Star Wars the Old Republic: Limited Pre-order is now available.

[deadskin]

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/ivny5/the_magnificent_future_of_preorders_with_swtor/

[TMRNetShark]

I'm boggled that the collector's edition sold out already.  I was wrong and didn't think it would happen for a long while.  Either the number made were ridiculously low, or there are much more fans than even they expected.  I feel it's the latter.  I guess $149.99 was not a too steep of a price.

"Due to overwhelming demand, we have unfortunately run out of our allocation for Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector's Bundle. We are looking to secure more allocation from the publisher and will update this page when that occurs. Thank you for your patience. May the Force be with you."

There's a chance there may be more released, but can't be sure...or even if able to get one if there were more made.

I just pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition.  Hate to be wrong again and not be able to even get that.

I mean, I totally would of gotten the CE version of the game... but come on. I'm gonna be paying more than twice as much for it than the regular game and I don't get much else beyond the statue? I love Star Wars, but not enough to dress up as a Jedi (as a kid I did though!) and go to Comic Con. I would definitely want more CE version of the games so that other people can grab them and enjoy. I will be seeing them ingame soon enough! The regular game is more than enough for me... that... and I can make my blaster bolts green! Yay!

[Stsin]

Yea, knowing this was going to be released soon, I told myself if it's over $99, I'm not buying it.  Two of my friends already got the CE version.  Happy for them.  But I just had to get the ingame items with the deluxe edition.  I don't want to be the only one in my group without a mount

Like the Reddit link above, this could be a ploy by EA.  It's something they would do.  But whatever, we know that this game is already a success and nothing better for an MMO than a mass number of players.  I'm actually getting stoked now.

There's a reason why they said there will be no open beta.  They have enough registered users trying to get in close beta...more than those currently playing WoW.

[TMRNetShark]

Yea, knowing this was going to be released soon, I told myself if it's over $99, I'm not buying it.  Two of my friends already got the CE version.  Happy for them.  But I just had to get the ingame items with the deluxe edition.  I don't want to be the only one in my group without a mount

Like the Reddit link above, this could be a ploy by EA.  It's something they would do.  But whatever, we know that this game is already a success and nothing better for an MMO than a mass number of players.  I'm actually getting stoked now.

There's a reason why they said there will be no open beta.  They have enough registered users trying to get in close beta...more than those currently playing WoW.

Well, think about it. If this was a ploy by EA (I didn't read the reddit page)... then it's a good ploy at that. They get to:

A. Get people to pre-order the game 6+ months off from the release date without even saying their is a release date. But let's be serious, some of those users on SWTOR forums totally would have pre-ordered the game back in 2008 and STILL would have waited til 2011/Early 2012.
B. IF there is an "Open Beta" of sorts for the people who pre-ordered it, it's the perfect time for EA to cover their backs in terms of bugs (to their investors that is). The reason why they are limiting pre-orders is the very reason they are having the Early Access (IMO). This way, they will have the 150K-250K people who have pre-ordered it (guestimate, don't take it as fact) play the shit out of their Early Access (which is looking like September, but once again... that's a rumor) before the October-January release window. Bugs will be fixed, and the final game will be relatively smooth running. On top of that, EA will gauge how many servers they will need at launch so they can accommodate everyone who bought the game and make for a good launch (something they sorta failed at with Warhammer).
C. Mass numbers is what SWTOR needs and what EA wants. I know that SWTOR will eat away at least a percentage of WoW... but remember... there are a lot of WoW fanboys that are trying to ruin it by trolling and the like. Fear is good, this means they are uneasy of their choice of MMO. When the fanboys see after a couple of months that SWTOR is really good (assuming that it is good, I havn't played the game yet)... they will probably make the switch. Until then, we just have to rely on the pre-order numbers to assume how many people will be playing on day one and beyond.


 

[vicious796]

I really want you guys who are screaming about its potential success to reread what you're writing. Most of your posts talk about the bored WoW playerbase - guys that want something fresh and new and that SWTOR looks like it's going to be the one. Now, I want you to remember these titles:

Warhammer Online
Aion
LOTRO
FFXI
FFXIV
Rift

Of those, Rift and Aion are actually fairly successful in the MMO market. I'm only going to say this once because it's the honest truth:

The only WoW killer is WoW itself.

WoW is an anomaly. No MMO has ever seen its success, ever, and no other MMO likely ever will. It's huge beyond belief and insanely profitable because of it. Rift has been a success if you compare its subscribers to its true competitors. Aion was a success in the same regard.

