It’s been a long time coming but BioWare has decided to start talking openly about its MMO set in the Star Wars universe. Star Wars: The Old Republic will follow the familiar conflict between the Republic and the Empire we’ve come to adore in a strange way. Taking place 300 years after Knights of the Old Republic, The Old Republic will build upon what made the single player game so enjoyable by putting more of an emphasis on character decisions and story in MMO form. BioWare says that this game will be its biggest endeavor yet. In fact it’ll be so big BioWare suggests we call it Knights of the Old Republic 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

A lot of the added size of the game comes through in the story. A typical MMO sort of makes us come up with our own side stories while the main plot is shared between everyone. In contrast, The Old Republic team is striving to make every class of character unique in terms of story progression. We can try to imagine an MMO that evokes emotion into us based on the story characteristics of a particular class. For instance what if we choose to be a bandit and we naturally despised the law? Or perhaps we are noble knights and every decision we made in the game was influenced by what it means to be a knight. Those kinds of things get us more involved in the moral choices The Old Republic will offer without it coaching us on what to do first. Of course we can choose to be the exact opposite of what our class stands for if we’re feeling deviant.

Since this is an MMO, it’s safe to assume traveling with other players is important for completing certain tasks. That said, BioWare isn’t going to force us to pal up with a random person if we don’t want to. Instead, we’ll be given A.I. characters to aid us throughout. BioWare hasn’t given any specifics on what those characters will be, but I’m hoping a sassy robot will be one of them. As more information comes out from BioWare regarding The Old Republic, you can bet we’ll dish it out pronto.