The official SWTOR site has updated with details on early access for pre-orders - link to article - sounds like the game will launch earlier than anticipated!
Early Game Access for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is only a few days away! Starting December 13, 2011, The Old Republic will begin emailing invitations to start your Early Game Access. Invitations will be sent throughout the Early Game Access period offering rolling access to the game in the order in which you redeemed your Pre-Order Code, so be sure to check your email inbox!
Early Game Access may be up to 7 days. The length of your Early Game Access depends on the date and order in which you redeemed your Pre-Order Code.
From the e-mail -
Early Game Access will begin on December 13th at 7:00AM EST, 2011 and ends on December 19th, 2011 at 10:01PM EST.
From the FAQ - for those without early access -
Star Wars: The Old Republic officially launches on December 20th, 2011 at 12:01AM EST
There's been lots of Australians & New Zealanders asking about when it may/will get released here on the SWTOR forums, and Bioware/EA have no answer yet. I'm not waiting any longer than I have to - after playing the beta over 2 weekends, it's hard enough waiting a week or two until release!
I've heard people playing this on their 5-year old pcs, and still running it fine - I encourage everyone interested in the game to check the minimum specs, it is a fantastic game
FAQ - mimimum system requirements -
Processor:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or better
Operating System:
Windows XP or later
RAM:
Windows XP: 1.5GB RAM
Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB RAM
Note: PCs using a built-in graphical chipset are recommended to have 2GB of RAM.
Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better. Examples include:
ATI X1800 or better
nVidia 7800 or better
Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better
DVD-ROM drive – 8x speed or better (required for installation from physical editions only) Internet connection required to play.
Ah well, it looks like the grace period hopes have been pretty much dashed. Bioware is going to try and get online retailers to ship things out earlier, but those of us furtherest away from the Amazon.com warehouses might end up experiencing a gap between the early-game access and the point where we can enter our standard/main access game code.
Bioware wrote:We've been listening, and after doing another deep review of our platform infrastructure, we're taking action. Today, we're announcing a two day grace period for Star Wars: The Old Republic customers.
Yay, got 6 characters set up on The Harbinger server too - got all the names I wanted Now to pick which ones to focus on first - in the beta I played jedi consular, jedi knight, sith inquisitor and smuggler, but I went ahead and created a bounty hunter & sith warrior too. I may play the trooper and agent later, we'll see. 6 is more than enough for now!
Really happy Amazon has agreed to start shipping orders on Dec 15th, in an effort to get everyone their physical copies before the launch on Dec 20th - along with the 2 day grace period they've just announced, we should have uninterupted game time
Now to pick which ones to focus on first - in the beta I played jedi consular, jedi knight, sith inquisitor and smuggler, but I went ahead and created a bounty hunter & sith warrior too. I may play the trooper and agent later, we'll see. 6 is more than enough for now!