[Gogan]

Early Access is for those who pre-ordered the game and registered their pre-order code at swtor.com.

Depending on when you registered your code, you'll get 1-7 days of early access game time. They're going to email people as they unlock access for them. That is, you'll get an email as soon as your account has been provided early access. Those emails will start to go out tomorrow at 7am EST. Apparently they'll be inviting people in waves throughout the day, and throughout the next 7 days.

Come Dec 20, you'll need to register your purchased game code in order to keep playing. So if you ordered your collector's edition from, say, Amazon, and don't receive it until 12/25, you'll be locked out for 5 days.

Frankly, this whole early access thing is just a big mess imo. They're only doing it so they don't fall over trying to accomodate everyone all at once on 12/20.