Now, I don't look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it won't destroy WoW or come anywhere close to its subscriber base. I don't even look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it will have glitches and bugs like every single major MMO that has ever been released, ever and that because of these glitches and bugs at launch, at least 25% of the preorder players will drop the game immediately and go back to WoW. I don't look at it pessimistically because at least half of the WoW players who try and switch will think back on the 4 years or so they dedicated to their character(s) in WoW and will go back to WoW after a month not wanting all that work to go to waste.

I look at SWTOR pessimistically because for the past 10 years every single thing that has had the Star Wars brand name on it has been nothing more than overpriced shit some company put together to bleed out the most loyal fan base on the face of this planet.

Now, I like Bioware - I really do. I think if any major game company out there could make a game with the Star Wars brand and resist the temptation to slack knowing that money would roll in regardless, I think they're it. However, Bioware has become "big time" over the past few years with their successes. They've grown, immensely, and I don't know if that's such a good thing. I look at the other studios out there that went through similar growth - Activision, EA, and their ilk - and I see companies who switched from making the best possible products to making the most possible profit.

I'm hesitant on SWTOR because of those two factors.

[Supai]

for the past 10 years every single thing that has had the Star Wars brand name on it has been nothing more than overpriced shit some company put together to bleed out the most loyal fan base on the face of this planet.

So... Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic too?

[deadskin]

or....Jedi Academy?

[Sosseres]

for the past 10 years every single thing that has had the Star Wars brand name on it has been nothing more than overpriced shit some company put together to bleed out the most loyal fan base on the face of this planet.

That isn't true. The last 5 years or so have been abysmal though (coming from one of the semi-loyal fans).

The last widely liked SW game was most likely Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. 4 years and like 11 months ago. An easy way to check this:
http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/star+wars/results?sort=recent

[Stsin]

Vicious:  No one here said it was going to destroy WoW.  If think it's silly, don't even bring it up.  Stop being so pessimistic

[AceHigh]

Pessimistic?

Statistics are on my side. Games like Age of Conan, Warhammer online, Matrix online and oh, lets not forget Star Wars Galaxies ALL had very strong IPs. Can you imagine how many matrix fags were at the time of Matrix online release? Yet they all failed or are on the verge of failing.

So the argument about Star Wars fandom is invalid.

Also, I have seen the latest videos of the game, it looks like crap. I guess they used up all the budget on voice acting.

[Stsin]

Statistics about what?  That other MMO's have failed?  So?

Let's look at your choice of examples:  Age of Conan and Warhammer online (don't know much about the niche Matrix online).  Thought everyone knew that they destroyed themselves.  They were failures without WoW's influence.  Released way before being ready.  Now look at how long SWTOR has been in development.  And we still don't know when it's going to be released.  Some are hoping that it will be as early as September.  Fat chance.  They just shut down the beta servers for 2-3 weeks, to make more major changes to the servers and game.  That when the next beta arrives, will require re-downloading of the whole client 38gigs+.  That they are still doing major changes, even though some think it's almost ready as is; shows that Bioware is holding strong on not releasing the game till they want, even with the huge huge pressure from EA.  IMO, I see it coming out in late Nov as the earliest.

It's obvious that nothing is going to destroy WoW soon with it's 11 million base.  Even though it's population has been in decline, lower than WoTLK.  It's just that every MMO thread has someone spouting that "this is no WoW killer", without anyone mentioning it. 
This was prominent in Rift threads.  "bla bla this is not going to destroy WoW."  And if just mentioned it in WoW forums, it would be quickly deleted, unless it was bashing Rift...with the many, "This is not going to destroy WoW." replies.  I guess it's a pet peeve of mine.  Though they did quite well for being a clone, eh?

As for Star Wars Galaxy, Sony is shutting it down due to the upcoming SWTOR release.  I wonder where they will be going?  I doubt it's going to be WoW

Well, as mentioned earlier, I'm not particularly hyped on SWTOR.  It's trying something new with friends that had me preorder it.  But there is no doubt that it will be successful at launch.  The hype alone is ridiculous.  A good start is a given, though no one really knows how well it fare 6 months after.  It's a waste of time trying to forecast it before release.

