The Old Republic confirmed for a December 20 release, pricing structure revealed

As we explained yesterday, Diablo's delay gave way to a completely open holiday season for The Old Republic to flourish in. Without it, there's really no competition when it comes to online RPGs on the PCs. Needless to say, we're really happy that EA decided to take advantage of this sudden opening. The only caveat is the strange release date. December 20 is cutting it really close to the holidays; especially for a game that will likely have a flaky first week (if past releases in the genre are any indication).

It’s possible that BioWare is trying to really play up the importance of the “early access” bonus that comes with pre-orders of the game. BioWare hasn’t yet announced exactly how much of a head-start players who pre-order will get, but as long as it’s more than a week we expect to see the number of pre-orders shoot up dramatically. Getting to jump in a few days early is helpful enough as is, but getting to log in the first or second week of December? That makes it a necessity.