Didn't have much hope for this game after the videos any way.

Limit or no limit, people in areas other than North America and Europe miss out on the initial launch anyway (without importing).

The real cynical view is that by limiting the initial run nobody can point to the numbers, compare it to WoW and call it a failure straight out of the gate. 

maybe there is no limit but they want people to think there is.

that way people will think it's very exclusive and want to get in quickly.

devious

Who is the "competition"? WOW?

I read on Kotaku, EA made this decision was because they wanted to avoid the 3 to 7 hour queues that Aion and Rifts encountered during their launches.  It makes sense to me.  I don't plan to play TOR for 3 months after launch anyway.  If it is still going strong, I'll jump on board.  Community is paramount to an MMO in my opinion and if it's too sparse then the game doesn't provide much of an MMO experience.  I might still check it out as a single-player game, but there's no rush to log on at that point.  Might as well pick it up cheap.

@Beauty said:

Who is the "competition"? WOW?

I think they're mainly afraid of WoW launching another expansion pack to directly compete with them. It would hurt them a lot.

There's also another very big MMO coming out shortly that they should be very afraid of. It's not as big a name, but the amount of positive feedback and word of mouth it's getting (as opposed to the amount of naysayers TOR has) is going to help a lot, and the pricing structure alone is going to bring in a lot of players who would rather not pay a monthly subscription.

But I don't really blame them for this move, I do think it's mainly being done to ease server stress. Better to let a smaller number of players actually be able to enjoy it, than having millions come and having it crash and burn.

Between this and not having it available on steam, EA are dooming themselves and Bioware. See you later, Spacecowboy...

I think it's a great idea. I've got myself a pre-order and am excited about the prospect of not having to wait hours on a server cue to play.

It's impossible to get a launch crowd to even out smoothly across servers in any MMORPG so I think this is a nice way to do it.

It's also a nice way to build hype for a game by going about how limited it is, which certainly is something other publishers have done before, but it's nice that someone is upfront about it for once.

Also, I believe that we are but a few days off from an official word on the launch date, what with them appearing at PAX and telling about everything as their twitter message mentioned.

I honestly see TOR doing quite poorly. I think a lot of players will play it just to finish the individual stories; treating it like a single player game then they will unsubscribe. I predict decent out of the gate sales but a huge drop off once the first free month is over.
 
Guild Wars 2 is going to be the real WoW competitor. It has no monthly subscription, that is one huge selling point especially today with the rise of f2p games. (though, GW2 isn't technically f2p as you do have to buy it first, but you know what I mean)

I honestly see TOR doing quite poorly. I think a lot of players will play it just to finish the individual stories; treating it like a single player game then they will unsubscribe. I predict decent out of the gate sales but a huge drop off once the first free month is over. Guild Wars 2 is going to be the real WoW competitor. It has no monthly subscription, that is one huge selling point especially today with the rise of f2p games. (though, GW2 isn't technically f2p as you do have to buy it first, but you know what I mean)

@Kombat said:

@Ezekeilpurger said:

This game is going to be such a colossal failure oh my god.

Based on what, other than Jeff Gerstmann's total disregard for the Star Wars brand?

And MMOs in general.

I love the line about tipping off the competition. I'm pretty sure Blizzard and every other MMO company knows exactly everything about SWTOR already.

I don't understand the complaint about the game not being available on Steam either. WoW certainly isn't on Steam and it's doing fine. I think a lot of people are severely doubting the huge draw that Star Wars will offer regardless of anything else.

The game is apparently quite mediocre and derivative, if all the beta players are to be believed, but it's still hyped to hell and back.

This is recipe for disaster, and EA isn't fucking helping.

You see, Kyle.  If we limit the amount of people who get in the theme park, then more people will want in and ???  Profit.

The game is apparently quite mediocre and derivative, if all the beta players are to be believed, but it's still hyped to hell and back.

 

This is recipe for disaster, and EA isn't fucking helping.

I used to be excited for this game. Now I just don't even give a shit. I don't care how good it is; if I play another WoW clone, I think I might go nuts.  
 
Star Wars is cool and all, but none of the content shown so far has looked exciting. It just looks like WoW with lightsabers and no matter how good the game is, I cannot even comprehend wanting to get entrenched in that (again).

I used to be excited for this game. Now I just don't even give a shit. I don't care how good it is; if I play another WoW clone, I think I might go nuts.   Star Wars is cool and all, but none of the content shown so far has looked exciting. It just looks like WoW with lightsabers and no matter how good the game is, I cannot even comprehend wanting to get entrenched in that (again).

@Forum_User said:

@Buckfitches said:

The game is apparently quite mediocre and derivative, if all the beta players are to be believed, but it's still hyped to hell and back.

This is recipe for disaster, and EA isn't fucking helping.

No way, man! It has lightsabers. And Wookies! And bounty hunters. And the Force! Have you been waiting for a game where you can use the Force just like your favorite Star Wars characters? Now you can. The Force! In a video game! Finally! And do you like text trees? If you've been thinking to yourself for all of these years, "Man, the only thing really missing from MMOs is lots of dialog options with really detailed facial animations," then my boy, you're in luck.

This is bioware were talking about... Highly detailed facial animations isn't a thing with Bioware games. At least not yet. Still looks like muppets.

People love to hate MMO's. I don't know why, considering there are so many other bad games out there. So, so many.

i will laugh my ass off, if the game gets mediocre reviews and this stunt will that mean EA is cutting profit from all the early adopters, who buy it at launch instead of waiting for a review.

Smart plan and something we will see more and more with MMO launches.

Just to be clear, the reason they're having a limited launch, is to prevent those annoying server queues that always come about during the launch of a new MMO. Or even more annoying to some, the opening of new servers to deal with these queues. Because once the launch dust settles, those servers become dead zones. Hopefully with this limited launch they'll be better prepared to predict how many people we'll be playing launch day.

One problem with doing this is that it can be exploited.
 
Some jackhole from Jerk Water, USA will buy up a hoard of these
pre-orders & resell it at a higher price to manipulate the market
for a tidy profit.
 
I think I'll just wait until the dust settles before screwing with the
game, assuming I'll care by then.