[TMRNetShark]

I really want you guys who are screaming about its potential success to reread what you're writing. Most of your posts talk about the bored WoW playerbase - guys that want something fresh and new and that SWTOR looks like it's going to be the one. Now, I want you to remember these titles:

Warhammer Online
Aion
LOTRO
FFXI
FFXIV
Rift

Of those, Rift and Aion are actually fairly successful in the MMO market. I'm only going to say this once because it's the honest truth:

Warhammer Online (fantasy based like WoW)
Aion (fantasy based like WoW)
LOTRO (fantasy based like WoW)
FFXI (fantasy based like WoW)
FFXIV (fantasy based like WoW)
Rift (fantasy based like WoW)

Yet you failed to mention an MMO that's different than WoW yet it's still a relatively popular niche game: Eve Online. It's not fantasy based, and yet it still has people who are paying $15 a month for YEARS like WoW. I'm not saying EVERYONE from WoW will play it, but SWTOR can definitely have the potential to eat into WoW's percent of the market share.

The only WoW killer is WoW itself.

WoW is an anomaly. No MMO has ever seen its success, ever, and no other MMO likely ever will. It's huge beyond belief and insanely profitable because of it. Rift has been a success if you compare its subscribers to its true competitors. Aion was a success in the same regard.

Now, I don't look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it won't destroy WoW or come anywhere close to its subscriber base. I don't even look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it will have glitches and bugs like every single major MMO that has ever been released, ever and that because of these glitches and bugs at launch, at least 25% of the preorder players will drop the game immediately and go back to WoW. I don't look at it pessimistically because at least half of the WoW players who try and switch will think back on the 4 years or so they dedicated to their character(s) in WoW and will go back to WoW after a month not wanting all that work to go to waste.

I lol'ed semi-hard at this part. Let's look at this page for a second, close to 4 million characters that are made on all WoW servers combined, right? Now you might say that "Oh! That addon only sees how many people are on at the time that the addon is run." True... so lets double that number to 8 million characters on WoW... sound reasonable? Guess what? How many characters did YOU have across all the servers you played on (this is a question aimed at everyone). You didn't just have one character... you had one main and AT LEAST one other toon (if not many more at various levels). So the true number of people who are still playing WoW would probably be in the 2 million to 3 million mark around the world (not this stupid 12 million subscribers... maybe since 2004... but not active subscribers). "That still makes it the most popular MMO game to date and all those other MMO's failed!" Yeah, from what I stated above... WoW did the best fantasy style MMO game on the market... yet it didn't affect how many people went to Eve Online and continued to play there.

Now remember that 12 million subscribers that Blizz claims? The rest of those ~8 million past subscribers are familiar with how to play an MMO, yet there is a new AAA MMO that for once... isn't fantasy based and has a solid IP. Am I saying that WoW will be defeated entirely? No... Will SWTOR be the new WoW? I don't know... Will there be a lot of people who play the game? Judging by their forums and the amount of hardcore people have already pre-ordered, I would say yes (just wait until they start their TV ad campaign to see the total number of pre-orders).

Pessimistic?

Statistics are on my side. Games like Age of Conan, Warhammer online, Matrix online and oh, lets not forget Star Wars Galaxies ALL had very strong IPs. Can you imagine how many matrix fags were at the time of Matrix online release? Yet they all failed or are on the verge of failing.

So the argument about Star Wars fandom is invalid.

Also, I have seen the latest videos of the game, it looks like crap. I guess they used up all the budget on voice acting.

Ah? Stats are on your side... I see.. I see. So Star War Galaxies went downhill because of NGE. NGE dumbed down the game for players because the majority of the sub base probably went to WoW since it had streamlined the gameplay and better implemented game mechanics. Matrix Online? Seriously? You are gonna compare the Matrix Online to SWTOR or even Galaxies? Galaxies at least SOLD 1 million copies... Matrix only barely sold 43,100 copies. Then again, SWTOR has 1.5 million people already signed up to try and get into Beta... but I guess that number is insignificant to you.

But once again, I forgot you just hate everything.

[Supai]

But once again, I forgot you just hate everything.

Well, you know what they say... Haters gonna hate. 

[AceHigh]

Ah? Stats are on your side... I see.. I see. So Star War Galaxies went downhill because of NGE. NGE dumbed down the game for players because the majority of the sub base probably went to WoW since it had streamlined the gameplay and better implemented game mechanics.

If you make a pathetic excuse at least get the facts right. It was CU that turned SWG into shit, NGE was just developers trying to troll their player base even further.

