On the 19th of December, Bioware Austin hosted one of four midnight launch events, at a south Austin Best Buy.

Celebrating the release of Bioware’s highly anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic, upwards of 700 fans descended upon the Best Buy. Various Bioware employees were also in attendance, including senior members of the community team, David Bass and Stephen Reid. Seeing this as an opportunity to interact with other members of the SWTOR community, I took it upon myself to stop by the launch party.

Since December 13th, fans who pre-ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic have been able to enjoy the game, thanks to Bioware’s Early Game Access. Hundreds of thousands of players have flocked to SWTOR, leaving many servers full with additional players waiting in queues. And while many might be bothered by the queues, there are those who see them as a good sign.

It already appears as if SWTOR has become an instant success. Many have to wonder why though. What is it exactly about SWTOR that has made it so popular? How has this game, that has yet to even launch, become so huge?

For months now, Star Wars: The Old Republic has been in an ever-improving beta test. Build after build has been deployed on the beta servers for testers to tear through, and all the while, the game’s release date has crept closer. Sadly, nothing lasts forever.

Last week, Bioware sent out emails inviting a small group of people to participate in the final beta testing weekend. Shortly afterwards, devs posted an announcement about the end of the entire beta testing program. At 11:59 PM CST on Sunday the 4th of December, beta testing ended. However, with early access less than two weeks away, it won’t be long before people return to a galaxy far, far away.

The beta’s end is a bittersweet event to some though.

If you’ve been following Star Wars: The Old Republic lately, you are probably aware of the fact that Bioware has officially lifted its NDA. Thanks to this announcement, a tidal wave of information has been flooding the internet. From crafting to companions, sites are reporting on many of the key features that exist in SWTOR. One of those features is Flashpoints.

For those who are unfamiliar with what a Flashpoint is, it is the SWTOR name for a dungeon or instance. Typically, a group of two to four players is needed in order to complete a Flashpoint due to its higher difficulty level.

The first Flashpoint that Republic players will encounter is The Esseles, a two player Flashpoint.

If you have ever played an MMO before, then you’ve probably become familiar with the genre’s terminology. Things like AOE, cleave, and LOS are just standard vocabulary to MMO players, but Star Wars: The Old Republic isn’t just your standard MMO.

With Pre-Orders speculated to be over a million, SWTOR’s launch is going to be huge. However, not everyone coming to SWTOR is going to be your average gamer. The Old Republic is actually expected to pull in many first time MMO players; players that will be completely unfamiliar with many of the terms and concepts that are MMO norms. That is why veterans that are coming to SWTOR need to realize that they have certain responsibilities. We are going to be the teachers in SWTOR. If we want to help the game be successful, and want people to enjoy a positive community, we have to help our fellow players understand things instead of trolling or bashing.

Early last week, Bioware invited thirteen fansites to take part in the second Star Wars: The Old Republic Fansite Summit. Dubbed SWTOUR by the community team, this particular summit was going to focus on not only the game, but also the post launch community, that has been growing around SWTOR.

Representatives from the fansites descended upon Bioware’s studio in Austin, Texas this past Sunday, and Force Junkies was proud to be one of the fansites in attendance. Now as a writer for Force Junkies, an officer in Mos Eisley Radio’s guild (MER was also attending) and as a resident of the awesome city that is Austin; I was lucky to have the opportunity to hang out with all the fansites Monday night. It was without a doubt an amazing experience.

Back in July, when Bioware announced the various editions of Star Wars: The Old Republic that would be coming out, they also dropped another bit of information on an unsuspecting public. If you took the time to pre-order SWTOR, you would also be given a code to enter on SWTOR.com, which would grant you early access to the game. So if you Pre-Ordered the game, you would be able to play it before the official launch.

What Bioware didn’t clarify was exactly how early that access would be, until just recently that is. Bioware’s most recent announcement, that Early Game Access can last up to five days depending on when you entered your Pre-Order code, now provides us with the maximum length of time that people will be allowed to play the game before the December 20th release.

Most people seem to be happy about getting to play sooner, however there have been some problems, though they appear to be more because of retailers than Bioware.

For quite a while now, fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic have known the eight classes that will be available to play when the game launches in December. What many others might not know or fully understand though is that the class you start the game off with doesn’t actually determine the role you are going to play later in SWTOR.

More important than your starting class, is the advanced class, which you select upon reaching level ten. Given this particular method of class selection, a person is not limited to just four classes per faction. In fact, both the Republic and the Sith Empire will have eight classes a piece that a player can choose to play. Each starting class has two possible advanced classes that can be chosen.