Are we in for another rough start, troubled servers, bugged quests or a smooth and polished ride from the first day the game goes Live? 
 
I'm used to MMO games in an almost broken state, needing months to a year to get things in shape. The last MMO I subscribed to was Age of Conan.

It's anybodys guess at this point. I fully expect some server issues on launch, most popular MMOs will have those at least at launch.

Rift was pretty good at launch aside from the Runecrafting bug and not enough servers. I thought the launch went really well for Trion.

Damn can't edit on mobile verison Hit enter to early.

So yeah with EA backing Bioware it should be alright. I think CL is right though seeing that it'll be a pretty popular game.

I think we will see the servers be a lot more stable and probably a better launch. They are taking a proactive role to help make instability something that wont happen and if anyone can do it, its Bioware with EA backing them up.

Given how MMOs are going these days... it might be better to wait 8-12months and see if it goes Free To Play or not (I'll admit it's highly unlikely with this game in particular, but I would have said the same thing about the Star Trek MMO as well)

I honestly have some high hopes for this game, I want to like it - but so far WoW is keeping up on it with all the content. They have loads of voice work in the new Firelands patch, and you're being treated as part of the story since TOR was announcing it as one of their key elements.

The thing TOR has going for it is a completely new universe that I can dig through, and Sci-Fi! WoW gets old even with a revamped old world very fast.

We'll see, time will tell.

From what I understand, they're staggering the amount of people getting on with early access. That should, theoretically, take the load off the servers so there's not 1000 people in a start zone.

From what I understand, they're staggering the amount of people getting on with early access. That should, theoretically, take the load off the servers so there's not 1000 people in a start zone.

@SteamPunkJin said:

Given how MMOs are going these days... it might be better to wait 8-12months and see if it goes Free To Play or not (I'll admit it's highly unlikely with this game in particular, but I would have said the same thing about the Star Trek MMO as well)

The deference between The Old Republic and Star Trek is probably more than a hundred million bucks.

It's an mmo so it will be fucked at launch.

It seems that BioWare is trying at length to ensure a very smooth and stable launch, although it is anybody's guess as to whether or not they will be successful. It is their first MMO release, so I imagine their will be some hiccups along the way. However, limiting the number of pre-order copies available is a pretty smart decision for the player experience.

It's an mmo so it will be fucked at launch.

As far as playable suggests - after reading through their FAQ and their general thoughts leading up to the launch, it should be ok. Im assuming we'll see a rocky launch (which is why Im waiting a few months to pick it up), but I believe Bioware are best solutions to get stable of launch they can.

Uh based on my experience it will be fine. There will be some hiccups sure, it is a mmo, not only that it is an mmo that is going to sell a metric crap ton of copies. So yeah.... there will be some server stability/congestion issues early on. As for free to play..... uh no, this game will not be going the free to play route. Trust me. This is a bioware made mmorpg based on one of the most well known and loved IP in the world tagged with the title from one of Biowares most well liked RPG's. It is going to sell like it is going out of style.

We've actually had a pretty good run of large MMO's having fairly decent launches lately.

I'd expect maybe a few hiccups just when the servers go live, but I'd be surprised if you'd not be able to play without any problems within maybe 3-4 hours after launch.

And since they're doing a head start for pre-order people, that should mean a smoother ramp up of load on the servers and give Bioware time to make a few adjustments before the big wave hits

The guild sorting step they have taken should minimize the impact as they will be sorting all these accounts together when the game launches and it should bring a little bit better load balancing of players when the game launches.