SWTOR

[eldaec]

I know for a fact that Best Buy oversells.  They'll keep selling anything as long as they get preorders.  Don't matter if they actually get any in stock or not. 

Also, it would be silly for them not to sell extra CEs... it's pure cash.  It's not like my WoW 1.0 CE is worth anything as a collector's now that it's open.

Depends what you mean by oversell. From best buy's pov the point of a presale is that you want to pay in advance for a product they will eventually have limitless stock of. I imagine they are barely even aware that they are selling paid beta access as well.

[Hawkbit]

To clarify, because I worded that poorly:  If BB knows they're only getting 5 copies of a CE in stock, they'll gladly take preorders for 1000 of them, then base it on first come, first serve.  And often, the first served are employees of that store.  The other 995 are out of luck. 

Gamestop has occasionally messed this up, but it's usually on more obscure products that they're only getting a few copies of.  For a major title like this one, they'll get a pretty good idea of their stock-preorder numbers.  9 times out of 10, though, I find going into Target/Walmart the next day to yield what you're looking for. 

[eldaec]

I'd imagine that's a given for any class. The alternative would probably generate enough tears to extinguish the Sun.

Devs already indicated they have "dozens" of these storylines in the game, and I think most people have assumed you have the standard straight, alien, and gay option on every character as soon as it was established that they really are taking a bioware rpg approach despite Austinlol.

[FieryBalrog]

My bet is that this game sells 2 million boxes and retains about 750k subs after 3 months. 

Any takers?

Depends on companions. Since multi-boxing is so rampant in WoW, nobody knows how many unique players there are in this 'expanded' market.

What.

[VainEldritch]

Let me put it this way, because nothing about the following breaks the NDA: I am in the beta. I am not planning on pre-ordering. I still think it will get @ 1mil subs.

I'm in as well. No pre-order.

I'm in beta. pre-ordered the CE.

 

[Merusk]

Why the yegods?  Those are fairly predictable positions based on the members in question.  MA's the only one I'm curious as to why, though my first guess is Diku burnout on his part.

[01101010]

To clarify, because I worded that poorly:  If BB knows they're only getting 5 copies of a CE in stock, they'll gladly take preorders for 1000 of them, then base it on first come, first serve.  And often, the first served are employees of that store.  The other 995 are out of luck. 

Gamestop has occasionally messed this up, but it's usually on more obscure products that they're only getting a few copies of.  For a major title like this one, they'll get a pretty good idea of their stock-preorder numbers.  9 times out of 10, though, I find going into Target/Walmart the next day to yield what you're looking for. 

Well to be fair, they have come a long way since then. BB went through a major recentering starting about 4 years ago to put the emphasis on media and media related items. Coincidentally, the CEO is also heads up the ESRB, so I am told by my buddy who still works there in the media dept. Their latest push is in buy-back options for console games. Their poor handling of releases prior do give them a black mark, but they have done much better with accounting for the numbers of preordering games recently. The main problems they had years ago, and might still have (since I have never preordered from them) was shipping numbers to the wrong stores - some stores received wrong order numbers leading to pissed off people. However, I recall when I was employed there, when a game came in with preordered items - the store had a check sheet with the number of preorders and that amount was marked on the boxes and kept in the warehouse/customer service and held. Employees had their pick of the not preordered stock. This is based on what I had to handle with the release of Halo3...

[Murgos]

Ed: I love that games still get the "Will this have a monthly fee??" question in the top questions on Amazon.

Yeah, I'm always tempted to post a "Yes, much like your mom." reply to those. But then I remember I only feel like I'm 12.

ToR is attracting enough attention that I've seen people posting on pretty jaded enthusiast sites like SA and NeoGaf about how they have never played an MMO before but they've pre-orderd and don't have a clue what X,Y and Z means.

Because some of us here have lived in MMO land for 12+ years now doesn't mean it's still not a pretty small niche.

[shiznitz]

A message board post from an internet friend in the UK:

So I decide to pre-order SW:TOR. (NOT the collectors edition).

Go to the EA shop.
Create account: fail - already an account with that email.
There is? OK, maybe from Dragon Age.
Reset password - receive email
Enter new password.
Log onto EA site. Notice there is some name not connected with my email. Never mind.
Lots of guff about how I can log onto Origins using my EA password.
Validate email address.
Receive email and click the validate link.
Hooray. Now I can order.

