and the worst i've been in personally so far.

Panda land? Are you refering to WoW? I don't even play WoW and never have really given much thought to that game. Also I never said I would quit once I got to 50, but then again you do come across as an over assuming arrogant fool.

Oh so there's a right and wrong way to enjoy an online game now, if you're going it for the rush of competing with others you're doing it the wrong way apparently. Seems a bit odd to me, seeing as this is a multiplayer game. Maybe if it was a single player game it would be wrong.

No, i won't play it for a couple of years. And yes, to me it is a race, i enjoy that sort of thing, and so do many others.

That's good for you, but I and many others are not you, and we enjoy the game for different reasons.