We might have been aware, but there's nothing as exciting for Star Wars fans as an official announcement regarding a game based on the license. And when the companies behind the project are BioWare and LucasArts, the official announcement is always packed with interesting pieces of information regarding the upcoming product.

Let's face it, it's still early days for the project, but the developers are already pressing the fact that the MMO will be very different from anything that is on the market at the moment. There's heavy emphasis on the story in the game because BioWare are well known for creating extensive and deep role playing adventures, like the Baldur's Gate series and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Talking to Gamasutra at the official announcement event, Daniel Erickson, the lead writer on The Old Republic, said that “We can't really draw from the MMO tradition to communicate a story” because MMOs are not actually story driven games. BioWare is aiming to create a game where picking one character class basically means that you choose to play a role playing game which is centered on that class and is set in a world where other players are doing the same thing.

Erickson added that “when you pick the Sith class, you're essentially saying, 'I want to play the Sith RPG'”, which means that the players who enjoyed BioWare games up until know will naturally be drawn to it.

The developers also say that they have the full backing of Electronic Arts to take as much time as needed on development, because creating a complete game is more important than shipping on a certain date. Given BioWare's track record of releasing very good, deep, engaging games, we're really looking forward to seeing how the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO will shape up.