From another forum:
http://www.swtor.com/
The new PC Gamer that's supposed to come this week will likely have even more info.
lessons learned from Galaxies' checkered history will be applied to The Old Republicset in the time period of previous Knights of the Old Republic games as a sequel of sorts to those games — events occur some three centuries after KOTOR II — calling the MMO "Knights of the Old Republic 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12-plus
Two opposing factions, the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire, will also incorporate two paths, light side and dark side. You can play as the good guy in the bad place trying to do good things or the bad guy in the good place trying to do bad thingsSo far, the only classes confirmed are the Jedi and Sith, which will allow players to wield lightsabers and force powers "very early on," versus well into the game as was the case with the first KOTOR.
another possible class, the Republic Special Forces, "elite troopers [which] work often in conjunction with the Jedi." Concept art for the game also features assassin droids like the gleefully homicidal HK-47 from the first KOTOR, but it was unclear if they would be companions or playable classes.If you're a non-Jedi class, you'll be a very powerful version of that class
Ohlen also hinted that the game will be able to be nearly completely soloed -- "If you want to play through your epic story on your own, you can do that" -- but that the developers are going to "encourage" multiplayer.We have classes in the game, and every class has a different story. Every class has a story that will take you from the first level of the game to the last level of the game, and none of those stories are the same...
if you roll a Jedi character and you play them from the first level to the last level, and then you roll a Sith and you play them from the first, you will not see one repeated quest, line of dialogue, or piece of content. It is a 100% different story experience.We play huge heroes in the Star Wars universe, which means the war is important
The things you get to see are going to be dependent on who you're traveling with
What happened to Bastilla? This isn't stuff that we would ever shove into someone's face. People will be playing that have never played a KOTOR game, or have even watched a Star Wars movie. Just like we would for any fantasy game, [as a Jedi starting out] you go to Typhon, you train to be a Jedi, and you learn what it means to be a Jedi."The Old Republic game will feature "dozens" of worlds inhabited by players, including Coruscant, Tython, and Korriban, the Sith homeworld. Other planets mentioned in the announcement include Alderran, Utapau, Agamar, Dathomir, and Manaan, though their role in the game is unclearYou're 60 hours into the game on the light side, and you hit this huge choice. You know exactly what you want to do, and you look for the save button, and you realize there is no save button. I'm gonna make this choice, and this choice is going to be my choice forever. It makes not only the individualism of we're actually telling this story, but the power of making these choices stronger than they've ever been in any BioWare gameYou will never have a stranger ask you to save her cat. There are no bunnies. There are no rabbits. You are a Jedi. At no point will you be sitting down saying, okay, I have three buttons and a crystal. If I only had some thread, I could make some shoes
There will be craftingNo release date was given, with BioWare stressing that the game has no release window, though a past report suggested it would launch in 2009. The studio is "definitely planning" an open beta, BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk confirmed.The Old Republic will allow players to choose a companion, as with the previous KOTOR games, and will have full PVP, PVE and RVR (realm vs. realm) combat along with raids. No classes have been revealed as of yet.
When asked about subscriptions, BioWare claimed that it has no details at this time. When the topic of other consoles came up, the company stated that it is "only talking about PC today, that's all we have."
Though the company did not talk specific system requirements, lead designer Ohlen noted that "it's very reasonble. From the outset, and it was really a team-wide decision, from a design side we taked about framerate being a really important accessibility feature."Companion characters will function similar to the way the NPC allies did in the earlier Knights of the Old Republic games, acting as AI-controlled "companions." Players will only have one companion character out at a time, and they can be swapped in and out from the player's pool of allies.
"Companion characters--we want them to be more than pets," said creative designer James Ohlen. "We want them to be virtual friends. We want you to interact with them and become friends with them."
"You're gonna be able to customize your companion character in different ways," Ohlen continued. "Your companion characters are going to be leveling up and getting different equipment."
The designer also explained how players will actually shape the way their companion characters develop. "If you are a Sith, your companion character is going to develop a lot differently than if you leaned more toward the light side."
There will also be plenty of interaction between the player and the companions. "You'll be able to form friendships, romance companion characters, or even to trade them," added Ohlen.many BioWare fans were disappointed the series didn't return to its single-player RPG roots. "There are a lot of reasons why we decided not to do KOTOR 3, and why we decided to do this as an MMO instead," said Nichols. "The unique aspect of storytelling, which is really differentiated for this game, is something the KOTOR franchise did very well, and we felt that just doing a single-player experience with a new KOTOR really misses the opportunity to take this out to a much wider audience."This is all from around 10 different sources but the best stuff came from two shacknews articles:strong dramatic underpinning is what will set the Old Republic apart from competitors such as World of Warcraft. "What's really missing [in other MMOs] is context--why you're doing all these missions, why you're on this quest, why you're out killing 10 wolves," he asserted. "So story puts that in the context, and gives you a much more immersive experience where you're really building a stronger relationship with your online character than you would without it."
Star Wars MMO Lead Writer Talks Story Details - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads
BioWare Star Wars MMO: Companion Characters Explained - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads
Also gamespot has a pretty big interview:
Star Wars: The Old Republic revealed - PC News at GameSpot
that's awesome