Actual Confirmation – No Region IP block

Soeren Kamper forum post, News, release date
When it comes to region blocks and no SWTOR on initial release to certain areas of the globe, there have been many, many questions. Allison Berryman, Senior Community Coordinator for SWTOR attempted to clear up some of the questions on the official SWTOR forums.
In a post from earlier, Berryman explains:
“Hello everyone. We know that you have questions about this topic, and we hope to have more clarification for you all very soon. For those who may not have seen Stephen Reid’s tweets from this weekend regarding some of these subjects, I’d like to share that information here.

Regarding whether the game will block players from some regions by IP address: currently, there is no plan to block players from the game by regional IP blocking. Playing on servers physically distant from your location might mean you experience some issues with latency, but at this time we don’t plan on blocking players from a region by IP. On a similar note, anyone who pre-orders the game (and redeems their code) would receive the early access that is part of that pre-order.

We are continuing to investigate payment methods (specifically regarding credit cards billing addresses), and should have a definitive answer on the topic very soon.

I know you’ve probably seen this link a ton already, but please make sure to consult the pre-order FAQ if you have any questions related to pre-order (aside from these that we’re investigating). We really appreciate your patience as we get more information for you.”

But that’s not all well and good for some folks. Some people are looking for demanding answers that BioWare just isn’t giving out right now. For example, the story first leaked of this delay to certain areas about a month ago. (We covered it ourselves here.) So why didn’t BioWare issue an official statement on it at that time?
Some fans want an apology for the pre-orders being pushed to their region only to try to sign up and find out it was not available to them. Was there no way to filter the marketing so that it went only to people in regions that would have the game available to them at the time?
Some fans don’t feel the actions of BioWare on this issue and leading up to this issue show good customer support and worry what this could indicate for the future. What do you think? Are you in an area affected by the launch delay? Were you targeted with a pre-order ad or email? How could BioWare have handled this whole issue better?

Author

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    Soeren Kamper is the founder of StarWars: Gamers and a longtime Star Wars writer, community builder, and gaming journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering Star Wars games and fandom. He began writing about Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2008, later co-founding the SWTOR wiki and founding the SWTOR subreddit, and became an early, active figure in the game’s community. His hands-on involvement led to invitations from BioWare Austin and participation in SWTOR events during the game’s launch era. His work is grounded in long-term franchise knowledge, firsthand gaming experience, and deep roots in the Star Wars community.

Soeren Kamper

Soeren Kamper is the founder of StarWars: Gamers and a longtime Star Wars writer, community builder, and gaming journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering Star Wars games and fandom. He began writing about Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2008, later co-founding the SWTOR wiki and founding the SWTOR subreddit, and became an early, active figure in the game’s community. His hands-on involvement led to invitations from BioWare Austin and participation in SWTOR events during the game’s launch era. His work is grounded in long-term franchise knowledge, firsthand gaming experience, and deep roots in the Star Wars community.