explain how the stuff in the Star Wars preorders work.
Firstly, the physical stuff you get in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector's Edition
("CE") is fairly self-explanatory: you get an expensive Darth Malgus statue, the soundtrack, a map, a book, an authenticator to help you log-in securely. The ethereal in-game stuff needs more explaining.
Note: most of the in-game stuff comes with pre-ordering the CE and the Digital Deluxe Edition.
If you preorder the standard edition of SWTOR
you get the Color Stone and Early Access.The Color Stone
Lightsabers and blasters have sockets built-in to them that you can slot items into to change the color of their visual effects. For lightsabers they change the color of the blade, for blasters they change the color of the blaster fire. It was hinted this past week that the preorder stone would provide a golden yellow base color with a glowy black outline. What I don't know yet is how many stones you get. Do you only get a single stone per account, per server, or per character?
Early Access
People who preorder can access the game before it actually launches. The exact window isn't known right now, but early leaks mentioned 6 days for the CE and 3 days for other preorders. That has changed now - the access won't be based on which version you bought, buy when you redeemed your preorder code. Players that preorded in these first couple weeks will probably get in a couple days earlier and preorders coming later will get a lesser amount of headstart.
Flare Gun
This should be exactly what it sounds like. It will most likely just be a clickable item that has a flare-shooting animation. This wouldn't really have any real purpose other than to be a perk of preordering and being something neat to spice up screenshots.
The flare gun should make launch week a little more colorful, as entire guilds will be getting together and spitting streams of fire into the sky like it's the 4th of July. Take some pictures...
Holo Cam
This is not an in-game video recording device like a built-in fraps program, although that would be amazing. So what is it? Supposedly it just takes still pictures. The angle behind this seems ...murky, all players can already use Print Screen button to take screenshots. So what purpose does the Holo Cam serve? It could be another "noncombat companion", just a little floating cam droid that follows you around like you're a pantyless Britney Spears.
It would be nice if it automatically took screenshots of memorable moments - hitting level 5, 10, 15; completing important stories, discovering things, killing bosses. Games like BioWare's Dragon Age and SOE's Vanguard had features like this, automatically uploading the pictures to your online profile.
Training Droid
A lot of people read the description about it offering "combat assistance" and assumed this meant that it literally is a little helper bot somehow. Perhaps it's just a training dummy you can test attacks on. Maybe it does axtually help you by firing little lasers at your target. If it's really anything like the training remote from the movie, it helps you by firing lasers at your face.
Either way, don't expect too much of an actual boost in combat performance. That would give players who paid more an unfair advantage. If it does actually help you at all in combat, it might be something like a laser bolt that does like 1 damage every 6 seconds or something. I would bet it's more in the category of a vanity companion.
Mouse Droid
This should be nothing more than a vanity pet. It will follow you around, maybe it will occasionally beep at you. (This is exclusive to the Collector's Edition).
HoloDancer
Another neat little animation-in-a-bottle like the Flare Gun. I kind of wish they restricted this to your starship - like a sort of housing decoration. Instead, you'll see Jedi gawking at and dancing with blue holographic phantom strippers randomly all across your adventures. Why?
Why not? Portable babe-in-a-box.
STAP
A pretty cool-looking exclusive mount. As I understand it now, it won't be an early advantage like the preorder mounts in 'Rift'. You probably won't be able to acquire and/or ride the thing until you pay for your proper mount-riding training.
CE Store
This is the other exclusive from the Collector's Edition, and the one that ruffles some feathers. The store itself is an in-game location that's only accessible to players who preordered the CE. The vendor supposedly will sell gear that does have stats but won't have any other advantage over other items at the same level. It's supposed to be purely cosmetic - you'd wear the CE gear because it looks different than run-of-the-mill quest reward gear.
