For me what would really rock is TOR having a south-east-asia or other oceanic realm for an Aussie like me. I am hoping that maybe the staggered release of US and AUS would mean a better chance for this.

I wouldn't hold your breath. I'd put money on any official Oceania servers being in the US. Lots of MMOs have looked at providing local servers, but it doesn't make any financial sense. Besides, TOR is quite playable on US servers from Oz.

@ MrMidas21: I'm living in Victoria and the server I'm on is located on the US west coast. I get ping ranging all the way from 190ms to 280ms if it gets bad. Not idea conditions, I realised that much, but it's not bad... Completely playable unless you're extremely impatient or really want to play PvP.

If it's PvP you're into, which I know a lot of people are, like DP said, no way the servers will be based on Australian soil, so you're most likely going to have to use some kind of tunnelling service to get better ping if you're really into that kind of thing.