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.

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.

No woes. Works fine.

I've been waiting for 30-40 minutes to join Giant Bomb's server. It's been consistent during the day and drops off to no time at all at night. If I wasn't so sucked in I'd be mad.

I get in just fine. Had to queue once so far and I had early access since the 17th. I <3 SW. ^_^

1. Sell a set limited number of preorders to control number of people at launch.
2. Ooooops too many people guyz!

I think my longest wait time was maybe 30 minutes. That was on day to of the early access. Other then that little to no issues. I have seen some servers saying the queue was 1hr45 min wait. But can't confirm that that's what the actual wait was for it.

TOR? I'm going to play KOTOR2 instead :P

i picked a "light" traffic server and have never had to wait yet. been playing since friday.

No queue on the Giant Bomb server Mind Trick right now. At least if there is, I just skipped it.

At least 30 minutes. By the time I get in I've moved on to something else or lost interest in playing. Not good for someone like me who can only play at random intervals.

So much for that early access.

Aren't there plenty of servers without queues? If so, just play around on a less busy server and move when the initial rush dies down.

Anyway, the hype got me and I just bought the game this morning, waiting for the huge download to finish as we speak. There is a pretty big chance that I will get tired of this one really quickly, but I somehow just wanted to play a mmo again..

@Buckfitches said:

So much for that early access.

What are you even trying to say? It's not like you can't play. I just logged into the Giant Bomb server without a queue.

Longest I ever had to wait this past week was 10 min. Usually can get in right away on my server, and if I did have to queue up it was on average a few minutes.

The storyline is actually pretty interesting so far. At least for the Imperial Agent.

I can understand why they're purposely trying to limit server sizes in early access - having too many servers too early could mean more server consolidation down the road as people start to drop off.

Plus not everyone with early access is necessarily going to be buying the game as you just need a preorder code to get in (some people preordered, got a code, then cancelled).

@Buckfitches said:

So much for that early access.

It's been going pretty well so far actually for a lot of players.

I've yet to be in a queue, and I play on Iron Citadel. Which is one of the most popular servers.

Roommate's had quite a few 30-40 minute server queue waits.

“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.” -Well i guess it looks like that if you dont grasp what its really ALL about, math.

It's an MMO, that isn't even out yet.

I finish work a 7pm in the evening which, unfortunately, is peak time. I've had 4 hour long queues pretty much every night. Then I pretty much have to go to bed for the next day.

Seems to be going a lot worse on the EU side of things.

So far i really don't mind. I just log in about an hour or two before i want to play then it's ready when i've cleaned up my appartment n stuff :)

EDIT: I'm on the EU servers... heard queue times are the worst here so far.

The queues EU side seem to be a lot worse. The server that Bioware assigned our guild regularly endures 3 hour login queues.

It feels like EA wanted both pies, eat them and then have the satisfaction of turding them out again

"Don't worry guys, we'll get you in"

...

"Oh noes, our game is so popular right now!!"

More headlines, please!

I think the game is a ton of fun so far. I did have to wait for about 35 minutes one time, which while sucks is not the end of the world. I think it's fair to get a bit pissed when you have to wait in that queue and you get in and play for about 35 minutes and the game freezes up. Then you log in and have to wait in that queue again. That's the real bitch.

@Jeffsekai said:

It's an MMO, that isn't even out yet.

Ssshh. Don't tell Patches.

Imagine this, Giant Bomb accentuates the negative about The Old Republic. At this point it's gone from barely concealed to an out and out grudge against a game. Why even bother with a review at this point?

@Brodehouse: But this is not really a review. It's an article stating that EA acknowledges the fact that there are long queue times.

I have only had 1 Server queue to wait in and it was like 20-30 min wasn't that bad.

Longest queue I've been in so far was 5people. But the lag is pretty bad at peak hours.

I've waited just about as much as I've played the game.

