2012 Release Date for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Someone thinks so

Narboon, an eagle-eyed Aussie SWTOR fan spotted this little gem in a Queensland EB Games store today:

Now I’m going to jump in at the first opportunity to state the obvious: this could be pure guesswork by EB Games. Alternatively it could be an indication of the release year for the game for Oceanic players. We’ve asked the ever-helpful folks at Bioware for their thoughts and will update with anything that comes forth.

 

Update from David B at Bioware:

No date is official unless you hear it from us. Retailers use placeholder dates all the time, this isn’t news.

Comments

  1. I wouldn’t believe anything that a retail store states, they are just trying dumb up business and sell pre-order copies is all and also get free advertising.

    • They have to put SOMETHING on the shelves, and in their systems as a release date.

      This is a bit more than rumor, but not much more. Game Stores here in Canada still have boxes on the shelves for Ghost Recon Future Soldier that are marked to be released in ‘Spring 2011’ Missed it by THAT much…

      Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t. We shall see.

  2. I am not confirming nor and i denying it is EB games as i stated to David Holloway that i had was in a VIDEO GAME STORE in Australia but i did narrow it down to QLD.

    Although it is a rumor and if BioWare have stated that it is a 2011 release why would they say 2012?

  3. I could handle a small delay, perhaps a month, 2 at most. But any longer than that I will seriously be thinking about not ever getting TOR. I’m hoping this wont be the case. Staggering release date so we don’t get it at the same time as the rest of the world will be rather annoying.

    But I just cant understand why they’d a staggered release. I do not know of any other mmos out there that released later for us than the rest of the world… If Cryptic can do a world wide release for Star Trek you’d think a powerhouse combo of EA/Bioware could match that… I know their stance is “we dont reply to rumours”, well this is a bit bigger than a rumour imo, look where the information started from.

    I still have my fingers crossed for the best result but wont be surprised if it doesnt happen.

    • Kalenath says

      I am really hoping for some kind of info at Comic-Con. If its a delay… Well… I know I am still going to buy it. I am that much of a Star Wars geek. But I will be very annoyed if that happens.

      As for a staggered release date? It wouldn’t make any sense, would it?

      No information, just speculation and rumor. For now, I am waiting to see what is said at Comic-Con. Hopefully, there will SOME kind of clarification.

      • I really shouldn’t post when it’s late and I’m tired.. lol sound a bit too defeatest. I do not think staggering the release would make sense.. but stranger things have happened.

        I had a reply from Mr Bass from a message I sent him, he just said

        “Nothing has been announced yet regarding the launch regions for The Old Republic. When we have information to share, we will do so.”

    • Cryptic and most other MMO’s can do it because the scale of numbers they’re expecting is reasonably small. When you’ve only got 5,000 oceanics who buy your game at release, their impact on servers isn’t going to be to drastic. Now if you’ve got 50,000 or more oceanics who buy your game at release (just a guess), then if you don’t specifically cater for them with servers of their own, they’re going to cause some serious problems for certain servers as chances are they’ll all descend on only a couple of servers.

      Now it’s fairly clear to me that there will be no oceanic specific servers at US launch (no timezone in the guild HQ seems fairly straight forward to me). Therefore if Bioware have decided that they want as smooth a launch as possible in the US, maybe they’ve decided to remove the Oceanic issue from launch altogether. Then maybe some time down the track they’ll assess how popular the game is, and then make a decision on what servers to provide us for our own launch.

      If this is indeed the case, personally I think it’s monumentally short-sighted. Bioware will do significant damage to the potential numbers for TOR in the region, and will end up doing damage to the Bioware brand as well. As I’ve said before, us nerds are quick to take offense at slights by game companies regardless of whether they’re real or perceived. I think Australian MMO gamers are particularly sensitive about the perceived poor treatment we receive from MMO developers in general.

      Spending some money on giving us our own servers, even if they’re located in the US and just tagged as Oceanic, would remove the problem. But then with the amount already spent on the game, maybe Bioware and/or EA have decided that it’s an unnecessary additional cost for a region they just feel is not that important.

  4. Weres my starwars Game.. Been waiting for 2 and a half years for it .. Me want.. This makes me a said panda…. : (