Matrix Online? Seriously? You are gonna compare the Matrix Online to SWTOR or even Galaxies?

take a look at this:

ALL had very strong IPs

As always, your reading comprehension fails.

[TMRNetShark]

Ah? Stats are on your side... I see.. I see. So Star War Galaxies went downhill because of NGE. NGE dumbed down the game for players because the majority of the sub base probably went to WoW since it had streamlined the gameplay and better implemented game mechanics.

If you make a pathetic excuse at least get the facts right. It was CU that turned SWG into shit, NGE was just developers trying to troll their player base even further.

Matrix Online? Seriously? You are gonna compare the Matrix Online to SWTOR or even Galaxies?

take a look at this:

ALL had very strong IPs

As always, your reading comprehension fails.

As always... you think you are always right. You said "Stats are on my side." I gave you stats that disproved your thought train. Once again, trolling failed. The Matrix was a good movie... the other two kinda not so much. Even Age of Conan and Warhammer did not even have strong IPs that Warcraft had (or Starcraft for that matter). Galaxies was the only game that had Star Wars sized IP behind it... but then MMO's like Rift and Aion were successful in their own right with no prior IP... so IP means nothing in a game.

Swing and a miss. Wanna try again?

[AceHigh]

Wrong, the stats I was talking about are failed MMO vs successful ones. So far there has been an overwhelming amount of failed MMOs, so statistically there is a bigger chance that a new MMO will fail rather than succeed. Of course you are too dumb to understand even basic logic like that.

The number of people registering for beta... wonderful, they are desperate to try this game for free before having to pay for a blind purchase. If I would be interested, I would sign up for beta as well... it´s the only way you can demo play MMOs nowadays.

So tell me what merits do you think this game has to succeed?

[xfreidax]

Serious question to the people who think swtor will be a huge success. Why do you think so?

Is it because of the game play? Looks like more of the same to me in terms of mechanics... standard mmo stuff. Replace magic with force powers. Swords with light sabers. Viola wow/everquest/etc etc in space! Your dime a dozen tank/healer, moar dots MOAR DOTZZZZZ game play we all love so much.  

Is it because of the voice acting and story? Well if mmo gamers really gave a shit about that, then why is wow such a success? It has neither lol.

Is it because it's bioware? This one I think is somewhat justified. They do have a track record of churning out game after game that's basically the same game/story but in a different skin each time and make heaps of money doing that.

Is it because it's Star Wars? May look like a no brainer but as Vicious pointed out, Star Wars IP in games tend to fail more then succeed. For every good Star Wars game out there, there must be at least 5 crappy ones =D

So what is it about Swtor that makes it special?

I'll end up buying this anyway because that's just me. I play every single major mmo release without fail so I can bitch in their forums when my overpowered class gets nerfed and I move on to the next game. I'm a mmo nomad, I never stay in any game longer than 5-6 months and once I leave a game I never go back.

So I actually don't have any loyalties to any game or developers and consider myself quite objective when it comes to judging mmorpg's. And to be honest, looking beyond the hype I see nothing that made me sit up and think, "hmm, this one's gonna be a keeper". The only thing that has impressed me looking at swtor is their 3 teaser videos, which are incredibly well done. They should make a full length feature out of that I reckon. Would make a great movie. =P

[TMRNetShark]

Serious question to the people who think swtor will be a huge success. Why do you think so?

Is it because of the game play? Looks like more of the same to me in terms of mechanics... standard mmo stuff. Replace magic with force powers. Swords with light sabers. Viola wow/everquest/etc etc in space! Your dime a dozen tank/healer, moar dots MOAR DOTZZZZZ game play we all love so much.  

Is it because of the voice acting and story? Well if mmo gamers really gave a shit about that, then why is wow such a success? It has neither lol.

Is it because it's bioware? This one I think is somewhat justified. They do have a track record of churning out game after game that's basically the same game/story but in a different skin each time and make heaps of money doing that.

Is it because it's Star Wars? May look like a no brainer but as Vicious pointed out, Star Wars IP in games tend to fail more then succeed. For every good Star Wars game out there, there must be at least 5 crappy ones =D

So what is it about Swtor that makes it special?

I'll end up buying this anyway because that's just me. I play every single major mmo release without fail so I can bitch in their forums when my overpowered class gets nerfed and I move on to the next game. I'm a mmo nomad, I never stay in any game longer than 5-6 months and once I leave a game I never go back.

