After years of speculation, LucasArts and BioWare have finally made their Star Wars MMORPG official.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will take place hundreds of years after the events of the first two Knights of the Old Republic titles, but will still be around 3,500 years before the Star Wars movies. The plot finds you in the middle of an unstable truce between the Sith and the Republic, who are "at peace" after several decades of warfare. Despite this truce, small skirmishes still take place, which will eventually lead to another all-out war. The two primary factions for the game will be the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, and BioWare has said The Old Republic will be a story-driven game that will distinguish it from other MMOs.

The Old Republic will be the second MMO based on the Star Wars IP, and has been in the works since at least 2006, when BioWare opened a new studio in Austin, TX whose sole purpose was to develop a new MMORPG. "Doing an MMO is something we've wanted to do for probably over a decade," said BioWare Co-Founder Ray Muzyka. "We wanted to wait until we had the right partners, the right team, and the right IP."

LucasArts executive producer Tom Nichols has been involved with the project since the beginning. "This project originated a couple years ago when BioWare spoke up and said, 'Hey, we'd love to do another project with you guys,'" explained Nichols. "We were thinking about working on new, additional projects in the online space, and Galaxies was three or four years old, and we started to look into the future about what we might want to do in the MMO genre. And I think the timing was pretty serendipitous that way, since BioWare wanted to work with us, they wanted to do an MMO, and they had a lot of experience playing MMOs."

Could The Old Republic be the real World of WarCraft killer? Despite Warhammer Online's impressive launch numbers (750,000 users and counting), the Star Wars universe could be a major attraction to many of WoWs 12 million+ subscribers. Either way, Electronic Arts admitted that the main reason they dropped $860 million on BioWare/Pandemic last year was to be co-owner of the then-unnamed MMO project.

Still, the new Star Wars MMO carries some risk; Sony's Star Wars Galaxies launched in 2003 and after a strong start, the game's subscriber base fell amid numerous changes and updates to the MMO, many of which upset fans and critics alike. In addition, science fiction-themed MMOs have not performed nearly as well as fantasy MMOs. Titles like Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa have failed to bring in the kind of subscribers that fantasy MMOs have attained.

Since both BioWare and Warhammer developer Mythic are under the EA umbrella, the companies are sharing tips and helping one another on their MMO projects. "We're actively consulting with EA Mythic and are huge fans of Warhammer Online," say Muzyka. "They've got lots of great technology and lots of great people and ideas. They're great people to talk to about making an awesome MMO experience, and we're definitely looking to them for inspiration." The Star Wars MMO could already be off to a promising start if Mythic is lending a hand in its development.

LucasArts, who recently took some flak from the PC Gaming Alliance for not releasing The Force Unleashed as a PC title, announced that The Old Republic will be PC-only but said the release date has yet to be determined.

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