Posted by Lethality in Blue Milk & Cereal | 27 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Is The Release Date What You Expected?
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Yesterday was aruguably the biggest day for fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic since the game was announced on October 21, 2008. Or at least since Pre-Orders began. Thirty-five months and change later, BioWare Co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk made the big announcement during the Eurogamer Expo. TOR will be released on December 20th in the US, and December 22nd in Europe.
I think I speak for most fans when I say that the announcement came as quite a surprise. Most probably felt that the announcement would come on a bigger stage, or we’d at least hear the train coming. No, this train went all stealthy on us and popped out when we least expected it! That’s hard for a train to do.
Anyway, that’s not the surprise I’m talking about. I’m talking about the date itself. We know that BioWare has been touting “Holiday 2011” pretty staunchly for some time now. But did anyone think it would literally be Christmas week? It’s an interesting choice, and we may never know why it was chosen. But I do know the server hamsters at BioWare Austin will be working overtime and enjoying their egg nog over the serene sound of fan noise in a server room.
So, does the release date meet your expectations? Did you expect it sooner? Later? I know we’re still all a little shell-shocked, but try to pull yourself together enough to cast a vote and perhaps leave a comment below!
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I honestly didn’t believe it was coming this year… color me surprised. I just wonder how much it’s BioWare “we’ll ship when it’s ready” vs. EA responding “it will be ready by December 20th”
My expectation is tough to wuantify as it was cobbled together from a mixture of heavy online stalking and a hardy blende of hope and pessimism. Like you there is a sense of relief about just having a date. I have no other games on my radar so this has been my gaming focus since I left the Wowcrack rehab clinic. Would I like to see a highly polished fame that meets my unfounded expectations sooner ?? Yes. But like dad said, opinions and expectation are a lot like …… Everyone has them and they usually stink
They just kinda dropped it like it was nothing.
“Oh and btw. The game comes out Dec 20th. Have fun.”
The biggest surprise to me was that it wouldn’t be a simultaneous launch. It’s a bit of a slap in the face to announce at Eurogamer that Europeans won’t be able to play until two days after Americans.
And for all the Americans that may not think that’s a big deal, I wonder if you’d say the same if the roles were reverse and it was released in Europe first – surely, that’d make more sense if BW wants a ‘slow’ launch (which is the rationale I’m seeing thrown around for the launch being just before Christmas).
The whining is expected, of course, but never ceases to amaze me. Unbelievable.
Well, it will be interesting to see how they handle it. Because they said they aren’t going to stop you from playing on any server you want to… and you’ll have the digital download… so I wonder how they will stop EU players from playing on the 20th. If what they said about IP blocking is true.
Have to go with Darth Ed here.
Games almost always come out a couple days later in EU, if you live there you should be used to it by now.
That said, you forget about ‘early access.’ I wouldn’t be surprised to see early access open up for EU at the same time as it does for the US. I’m pretty sure Rift did it this way, which actually gave EU players two extra days of playing for free before their 30 day subscription kicked in.
Whinning about 2 days. As an American I would gladly switch. 2 days…..
Games come out in the states on Tuesday and in Europe on thursday. There’s nothing bioware can do about that. It’s not a slap in the face, but rather the way Europe works. So leave the anti European rhetoric at home or maybe save it for your journal.
“Slap in the face” posts are my favorites.
Hope they also release the pre-launch data. Plus im also hoping they’re gonna gief some more beta keys.
Can’t wait till i can play…
It’s a month later than I thought it would be. Kinda disappointed by that. But I’ve waited a number of years already, so can wait a bit longer.
I suspect that Diablo II getting pushed back into 2012 made them feel comfortable announcing the date.
I’m glad that there’s finally a release date, it’s just too bad it’s the day before I have to start studying for my exams… I guess I’ll have to postpone my TOR adventures a month or so. On the upside: I’m not gonna have any problems with crowded origin worlds once I start playing!:P
So when does everyone think NDA will drop just before early access or earlier?
Idk I just eat my betacakes :-)
I think the general population was looking at the 11/22/11 date for release, as was I. I was more surprised we got a release date, then when it was actually announced.
The question is, will people save a little money to buy the game and not spend it all on Christmas shopping? I’m thinking more on the general public, not the pre-orders.
2 days more and you cry? In Latam and Oceanic regions we dont have a date, even a year for the release haha.. just calm down and wait…2 F days.
Dunno 5 days before christmas kinda sucks considering all the family stuff going on around that time but hey at least we have a set date now!
Considering all the things they have to get in place before the release, late December wasn’t a big surprise. It is nearly October already, still have to fit in testing their release candidate, setting up the downloads and DVDs, and giving people the promised early access.
It’s sooner than I expected and later than i hoped.
Nicely said! Same here.
I thought it would come out November 2011.
I was not surprised that the release date is in December, common there were already like 5 major titles being released in November. I was just guessing it would be earlier.
With an admittedly throttled launch gate, pushing the game out 5 days before the xmas break is going to generate piles of bad press.
No it’s not. TOR is not the first game to release that close to Christmas and it’s not going to be the last.
I thought it would be around the end of November. But better in December then in 2012! ^_^