BioWare MMO has been in planning for over 10 years

Star Wars: The Old Republic is ambitious, but maybe we don't know just how much. Speaking in San Francisco last week, BioWare boss Ray Muzyka told VG247 that the Canadian firm had been planning an MMO for more than ten years.

"We've been thinking of making an MMO for probably over a decade," he said. "At BioWare we tend to have long-term plans."

Working to such long scales is necessary to keep the developer's output at an "awesome" level, said Ray.

"We want to make sure that everything we do is awesome, really high quality," he added.

"So what we did was assemble a great team, a mix of some of the best people from the MMO space and some of the best people from BioWare Edmonton who focused on BioWare RPGs, and put them together: that's our Austin team.

"It's really a fusion of the best of breed from both sides of the industry."

Ray told us that BioWare has now staffed up to a roster of almost 500 employees, and that The Old Republic is a major deal for the company.

"This is an incredibly significant product for BioWare," he said.

"I said in the presentation, 'People ask us why we didn't do KOTOR 3?' For us this is KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9: it's that big in terms of the amount of content. It's that ambitious in terms of the scale, and the interactions of the players with the world and the universe."

Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced last week in California. No date's on the game as yet.