So... how does Early Access work with physical pre-orders?

[Snugglebutt]

I doubt they'll shut subscribers out entirely for a week just for not having the expansion on pre-order. In my experience, you can still access the base game regardless of having the expansions or not, you're just not able to access the expansion areas or any of the expansion content. So 3.0 without early access would be exactly like the latest 2.x patch except with people around you dinging 60 and dark knights running around and whatnot. You just wouldn't have access to those things yourself until after the early access period was over and you could buy and install the expansion yourself.

Although the first week or so probably will be pretty rocky, with bugs, emergency maintenances and all. So there will be that down time. But I doubt it would be significant.

I am thinking the same thing, what you described is what I assumed will actually happen.