Today star wars the old republic just announced they are going to allow players early pre loading to the game and early access. The early pre loading will allow players to download and install the game early. This is going to help them keep down the servers load when the game is officially released. Blizzard started doing this for all their games and it has been a huge success in terms of keeping server load low, and allowing players to get into the games right away on release date.
Bioware also announced that early access is going to be even earlier. Instead of the 15th for early access they have pushed it to the 13th of December. The reasoning is not 100% sure but it is rumored the staff have actually finished their patches 2 days in advance and they want to give something back to all those die hard players that have been waiting for this release.
If you haven't already done it, you should see if anyone has a collectors editions till for sale so you can start enjoying the game a full week before other players.
Source -
SWTOR