Every time I want to log in there's at least a three hour queue, my server suddenly became real popular.

I have been on every night, alt tabbed as we speak actually, and the longest wait I have ever had was 20 min. As far as I'm concerned this launch was flawless so far.

I've had zero wait time but I'm playing on a Medium population server. I don't get why more people don't just try out a different server...

So what is everyone's initial impressions? The lack of reviews are off-putting.

Chose RP-PvP server and have yet to wait for a queue. Win.

@chaiHazuki said:

So what is everyone's initial impressions? The lack of reviews are off-putting.

What? The game isn't even out yet ... >.>

Plus it's an MMO..

@chaiHazuki said:

So what is everyone's initial impressions? The lack of reviews are off-putting.

I'm enjoying it, however I'm a huge starwars fan and never played WoW. I hear those who played WoW saying it's very much an MMO. Take that for what you will.

Also who's going to review a MMO before there are massive amounts of people on it? Some places take a month+ before putting up a review for a MMO.

Edit: Best to look for beta impressions to give you the best idea of how it is.

So what is everyone's initial impressions? The lack of reviews are off-putting.

The longest I've had to wait is 10 minutes and that's only during peak playing hours. Other than that, I get in first try, and if you follow swtor on twitter it looks like they're putting up new servers every day.

I'm on one of the newest servers and no one is here... I like it.

i had a 2 hour wait the other night, and waiting sucks, so i pulled up my roots and started on another, less busy server.  hoping the one i picked won't get too crowded, i'd rather not wait at all honestly.  i'm not even gonna try on launch day tomorrow.  i mean, i like the game and i'm enjoying it, but i don't like it enough to wait 2 hours every night, f that

Of course there are queues at launch, lol.

I've had no issues with log in so far, the server I'm on has gone from Low to Standard population though... only a matter of time.

The Old Republic was going to be a big thing, regardless of how it actually turned out.

Indeed. It kind of is a big thing when it is a new mainstream Star Wars MMO.

@Brodehouse said:

Imagine this, Giant Bomb accentuates the negative about The Old Republic. At this point it's gone from barely concealed to an out and out grudge against a game. Why even bother with a review at this point?

You're a moron. Congrats. Articles like this one HELP the people playing SWTOR: they draw attention to issues and put pressure on companies to actually get their shit together.

The craziest thing to me is, even at full server capacity with huge queues the game feels sparsely populated with zero lag. Their maximum number of players must be really conservative, seems like there's plenty room for more especially when people start spreading out to higher zones. I wonder if it's a perception thing.

I'm sure it'll naturally cool down a month from launch, but this could be a big bummer for all trying to play over the holidays.

Will be getting this in a couple of months when the buzz has died down a bit and server issues have been figured out more.

If the campaign for each character type is as good as I keep hearing this might be the first MMO I actually find interesting.

Hope I'm not just being sucked into the void. Lol.

Friday evening ALL english EU servers had queues. So no avoiding them.

Wait i thought this website had a rule that you could not talk about this game, with all the crap you guys have given it at this point.

WHAA? EA being cheap? NO WAY!

Most of the time it hasn't been too bad. Tried to get onto my server last night though at around 8:30pm or so and had a good 20 minute wait time. Saw the GB server had a 50 minute wait time, and saw at least one server with over an hour wait time. The biggest problem just seems to be probably not enough servers. On one hand, I can't really blame them too much for that, because you can only do so much estimating on how many servers you're going to need up and running at launch (since you don't want TOO many servers, because then you're just wasting money and if the population is too spread out then they have to merge servers and that's just a doom sign.) On the other hand, high population servers tend to STAY high population servers, and only ever seem to get worse as time goes on. If the game hasn't even launched yet and there's already 20 minute to over an hour wait times, how bad is it going to get if the game really takes off? I don't want to go from 20 minute wait times at peek times on a weekend to hour wait times every day.... Otherwise, yeah, it's going well.