In a new interview, EA's Frank Gibeau has said that the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic is "definitely tied to the beta test feedback that's ongoing and so far, so good." As the pool of players continues to expand, more feedback will be gathered and it's possible the release date could slip.

"We don't want to happen to us what happened to WoW and a couple of other services where in the first week there were queues trying to get on to the servers, the entire service crashed - we don't want that to happen. So we need to nail and make sure that it's up 24/7 and it's high quality.

"We're totally focused on quality, so whatever the beta test tells us is what will be the determining variable on when we will hit."

Read the entire interview at CVG.

While many people will continue to rage against the notion of a release date slip, it's all good with me.  Regardless of SWTOR's release date, I know I can be enjoying some open-world rpg-goodness in the form of Skyrim.  I say let Bioware work the kinks out and deliver the best possible product and service on release day, even if that release is pushed back.  Heck, we've been waiting several years, we can wait a little longer. 

Originally posted by wkyfam

While many people will continue to rage against the notion of a release date slip, it's all good with me.  Regardless of SWTOR's release date, I know I can be enjoying some open-world rpg-goodness in the form of Skyrim.  I say let Bioware work the kinks out and deliver the best possible product and service on release day, even if that release is pushed back.  Heck, we've been waiting several years, we can wait a little longer. 

I agree about not caring if the release date slips, but for different reasons.

SWTOR felt like it jumped the shark a few weeks after they announced pre-orders.  The longer they kept us holding out for a release date the less interested I became.  The longer they held out on subscription pricing details, the less I cared.  Now I find myself utterly indifferent to anything related to SWTOR.

I'm not bitter about a lack of release date, nor am I excited when I hear news about the beta.  I just don't care anymore.

I have yet to see anything about KotOR to make me want to play it, it looks boring and slow, and highly instanced, not sure if thats the case, but the artciles about it do not make me want to look into it any further even the jedis look boring with slow moves and everyone runs like they havea case of the idas

i say let them work on it even if it takes thill 2012. we got some other good games comming our way to keep us bussy. i am already adddicted and playing non-stop on Deus ex.

Originally posted by praize

Originally posted by wkyfam

While many people will continue to rage against the notion of a release date slip, it's all good with me.  Regardless of SWTOR's release date, I know I can be enjoying some open-world rpg-goodness in the form of Skyrim.  I say let Bioware work the kinks out and deliver the best possible product and service on release day, even if that release is pushed back.  Heck, we've been waiting several years, we can wait a little longer. 

I agree about not caring if the release date slips, but for different reasons.

 

SWTOR felt like it jumped the shark a few weeks after they announced pre-orders.  The longer they kept us holding out for a release date the less interested I became.  The longer they held out on subscription pricing details, the less I cared.  Now I find myself utterly indifferent to anything related to SWTOR.

I'm not bitter about a lack of release date, nor am I excited when I hear news about the beta.  I just don't care anymore.

 The  term jumped the shark itself is no longer in vogue.

So the current testers could ruin it all for us launch anticipators ....

Everybody in there, please mind the server farms!

- Walk, don't run.

- Don't use resource intensive AoE attacks, please.

- Silence is golden: only answer when you are spoken to. This goes for chat and npc conversations.

- Wear bland coloured armors without frills if you possibly can.

- That landspeeder could very well do a day without you.

- Finish all content on a planet before traveling onwards, and make sure you didn't forgot anything.

- That bug you just found has most probably been reported already anyway.

Thank you.

Assuming nothing critical comes up with the game I am thinking Bioware will ship the game somewhere within mid-November to early December. I really can't see them going any sooner and if they ship in November they will have the Christmas holiday sales and won't have to worry about GW2 release which will be 2012. Also, they will be ahead of the next WoW expansion which is likely in 2012.  

Originally posted by praize

Originally posted by wkyfam

While many people will continue to rage against the notion of a release date slip, it's all good with me.  Regardless of SWTOR's release date, I know I can be enjoying some open-world rpg-goodness in the form of Skyrim.  I say let Bioware work the kinks out and deliver the best possible product and service on release day, even if that release is pushed back.  Heck, we've been waiting several years, we can wait a little longer. 

I agree about not caring if the release date slips, but for different reasons.

 

SWTOR felt like it jumped the shark a few weeks after they announced pre-orders.  The longer they kept us holding out for a release date the less interested I became.  The longer they held out on subscription pricing details, the less I cared.  Now I find myself utterly indifferent to anything related to SWTOR.

I'm not bitter about a lack of release date, nor am I excited when I hear news about the beta.  I just don't care anymore.

 

And I personally don't think they understand how what they've done has made many of us feel about their game.   For this oversight I place the blame squarely on the heads of EA's marketing team.  They seem to think they can treat people like "mushrooms" and we'll eat it up.

