News: A million nerd voices silenced, for now

IGN is reporting that during a conference call, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello was asked to discuss the company's upcoming plans for next year, and briefly mentioned its "major MMO" title, presumably Star Wars: The Old Republic.

After a couple of call-backs and updates, Bioware confirmed that Star Wars, The Old Republic has a target launch date of Spring 2011. Sean Dahlberg posted this information on the official forums.

Now I must admit that I am really split on a Star Wars MMO. The part of me that has enjoyed Bioware games thinks that the game has potential to be a really good game. Having the game set long before the movies allows for a lot of freedom in story telling. The first KOTOR game was a good game. A little too easy once lightsabers came into play, but a good game none the less.

My reservations come into game balance. With half of the character classes having force powers, I really don't see how any semblance of class balance can be maintained with PVP combat between the force classes and the non-force classes. Not that it will matter when the game launches. So many of the people that manage to get into the game will be playing a force character that it won't be an issue to start. I already went through this with one MMO, I am not sure I would go through it with another.