Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend had a million hours of testing

These guys are always ready for combat.

Did you play The Old Republic last weekend? Well a lot of people did, and they managed to log over a million hours of play time in the space of a two day period. Bioware co-founders Dr Greg Zeschuk and Dr Ray Muzyka revealed the figure to Eurogamer saying: "It was a huge test, and there are even bigger ones coming. The key thing is for us to take those learnings, apply them and make the service really stable. We're happy with the game."

This reason for the large scale testing is simple, after seeing so many MMOs suffer through a problematic launch, Bioware are keen to make sure theirs goes off without a hitch: "Our goal is a smooth launch," said Muzyka. "We want to serve our players really well. We want to serve them with a great, stable, secure, high quality experience. That's our goal. We're doing everything we can."

For the same reason, pre-orders of the game are being carefully limited "One of the ways we can ensure the service is good is we're not selling beyond a certain point," said Zeschuck. "Like, at a certain point it'll sell out. We will release more units based on the stability of the service, then we will turn that dial carefully."

The number is set to get bigger too, with a massive stress testing weekend planned in the near future. If you haven't already been invited and want to try it out, check out our Old Republic beta key giveaway , you still have another day to enter and secure your place.

What are your memories of MMO launch days readers? Will The Old Republic manage a hassle free release?