Now that said, I have pre-ordered, but when I did so it raised the expectation that they would at least be prepared to set a release date.  Then if they really need to push it back, and can give good reasons (not we need more time to "polish" crap...), then its all good.  Failing to do so, however, makes BioWare appear like a bunch of paranoid amatures.  Which only serves to reinforce my "Meh!" feeling about the game.

Also, don't give me guff about appearing not to want them to "polish"... I was completely willing to give them all the time in the world.  Before they started taking money on it "ahead of time".  Now I want a date!  And I don't care if its some time in 2012, and they can't get the servers stable so its pushed into 2013.  I want a Release Date.

Without it I'm on the verge of asking for a refund (on my Pre-Order) and switching my interest to GW2.

Originally posted by Cannyone

And I personally don't think they understand how what they've done has made many of us feel about their game.   For this oversight I place the blame squarely on the heads of EA's marketing team.  They seem to think they can treat people like "mushrooms" and we'll eat it up.

Now that said, I have pre-ordered, but when I did so it raised the expectation that they would at least be prepared to set a release date.  Then if they really need to push it back, and can give good reasons (not we need more time to "polish" crap...), then its all good.  Failing to do so, however, makes BioWare appear like a bunch of paranoid amatures.  Which only serves to reinforce my "Meh!" feeling about the game.

Also, don't give me guff about appearing not to want them to "polish"... I was completely willing to give them all the time in the world.  Before they started taking money on it "ahead of time".  Now I want a date!  And I don't care if its some time in 2012, and they can't get the servers stable so its pushed into 2013.  I want a Release Date.

Without it I'm on the verge of asking for a refund (on my Pre-Order) and switching my interest to GW2.

The most important thing is a good game, to me it's perfectly understandable to push back if they need to. I don't pre-order games, but even if I did I'd feel the same way. I just don't understand how a release date or lack of changes anything. Especially if they're deciding the release date based on Beta feedback. Any announcment of a release date thus far would have been insincere considering this revelation..

Originally posted by Cannyone

And I personally don't think they understand how what they've done has made many of us feel about their game.   For this oversight I place the blame squarely on the heads of EA's marketing team.  They seem to think they can treat people like "mushrooms" and we'll eat it up.

Now that said, I have pre-ordered, but when I did so it raised the expectation that they would at least be prepared to set a release date.  Then if they really need to push it back, and can give good reasons (not we need more time to "polish" crap...), then its all good.  Failing to do so, however, makes BioWare appear like a bunch of paranoid amatures.  Which only serves to reinforce my "Meh!" feeling about the game.

Also, don't give me guff about appearing not to want them to "polish"... I was completely willing to give them all the time in the world.  Before they started taking money on it "ahead of time".  Now I want a date!  And I don't care if its some time in 2012, and they can't get the servers stable so its pushed into 2013.  I want a Release Date.

Without it I'm on the verge of asking for a refund (on my Pre-Order) and switching my interest to GW2.

You kind of only have yourself to blame really. You preordered without having a release date, right? They have ALWAYS stated that it's done when it's done.

Personally I fully understand their concerns and the huge investment of money, time and reputation which is at stake here. Would be such a shame to fall flat on stuff like badly implemented server architecture and be branded a huge fail in the first months.

This isn't your average action game release, even in mmorpg terms it's a juggernaut project.

They look serious about their game but i will not judge till i play it first.

One thing I've learned as a long time MMORPG player is that your desire to play a game still in development is best tempered by the desire to see the game only released when it is ready. No matter how much you want that release date to arrive, you never want your game rushed to meet a release date.

They will have to and they know it.

With the amount of money that is invested in this game and with the "knowledge" and "experience" of the last couple of so called AAA MMORPG titles that have launvhed the past years, they know very well they only get one chance and that's with launch!

They know their success all depends on the first impression.

i still am betting it slips to nov 2012, and a few days after release, on nov 13, the servers will go down and the world will implode from the collective nerdrage of 6 generations of star wars fans.

I m actually feeling a late Nov early Dec release this year.

If they care they will delay the game for a 2012 release.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

If they care they will delay the game for a 2012 release.

 Without breaking the NDA, I don t think thats needed.

If you think of the early pre-order from a company/financial point of view it makes sense. It acts as leverage to the penny counters if the developers need more time to refine the game in addition to giving good estimations as to the hardware they need to obtain for beta testing. When they have a good estimation drawn up this allows the developers to stress test their servers until they believe they have the kinks and populatin caps worked out for each 'server'. That allows them to more accuretly account for how much equipment they will need for launch.

If you think about it from a consumer perspective however, many times the first thing that comes to mind is that the company is a money-grubbing evildoer dangling a carrot on a stick in front of you. Then again, the average consumer doesn't try walking a mile in the other man's shoes before they start throwing stones at him.