Wrath of the Lich King has just been launched and MMO players are waiting to see how World of Warcraft will be changed by its second expansion. But the people at Blizzard, after putting the development cycle behind them, are thinking about the future of their game. And it seems that they are considering BioWare's and LucasArts' newly announced project, the Star Wars based The Old Republic, which is now in development and could be launched before 2010.

Paul Sams, who is the chief operation officer at Blizzard, told Eurogamer in a recent interview that he sees the Star Wars MMO as one of the biggest potential competitors to World of Warcraft. He stated that “They have as good a chance as anybody. I wouldn't bet against them, that's for sure. They are an excellent company and they're utilizing a well-known franchise as the backbone for that game. I think the combination of those two things bodes well for them, just because not everybody can say”.

One of the advantages that BioWare has in its endeavor is the fact that, financially speaking, they can afford to make some mistakes, as they have monetary backing from Electronic Arts. Sams admits that Blizzard is by no means a perfect company and that it has made numerous missteps while running World of Warcraft, but it has always come through because of the quality of the product they delivered.

The Old Republic will be set in the period in which the Knights of the Old Republic series also took place, several hundred years before the events of the Star Wars movies. BioWare is aiming to craft an experience which can accommodate solo play, while delivering the equivalent of a RPG's worth of dialog for each of the classes that will feature in their MMO.