MMO launches are never flawless, even though companies have had plenty of time to learn from the mistakes of past MMOs. From most accounts, Star Wars: The Old Republic’s biggest issue has been one common to the genre: long server queues.
BioWare and Electronic Arts tried to make queues less of an issue by bringing people into the game in waves, but that wasn’t completely successful, and people have still been waiting.
“There are a lot of folks who want to play the game right now and we want to make sure they have lots of people to play with,” said live services executive producer Jeff Hickman on the game’s website. “Balancing this with figuring out when to bring new servers online to help alleviate the size of the queues is part art and part science.”
The best advice for anyone who wants to avoid server queue issues is to simply give the game some time, and wait for everything to work itself out. That said, being part of the launch rush is an attractive prospect, so telling people to not play the game they’re interested in, especially if they've already bought it, doesn’t sound too great.
“While we can’t promise that there won’t ever be queues,” continued Hickman, “we can promise you that we are taking this matter seriously and constantly reviewing them to make sure that they are manageable and reasonable.”
Unfortunately, Hickman's response sounds more excuse than explanation of how BioWare is addressing it.
Let me know about your experience with The Old Republic’s server woes in the comments.