So I actually don't have any loyalties to any game or developers and consider myself quite objective when it comes to judging mmorpg's. And to be honest, looking beyond the hype I see nothing that made me sit up and think, "hmm, this one's gonna be a keeper". The only thing that has impressed me looking at swtor is their 3 teaser videos, which are incredibly well done. They should make a full length feature out of that I reckon. Would make a great movie. =P

To answer your question simply. The reason I think SWTOR will be good is because:

A. It's KOTOR 3-7. I loved KOTOR 1&2 to death and I cannot wait to see the stories that Bioware has made for it.
B. You stated it beatifully, it's WoW ala in space with story. You lump "MMO" players into the mix of what MMO players really are. You assume that all MMO players are PvPers. That simply isn't true. There are PvPers (look at my PvPness!), PvEers (I'm just a carebear), and RP/RPPvPers (I sense that there is a quest around here). Not all MMO players don't give a shit about the story... they do ALL like fun gameplay though. SWTOR isn't just making a game purely on conversation dialogue and radial wheels.... but it's their 5th pillar (or 4th, I forgot how many pillars of importance that MMO's have) of what is needed in MMOs to keep the genre fresh.
C. Western developers have gotten so much better at story telling than JRPGs in the past 4 years. Bethesda and Bioware are both GREAT developers when it comes to story. Instead of just hitting level cap, doing endgame stuff, and rerolling... I'll actually care about my character that I have made. WoW doesn't have that feel or sense of epic scale or lore that anyone gives a crap about (please try and tell me that everyone in WoW reads the quest text).
D. Yes, I do have a fantasy to live in the Star Wars universe. This is a game that will allow me to be unique in my own way while still having story and playing with other people. It's a type of MMO in the setting that I want that will make me enjoy it. I cannot prove to you that I will enjoy the game (or anyone else for that matter)... but we will see once launch comes around.

Answer your questions?

Wrong, the stats I was talking about are failed MMO vs successful ones. So far there has been an overwhelming amount of failed MMOs, so statistically there is a bigger chance that a new MMO will fail rather than succeed. Of course you are too dumb to understand even basic logic like that.

The number of people registering for beta... wonderful, they are desperate to try this game for free before having to pay for a blind purchase. If I would be interested, I would sign up for beta as well... it´s the only way you can demo play MMOs nowadays.

So tell me what merits do you think this game has to succeed?

So by that logic... Call of Duty is the only successful videogame and everything else has overwhelmingly failed compared to that game. Yet Call of Duty doesn't really have merits that make it the best... yet it still is. Is it, by any stretch of the imagination, that WoW is comparably similar to CoD in it's blandness yet popularity (in essence, meaning people are dumb... which you are defending the mindless masses's game... which I find just... so so funny... cause you are usually really... that was gonna be mean, so I resisted)?

Come on, strike three.

[vicious796]

for the past 10 years every single thing that has had the Star Wars brand name on it has been nothing more than overpriced shit some company put together to bleed out the most loyal fan base on the face of this planet.

So... Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic too?

or....Jedi Academy?

Honestly, in my writing I had forgotten about these Bioware games and credit is due where credit is due. I should also mention that Episode III wasn't a total money-grab, there were some moving scenes and it almost felt like a real Star Wars. Perhaps you can even credit Fanboys as a Star Wars related thing, it was also a good comedy.

Beyond that, though, you're looking at a machine that pumps out calendars, coasters, shitty action figures, and LEGO games like candy. It's a business, I get that and I have no problem with that, but it doesn't help me believe SWTOR will be a massive success. I also don't feel that the single-player games can truly relate to the switch to MMO. Time will tell, of course, and I will have no problem at all admitting it if I'm wrong in a couple of years.

I really want you guys who are screaming about its potential success to reread what you're writing. Most of your posts talk about the bored WoW playerbase - guys that want something fresh and new and that SWTOR looks like it's going to be the one. Now, I want you to remember these titles:

Warhammer Online
Aion
LOTRO
FFXI
FFXIV
Rift

Of those, Rift and Aion are actually fairly successful in the MMO market. I'm only going to say this once because it's the honest truth:

Warhammer Online (fantasy based like WoW)
Aion (fantasy based like WoW)
LOTRO (fantasy based like WoW)
FFXI (fantasy based like WoW)
FFXIV (fantasy based like WoW)
Rift (fantasy based like WoW)

Yet you failed to mention an MMO that's different than WoW yet it's still a relatively popular niche game: Eve Online. It's not fantasy based, and yet it still has people who are paying $15 a month for YEARS like WoW. I'm not saying EVERYONE from WoW will play it, but SWTOR can definitely have the potential to eat into WoW's percent of the market share.

