Star Wars: The Old Republic is in a Year Far, Far Away

Massively has put together a two-page editorial suggesting that BioWare didn’t intend to announce Star Wars: The Old Republic until E3 2009, and that the game shouldn’t be expected before 2011.

The shockingly high production quality of the developer dispatch videos certainly rings true of an MMO that’s closer to release than suspected. BioWare has done such an amazing job at making it look as though they’re deep into development, but looks are very deceiving. A game of this magnitude definitely requires a respectable amount of time. Even Blizzard reportedly took four-to-five years to nurture World of Warcraft into release state. Presuming SWTOR has been in development since BioWare Austin was announced in March of 2006, the game has been in development for a little over three years.

So other than those already given, why do I think the game isn’t coming until the first half of 2011?

While BioWare was wise enough to hire skilled, veteran developers at their Austin studio, they also had the foresight to keep the game a secret as long as possible. Since EA’s chief executive, John Riccitiello, casually revealed the game out of nowhere to a business-focused news outlet, something tells me their hand was shown earlier than they’d have liked. It’s likely that, originally, the game was set to be revealed to the public at this year’s E3 event.

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If holiday 2010 was the prime release window, we would — at a minimum — know some specific core MMO features. Heck, nobody even has a clue as to whether or not BioWare plans on enacting the “Holy Trinity” approach to group dynamics, let alone what Jedi variations players can select. Truthfully, a lot of this game appears to be evolutionary, and the voice work is undoubtedly revolutionary at least in vision. As much as I’d love for the game to release in late 2010, the scope of this its design, funding and third-party involvement alter the odds to such a low percentage that, were it to occur, would astound me more than SWTOR’s actual existence.

That may sound like quite the resounding final statement, but there’s a bit more to this topic: Blizzard.

BioWare, Electronic Arts and LucasArts are fully aware of the competition. Everyone has to be; this is a business after all. When fighting an opponent, a winning blow depends on timing as much as it does strength or skill. You can bet your blood that everyone over at camp SWTOR is aware of an impending third World of Warcraft expansion (likely to land sometime in 2011) and the much bigger threat Blizzard’s sophomore effort. Obviously, their second MMO isn’t happening for a while. I mention it because of SWTOR’s first expansion the sooner the game is released, the sooner its first, ever-so-tempting expansion can come out as well.