Many Star Wars fans are up in arms at the discovery that despite being told in August there’d be a grace period for those who order physical copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there will, in fact, be no grace period. While any pre-order code will allow players entry into the early access, in order to keep playing come launch, you must have your actual game code. Many people made their purchasing decisions based upon the declaration of a grace period, and are understandably upset by this sudden change. There have been thousands of posts this evening on the subject, as angered fans vent their wrath upon the forums.
Although some good news, however meager it may be, has been revealed – after several hours of the posting frenzy, Stephen Reid, the Senior Online Community Manager, posted to say that sales and marketing are working to ensure that copies will be sent out prior to launch. European retailers will have the game on the 15th of December, US retailers on the 20th, and those who ordered digitally via Origin will have their game codes emailed to them on the 16th. There is still question as to how this affects those who ordered the Collector’s Edition and US customers who ordered online, but at least Reid is continuing to communicate as best he can to address concerns. He has even apologized twice – first for the ‘misunderstanding’ and then for calling this fiasco a misunderstanding.
It’s a shame, really. My guess is this was done by EA, and not Bioware, but the end result is the same for me – the trust Bioware has built over the past years has been rather badly shaken. Even if Bioware fully meant to have a grace period, and was forced by EA to renege on that intention, it’s difficult to continue to trust them when they can at any time be forced into altering their public statements like this.
who cares the game is nothing but a WoW clone
WoW used to be good, but it is waaay too easy now. And WoW is nothing but a ‘clone’ of the mmorpgs that came before it, so your comment means nothing.
Yea, I totally remember wow having full dialog for quests where I can choose what to do, I remember wow have space combat, albeit it is on rails, I remember wow having a crafting system where your minions can go out and craft, I also remember wow having companions for every class in the game. All good MMO’s take elements from other successful mmo’s so everything could be considered a clone of the other. Everyone says every mmo is a wow clone. You are an idiot and thanks for proving it. On the other hand WoW is a good MMO it is not easy, as is evidence by the number of guilds that have completed any heroic mode kills and people that say it is too easy have never spent hours or days trying to take down heroic Ragnaros 25. Each game has its merits and some people choose not to play wow and would like something else to play instead.
I am exactly the type of person affected. I ordered the CE from Amazon and felt secure that:
1) I would get the box by the 20th because of Amazon’s ‘release day’ shipping option (this has gotten screwed up and, at present, it appears my box will show up on Dec 22);
2) Even if things got delayed, my playing time would not be affected because of the grace period.
Both Amazon and EA/Bioware have blown it here, and my loyalty is affected. If they don’t extend a grace period to me, when the time comes, I won’t extend it to them as soon as a better competitor comes around.