Wow, what a period of 24 hours it’s been. Since the launch of the SWTOR pre-order scheme, with it’s exclusion of Oceanic areas, Asia and South America (as well as parts of Europe), it’s fair to say the reaction has been…animated. The official forums have a rather large thread on the issue, and there’s no shortage of activity on Facebook (including a protest) and Twitter. It’s always difficult to summarise a situation as fluid as this, but here it goes:

1. You can order box copies of SWTOR from online retailers in the US or anywhere willing to sell them. Reports are that the Collector’s edition is sold out across most online retailers.

2. Although Bioware’s Stephen Reid gave some encouragement on the abilility to play the game if you get a copy, he’s put some disclaimers around it in the past 30 minutes:

3. Oceanic retailers who have listed pre-orders appear not to have any basis in fact for assuming deliveries of the game at this stage.

4. There is absolutely no information on when there would be local availability and when full access to the game would occur.

So there you have it – it seems there’ll be no further update until around 24 hours time i.e. after another day of Comic Con is done. We’re devoting tomorrow’s Flash Point podcast to the issue and we’re investigating a live stream so stay tuned.

Well, pre-orders for Star Wars: The Old Republic are now up and running, and unfortunately for any Oceanic players, there’s no local options for us to take part. The pre-orders offer three options:

1. Collector’s Edition

As mentioned yesterday this is a mighty nice piece of gear. A whole bunch of US / UK and European options are given, but none for Asia, South America or Oceanic players.

2. Digital pre-order via EA’s Origin Service

This graphic says it all if you try this route as an Oceanic player:

3. ‘Normal’ boxed edition

See point 1.

Some key points

Aside from the obvious disappointment, there’s some key issues that need to be emphasised:

a. This does not mean we won’t be able to play the game: you can obviously order the game from overseas. I’ve asked Bioware to confirm that such orders are valid i.e. that there’ll be no regional / IP block on regions taking part in playing. The Oceanic server issue seems a little optimistic at this stage to say the least – we’ll let you know of any response on the stance with ordering from overseas.

b. It appears there will be a staggered release: according to the pre-order FAQ:

c. No-one particularly cares but us: there is the reality of being part of a ‘smaller’ region. There’s just no urgency around this for anyone but the people affected. That said, South America and all of Asia are in the same boat.

d. If preordering from overseas: there’s a few glitches in the links to pre-order retailers. Amazon US’ site lists SWTOR as being for Mac and Windows. Amazon UK says it’s not available at all. Find a retailer that suits you and go from there. I’ve done a pre-order but with the full awareness of the (small) risk that I may not be able to play it if there’s some sort of regional block on playing. I still can’t see that happening though. This Tweet from Stephen Reid puts paid to the idea:

As does this follow-up to an Aussie SWTOR player’s question:

e. It’s just a game: I’ve already seen a lot of aggro over this issue expressed on the forums, Twitter and via emails we’ve received already today. It’s understandable but at the end of the day it’s a game. Don’t do anything rash and don’t make threats – that’s a surefire way to alienate people from the get-go.

As I mentioned above we’ve submitted some questions to Bioware on the issue. Given they’re in the middle of San Diego Comic Con I can’t see a prompt response but you never know.

Over to you: what’s your take on the situation?

Update: Stephen Reid has started a new thread on the SWTOR forums with this post:

To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe:

Today we’ve announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we’ve taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game. BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player.

Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we’re humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we’ll let you know.

We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.