Tuesday is going to be an interesting day for Bioware. Early access has been running for nearly a week now and the queues started forming Thursday night. As I’m writing this post I am 141 in queue, I started at 401 about 15 minutes ago.
I hope Bioware is using the staggering of the early access to accumulate statistics on peak time and estimated volume so they can, hopefully, be better prepared for Tuesday’s launch. I have noticed, though, that despite the queues to get in, once I am in the game I notice very little lag. I remember when Aion started, I could be in queue for 20-30 minutes and once I got it, my character would “rubber-band” all the time. (If you don’t know what I mean by rubber-band, that is when, while running, you think you have gone X distance and suddenly you snap backwards quite a ways).
They might do population control in the form of limiting which servers new users can create characters on. While this will help some of the queues, they still will likely face the issue of players who hadn’t pre-ordered, wanting to play on a friends server who had.
To be honest, I hope people will be patient and understanding. I know that is asking a lot of the gaming community, but when you have a major title going live, you have to allow for software company to work out the kinks and standard growing pains. They will stabilize the queues and it may take a week or so. I just urge everyone to be patient and let Bioware work the problem. Of course I know there will be those disgruntled, impatient “nubs” that demand perfection on the first day.
Ah, my queue has finished. Time to log in!
Cheers!
As I alluded to in a previous post, I decided to put together a list of tips and tricks for SWTOR. Some of these tips you will want to use after you have experienced more of the content. Also, be aware that some of these may not actually work when the game goes live.