Star Wars: The Old Republic project lead James Ohlen says the developer is working hard to be prepared for what could be "the biggest online launch in history".

He told Gamasutra the studio's currently polishing game systems and tutorials, while focusing on making sure the underlying tech is stable enough to ensure a smooth launch.

"The thing about a massively multiplayer game is that it's different from any other game out there, because you have this vast online community all over the world online at the same time, and you have to make sure there's no way for your game to be hacked.

"You have to have very strong security, your game has to stand up if you have hundreds of players in one zone at the same time. There's a lot of things that we've never had to worry about at BioWare before.

"And the fact is, because of the hype around the game right now, our launch numbers are predicting something really huge, which means we have to be ready for the biggest online launch in history essentially, which has made it really tough. We've been running a lot of tests, just making sure we're going to stand up when we launch."


Earlier this week BioWare reiterated that it's targeting a 2011 release for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but said delays are always a possibility when it comes to launching games of the MMO's scale.

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