I am looking forward to The Old Republic, but have to admit that I'm not "blown away" by it. There are just some... to be polite I'll say "questionable"... design mechanics that, in my own opinion, will relegate The Old Republic as the pinnacle refinement and swan song of the last generation of MMO design instead of the dawn of a bold new era in MMO gaming.
If it weren't for the promise of BioWare's signature care to story, I'll be completely honest, I'd probably pass up SW:TOR because it's just a lot of the same-old, same-old. When MikeyNY told me about the "Legacy" system and the implementation of the "last name" as a server-wide last name, all I could think was, "Really?! What is this, Everquest?! This is utterly stupid."
For those of you who don't know, way back in the day, Ultima Online had the flexibility to create a proper name for your character (e.g. John Doe). When EQ released, they couldn't handle spaces in the name, and you had to achieve level 15 (an several-month-long process) to "earn" a surname that was displayed like a title.
I don't recall Luke having to become a Jedi Master before he became a Skywalker. I know this particular feature is such a minor detail, but to me it's indicative of an "old school" mindset that just saturates nearly all mechanics of the game.
If they were focused more on grafting an MMO onto Star Wars, there should have been an effort made so that we could make the next "Boba Fett" or "Han Solo" or "Qui Gon Jin." Instead, to me, it seems like they tried to graft Star Wars onto an MMO so you're going to wind up with a million "it3rw3bzNam3s".
I came up with the monniker "Dakon Kor" for my Commando character because it seemed so perfect in the Star Wars universe. Instead it's looking like I'll be stuck with "Kor" the Commando and "Dakon" the Smuggler. It just feels like something is missing.
Sorry... I'll get off my soap box.
I guess my point is this... I'm really looking forward to digging deeply into another series of BioWare stories in SW:TOR. I just wish it had a better underlying system than it does right now. You can bet I'll be playing when it releases,(and expect that I'll be putting in the better part of 15-20 hours a week), I'm just not chomping at the bit to play like I was with recent games like Assassin's Creed, Saints Row and am for upcoming games like Mass Effect 3 and Guild Wars 2.