Star Wars: The Old Republic server queues expected for foreseeable future

Star Wars fans have been waiting years for The Old Republic, which makes it particularly cruel that the game finally launched yesterday and the first thing many players had to do was wait in line to join the game on crowded servers. Electronic Arts and BioWare are well aware of the problem, but in a post on the game's official forums yesterday, senior online community manager Stephen Reid explained why it might not get better anytime soon.

"We're monitoring all of our servers around the clock, and we're raising server population caps where required," Reid said. "However, to ensure our long-term goals of server stability and healthy populations, we do not want to raise population caps too rapidly. We want incoming players to populate lower population servers."

Providing some additional incentive for newcomers to hop on board the game's more sparsely populated servers, Reid explained that the busiest servers are nearing their absolute population caps and are likely to have constant queues, even during off-peak times. As for those who have already started playing on one of the busier servers, their frustration isn't likely to be alleviated anytime soon.

"At this time, we can only ask for your patience," Reid said. "Population caps are being gradually raised on these servers, but raising them too fast will create an influx of new players and perpetuate the problem. We do not expect the queues to alleviate on these servers for the foreseeable future."

Reid also said the developers are working on a character transfer ability so players can move to a new server, but there is no estimated time of arrival for that feature. However, one thing that will be addressed shortly, according to Reid, is a problem where players in line who get disconnected need to reenter the queue from the end of the line.

Because of the long queues to enter a game, EA and BioWare are advising players not to create new characters on the following busy servers:

The Harbinger--US West Coast--PVE
The Swiftsure--US West Coast--PVP
The Fatman--US East Coast--PVP
Bloodworthy--EU English--PVP
Frostclaw--EU English--PVE
Legions of Lettow--EU English--PVP
The Red Eclipse--EU English--PVE
Tomb of Freedom Nadd--EU English--PVP
Darth Revan's Mask--EU German--PVP
Darth Traya--EU German--PVP
Jar'Kai Sword--EU German--PVP
Hrakert Rift--EU French--PVP