Upcoming MMORPG: Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR) is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game based in the Star Wars universe. The story takes place in the Star Wars fictional universe shortly after the establishment of a tenuous peace between the re-emergent Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, 300 years after the events of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games and more than 3,500 years before the events in the Star Wars films. The Jedi are held responsible for the success of the Sith and choose to relocate from Coruscant to Tython, where the Jedi order had been initially founded, to seek guidance from the Force. The Sith control Korriban, where they re-established a Sith Academy. The game begins as new conflicts arise.

A collaborative effort between Bioware, Lucasarts and Dark Horse Comics has resulted in a webcomic entitled "Star Wars: The Old Republic: Threat of Peace", the purpose of which is to set up the story as the game opens.

The Galactic Republic stood for generations as a bastion of peace in a galaxy of warring star systems. Protected by its stalwart Jedi guardians, the Republic held the greatest hope for the progress of civilization and galactic unity. Deep in unknown space, however, a mighty Sith Empire was forged, led by dark Sith Lords who dreamt of galactic domination and vengeance against their ancient Jedi enemies. After centuries of preparation, the time came for the Sith to make their return. With a massive fleet and an awe-inspiring army of fearless troops, the Sith Emperor launched a surprise assault, quickly capturing dozens of worlds in the Outer Rim, and sparking a war unlike any other in the galaxy’s history. From the frozen wastes of Ilum to the desert plains of Dathomir, violent battles killed untold millions. Despite its avowed neutrality, surface structures on the water-covered world of Manaan were completely destroyed, forcing the Selkath to retreat to their ocean underworld. Other star systems fared worse—some destroyed, others left uninhabitable. The carnage concluded with the Sith Empire sacking the Republic's capital planet of Coruscant and forcing the Republic Senate into the controversial Treaty of Coruscant. In the years since the treaty, fear and uncertainty have gripped the galaxy, enabling the Sith Emperor to pursue his own mysterious purposes while the Republic has made efforts to rebuild its infrastructure and adjust military priorities to the new galactic landscape. Now, tensions between the Republic and the Empire are running high, and a series of border skirmishes and proxy wars have broken out, even on planets as historically peaceful as Alderaan. The uneasy truce established by the Treaty of Coruscant is quickly tearing apart at the seams, and a return to all-out war has begun in all but official terms. A new generation of heroes, both light and dark, emerges to face the difficulties of these chaotic times, and fight for the fate of the galaxy in this most desperate age.

Members of the two main factions—the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire—will have different moralities; the project's key focus is to differentiate between the player's faction and morality. Each faction will contain different classes, each with a distinct backstory and a branching storyline affected by players' moral choices. Classes will also be exclusive to one faction or the other. All eight of the classes have been confirmed: the Bounty Hunter,Sith Warrior,Imperial Agent, and Sith Inquisitor for the Sith Empire; and the Trooper, Smuggler,Jedi Knight, and Jedi Consular for the Galactic Republic. Although each class will have a distinct storyline, they will be integrated with the game's overall arc.

Unlike traditional MMORPGs, classes in the Old Republic are not limited to the typical archetypes (healer, tank, dps, etc...). Bioware has stated that each class will support on-the-fly customization that will allow any class to fill any role within a party, eliminating the need to spam channels in search of a specific class needed to fill a role within a group, which can delay or outright stop parties from completing group quests. While the classes in The Old Republic will still be guilded toward a certain play style (be it ranged, melee, or otherwise), customization combined with companion characters will make for having a class be able to tackle many different situations, with or without the support of other player characters, and without requiring specific other classes in order to move forward.

Players' choices will permanently open or close storylines and affect players' non-player character (NPC) companions. The game's developers believe that the game will provide more context for characters' missions and quests than other MMORPGs offer. Every character in the game, including the player character, will feature full voice dialog to enhance gameplay, and interactions with those characters will feature a dialogue system similar to that used in the Mass Effect series. Players will be able to choose from a variety of NPCs, although spending time with a single companion will help more in developing story and content than dividing time among several, and may even develop a love interest. It is possible for players to "blow it big time" if they fail to meet NPCs' expectation. Players will also have access to dozens of planets, including Korriban, Ord Mantell, Nal Hutta, Tython, Coruscant,Balmorra,Alderaan,Tatooine,Dromund Kaas,and Taris.

The Old Republic marks BioWare's first entry into the MMORPG market, and it will be the second Star Wars MMORPG after Star Wars Galaxies. BioWare had long been interested in working on a MMORPG, but waited until they had "the right partners, the right team, and the right I.P." A major focus in the game is on developing characters' individual stories and, in October 2008, BioWare considered this game to have more story content than all of their other games combined. The writing team, which has been working on the game longer than any other developers,includes 12 full-time writers, some of whom have worked on the project for more than two years. The game's first cinematic trailer, "Deceived," was shown at the Electronic Arts 2009 E3 Press Conference on June 1, 2009. A public live demo was shown for the first time at the Gamescom. On September 29, 2009, Bioware announced that they would be accepting applications for testers from the game community. Within minutes, the official website was down due to traffic, and Bioware announced shortly after that the site was being changed in order to accommodate the increase in visitors. No date was given in regard to when the selected testers would be allowed to test the game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Old_Republic