Next day - receipt with pre-order registration instructions.
Log onto the SW:TOR site to register - OK, I have an ID there, I can do that.
Now download the origins downloader and log in to origins.
Install the thing and start it.
It doesn't recognise my password.
Click on reset password.
Get email with code.
Enter reset code. Not recognised.
Cut'n'paste put a space on the end. Remove space.
Enter new password. Twice.
Not valid - must be between 8 and 16 characters. IT IS!!!
Try various passwords using combinations of characters, numbers, punctuation.

Go back to the EA site - I still seem to be logged on.
Go to help. Nothing helpful.
Go to contact us. Please log on using your screen name - WTF is that??
Try the odd name noticed earlier. No help.
Click the "recover my screen name". Enter email address. Nothing received.
Try again. Nothing. Again - too many attempts, try later.

EA!

[Bunk]

That pretty much would be the reason for my plan of pre-ordering at Gamestop and waiting a few months before touching anything account wise.

[Shatter]

Hey you can get it for $299 now

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005B8DRVU

sold!

[01101010]

Video game speculators... how quaint.

[Sky]

Not sure why people are replying like that to the topic of wow multiboxing. Do a GIS. It's nothing new, hell I dualboxed in UO and EQ. But the larger numbers of WoW and low sys reqs translate to a whole lot of boxers.

That's not even counting the gold farmers and spammers, which I'm sure Blizz is counting in their sub numbers.

[Paelos]

DAOC buffbots. 

[Merusk]

Not sure why people are replying like that to the topic of wow multiboxing. Do a GIS. It's nothing new, hell I dualboxed in UO and EQ. But the larger numbers of WoW and low sys reqs translate to a whole lot of boxers.

That's not even counting the gold farmers and spammers, which I'm sure Blizz is counting in their sub numbers.

Ah, we see your confusion now.  Lots of images != rampant, as you put it.   There's multi-boxers as there are in any game, but it's not enough of WoW's playerbase to be seen as anything but a novelty/ oddity when you come across one.   On my entire battlegroup (6 servers) I've only seen 4 people multibox in the entire time I've played WoW.

Plus, it's not like EQ where you did it to maintain sanity.  The guys I've seen doing it always run 5 of the same character - typically a shaman.  Maybe you'll get 4 shaman and a tank of some sort for PvE.  However, you're not seeing legions of guys running PvE encounters that way.   Even in PVP it's only useful if you want to roll PUGs in battlegrounds. Organized teams will eat them alive because they're one-trick-ponies with a very big alpha.

There's the one guy who runs 25-man raids with his wife, but he's such an oddity that you may as well say everyone who multiboxed in EQ had a similar bedroom-dungeon setup as that one freak whose pictures were going around in 2001.

[FieryBalrog]

I've come across maybe 7 or 8 multiboxers across 4 servers in 6 years of WoW. The idea that it accounts for a significant chunk of WoW's NA/EU subs is pretty laughable- people still treated them as a novelty even 3 months ago when I quit playing. You know, you can run around any given server for yourself and immediately get an idea of how many multiboxers there are; they're not exactly hard to spot.  

This just sounds like the typical kotaku commenter "lol WoW subs r fake = 50% gold farmers lol" (not that Blizzard would give a flying toss, its still $)

[Sky]

Well, I didn't play WoW much after launch, so I'm going on my experience in EQ2 and now Rift. I see at least a few dualboxers on Rift every night.

This just sounds like the typical kotaku commenter

Aren't you cute?

[Surlyboi]

Can we keep him?

[Sky]

Well, I was making a side point about subs vs actual players (not bots, not boxers, not gold merchants/slaves) and rampant wasn't a word I chose after much careful consideration. I disagree with the notion that there has ever been 11 million people playing WoW concurrently. But the main point of total # of subs, I guess they all count.

And just to clarify, I am definitely saying that half of all WoW subs are gold farmers. The other half are raid 20-boxers. There are actually 6 people playing WoW in the world.

[Surlyboi]

And all six of them will now descend upon you with righteous anger and vengeance to smite you for your heresy against the One True Game.

[Rasix]

All of your cool kid snarkiness doesn't stop you from being wrong.  

Sky made a dumb comment about WoW based on his extensive time playing EQ2 and Rift.  Yah, let's flay the lurker over that.  How about we just move on instead?

edit: in != and.  I type good.

[Paelos]

All of your cool kid snarkiness doesn't stop you from being wrong.  

Sky made a dumb comment about WoW based on his extensive time playing EQ2 in Rift.  Yah, let's flay the lurker over that.  How about we just move on instead?

Cheer up, it's Friday!

Also, yeah both points were meaningless.