I mentioned the big name releases that have a gameplay similar to what we've seen from SWTOR. Eve plays like no other game I've ever played before and doesn't really belong in the discussion. The setting of the game only matters in this case because we're talking about Star Wars. The playability of the game, though, is what will be the deciding factor and it seems the game will play just like Rift, Aion, WoW, AoC, and all the other Everquest spin-offs. Do you really think the Star Wars brand will keep the players who have tried to jumpship from WoW several times already? I just don't see it. Especially with the need of instant gratification the typical MMO player has. I jumped to Rift after over 4 years of WoW along with many, many others and I watched them all dwindle away, angered by what should have been expected. Overloaded servers along with bugs and glitches. After a month, I watched more leave because the gameplay was identical to WoW and they already had dedicated years to that other game. I then followed them back for the same reasons.

In short, the setting doesn't really matter for the average MMORPG player - it's the gameplay that will determine if they stick out the rough start or not.

The only WoW killer is WoW itself.

WoW is an anomaly. No MMO has ever seen its success, ever, and no other MMO likely ever will. It's huge beyond belief and insanely profitable because of it. Rift has been a success if you compare its subscribers to its true competitors. Aion was a success in the same regard.

Now, I don't look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it won't destroy WoW or come anywhere close to its subscriber base. I don't even look at SWTOR pessimistically because I know it will have glitches and bugs like every single major MMO that has ever been released, ever and that because of these glitches and bugs at launch, at least 25% of the preorder players will drop the game immediately and go back to WoW. I don't look at it pessimistically because at least half of the WoW players who try and switch will think back on the 4 years or so they dedicated to their character(s) in WoW and will go back to WoW after a month not wanting all that work to go to waste.

I lol'ed semi-hard at this part. Let's look at this page for a second, close to 4 million characters that are made on all WoW servers combined, right? Now you might say that "Oh! That addon only sees how many people are on at the time that the addon is run." True... so lets double that number to 8 million characters on WoW... sound reasonable? Guess what? How many characters did YOU have across all the servers you played on (this is a question aimed at everyone). You didn't just have one character... you had one main and AT LEAST one other toon (if not many more at various levels). So the true number of people who are still playing WoW would probably be in the 2 million to 3 million mark around the world (not this stupid 12 million subscribers... maybe since 2004... but not active subscribers). "That still makes it the most popular MMO game to date and all those other MMO's failed!" Yeah, from what I stated above... WoW did the best fantasy style MMO game on the market... yet it didn't affect how many people went to Eve Online and continued to play there.

As of their last meeting with their investors, Blizzard reported a 600k active subscription drop worldwide to 11.4 million. The wow census tool is not run on every server or on every faction at peak hours, as you reported. It's also not run on Asian servers at all, only American and EU. It's also not run on the few Latin servers either. Even if their reported number is inflated slightly, I would highly doubt WoW's subscription base right now is far below 10 million worldwide.

Beyond that, you're also ignoring that Eve Online is not just different in its environment - it's totally different in its playstyle. Totally.

Now remember that 12 million subscribers that Blizz claims? The rest of those ~8 million past subscribers are familiar with how to play an MMO, yet there is a new AAA MMO that for once... isn't fantasy based and has a solid IP. Am I saying that WoW will be defeated entirely? No... Will SWTOR be the new WoW? I don't know... Will there be a lot of people who play the game? Judging by their forums and the amount of hardcore people have already pre-ordered, I would say yes (just wait until they start their TV ad campaign to see the total number of pre-orders).

I have no doubt there will be a giant preorder and immediate subscription base but I also believe those numbers will dwindle down after a week and even further just before the first subscription payment has to be made, just like every other major MMORPG, and it will survive and do well just like Rift and Aion have. Doing well is not the same as doing a WoW. At the root and at best the game will play remarkably like WoW does and people will simply go back to the toons they have worked on for years. The setting only helps initial sales, not continued play.

[AceHigh]

So by that logic... Call of Duty is the only successful videogame and everything else has overwhelmingly failed compared to that game.
Come on, strike three.

Call of Duty is not MMO and does not have the same criteria for being referred to as failed or successful. Try providing a valid argument before counting your strikes. 

Then again why bother trying to reason with a bunch of Star wars nerds?