BioWare toys with Star Wars fans’ emotions, sends accidental beta email

Sorry, Old Republic fans, but BioWare giveth, and BioWare taketh away. The hype for the upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic has been fairly intense. After all, it takes two groups, both of which are populated by intelligent and eager fans that are typically very web savvy, and mixes them together. Fans of the developer BioWare and fans of Star Wars are both fairly well informed in general, so the cross section that is awaiting the upcoming MMORPG tend to be on top of details. And then BioWare goes and messes with their heads.

Yesterday an email found its way to the inboxes of several people that had signed up for the The Old Republic newsletters. The email was short and simple, and essentially asked what they thought so far of the beta. The problem is, the beta is open through invite only, so thousands of people suddenly assumed that they had missed their invitation.

Internet panic ensued.

Fans charged the game’s forums and frantically posted, wondering what kind of a cruel god would invite them to a beta but not send them the information needed to join. The crush of online comments was enough that fans actually broke BioWare’s forums. With the site down, fans were left to wonder why they had been forsaken. Keep in mind the people that received this email are those that actively went out of their way to sign up for information about the game because they are eagerly anticipating it.

The good news is that the forums are back up and the situation has been identified. The bad news is that the emails were sent accidentally, and if you haven’t received an invite, you probably aren’t going to.

BioWare issued a statement that Kotaku spotted, explaining the issue:

Earlier today, two e-mails were sent to members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic community. These e-mails were sent to a larger group than intended, and have caused some confusion in the community. We can confirm that these e-mails were from EA and BioWare and apologize for any confusion they have caused. Please note that receiving these e-mails does not affect your chances to be invited to test the game. Thank you all for your understanding!

While missing out on the beta may cause a disturbance in the force for many, the good news is fans won’t have to wait for long. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released on December 20.