[kildorn]

Logging in to Origin for a laugh to check the preorder system.

First note: So there's a game cost, and a preorder cost. The preorder cost does not seem to be a down payment needed, it actually appears to be an additional fee for ordering early?

Second note: lol, your new store apparently cannot process orders for your products, and it just makes a long assed queue. Hah.

[Rasix]

Gives you a lot of confidence in the account servers when the game goes live, doesn't it?

[Surlyboi]

All of your cool kid snarkiness doesn't stop you from being wrong.  

Sky made a dumb comment about WoW based on his extensive time playing EQ2 and Rift.  Yah, let's flay the lurker over that.  How about we just move on instead?

edit: in != and.  I type good.

Didn't say I was right, just waited for a snarky response to my snarky response. Which you provided quite quickly. 

[kildorn]

We have received your login request. Based on our estimates you will receive your login token. You will receive a character selection screen within 48 hours.

[01101010]

Can't wait till you have to login to queue to login in order to get in queue to play. 

[luckton]

New trailer showing off quite a bit of new combat footage of every class, in a montage fashion that attempts to drive the hype to super-epic proportions   

[Merusk]

Second note: lol, your new store apparently cannot process orders for your products, and it just makes a long assed queue. Hah.

So is this based on people not getting charged, or just not recognizing all the people who preordered?  All they can do right now is put the hold on your card. It's illegal for them to submit the whole charge until the product is actually available.

[01101010]

Wait, so imperial agents get an orbital strike? ... hmm, that might be interesting. 

[kildorn]

Second note: lol, your new store apparently cannot process orders for your products, and it just makes a long assed queue. Hah.

So is this based on people not getting charged, or just not recognizing all the people who preordered?  All they can do right now is put the hold on your card. It's illegal for them to submit the whole charge until the product is actually available.

It's the text on the origin store page when you go to order. Once ordered, it processes pretty fast, they just have a "GIVE US 48 HOURS LOL" message up still. They do not charge your card until the order goes through, I just find it hilarious.

It also gives you a note when you order that "by our estimates, your preorder will probably be processed!"

[Murgos]

Logging in to Origin for a laugh to check the preorder system.

First note: So there's a game cost, and a preorder cost. The preorder cost does not seem to be a down payment needed, it actually appears to be an additional fee for ordering early?

Second note: lol, your new store apparently cannot process orders for your products, and it just makes a long assed queue. Hah.

Uh, no.  Not one word of this is true.

Really, what's the point?  I mean, fuck Origin.  But really, at least be honest.

[kildorn]

Logging in to Origin for a laugh to check the preorder system.

First note: So there's a game cost, and a preorder cost. The preorder cost does not seem to be a down payment needed, it actually appears to be an additional fee for ordering early?

Second note: lol, your new store apparently cannot process orders for your products, and it just makes a long assed queue. Hah.

Uh, no.  Not one word of this is true.

Really, what's the point?  I mean, fuck Origin.  But really, at least be honest.

Every word of that was true. The first was an impression of the store's purchase page (would you like me to screencap it? Preorder is a line item, worth $5 on the digital deluxe version, and is added to the total. If this means the core game is reduced by $5 fine, but it looks from a line item basis like an additional fucking charge)

The second is the entire HALF A PAGE text at the top of the page when you click the preorder link.

[kildorn]

Here, the paste from the order confirmation email:

Product SKU: 71185
Product Name: STAR WARS(TM): The Old Republic(TM) Digital Deluxe Edition Pre-Order
Qty Ordered: 1
Amount: $5.00


Product SKU: 71199
Product Name: STAR WARS(TM): The Old Republic(TM) Digital Deluxe Edition (Pre-Ordered)
Anticipated Released Date: Targeting Holiday 2011
Qty Ordered: 1
Amount: $74.99


The preorder is it's own SKU, priced at $5.

edit: the text of the top of the preorder page on origin:

Due to high demand and limited quantities of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™,
the pre-order process will be as follows:
1Complete the order form below.
2You will be sent an email confirming your pre-order request has been received.
3Pre-order requests will be processed in the order they are received, while quantities last.
4An email will be sent within 48 hours to let you know if your pre-order request was successful.
If your request is successful, your credit card will be charged for the pre-order. Your card will be charged for the price of the edition you ordered when the game is released. If you have questions, please see our pre-order FAQ.

[jakonovski]

Also this:

Dude on Neogaf confirmed from EA support that if you buy after release, the game will indeed be 5 monetary units of your choice lower.