Honestly I don't even know how other MMOs besides Defiance did it, do they generally do a "midnight" launch? I'm wondering if TESO may have one also or if thats not something MMOs every really do, and they just pop the servers up during the day sometime.

Some do..even all of WoW's expansions had midnight launches. Some games opt out of those and might allow everyone to download the game beforehand with a pre order code so everyone is on even terms..then have them enter the retail code later to keep playing

I've never seen midnight releases. What I've seen in EVERY mmorpg is that you take the day off. You start patching and trying to log in at some point in the morning/noon. Eventually you get in. Some time between 12 and 4pm EST.

Mal

of course it'd be midnight somewhere around the world when the game gets out lol

Depends on where you live. WoW did midnight launches but because the European servers are based in Paris it was more like a 1AM launch.