Star Wars The Old Republic, nicknamed SWTOR, is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) videogame made by Bioware in conjunction with Lucasarts and distributed by EA. The game had been in development for years before finally launching officially on December 20th, 2011.
SWTOR shares a lot of things in common with other MMORPGs like WoW and Rift, but is different in many ways. Perhaps the biggest difference is the amount of work put into the game before launch. The voice acting in the game is amazing with hundreds of different unique voices. Each mission features dialogue with an actor and a wheel the player can select with their responses, allowing them to roleplay.
The companion system is also a huge part of SWTOR. Early on in the game your character can acquire a companion to help them out. These companions can heal, cause damage and act as a tank. The companions each have a different personality and are voiced by a different actor.
Your character can also have his or her own starship. This lets you move about the galaxy as well as have a place for your companions. Many classes get their own ship, although the Jedi classes share a ship, as do the Sith classes. There is also a ship minigame where you can perform space missions.
The different classes allow for a lot of flexibility in play style. The Republic and Empire both have four classes. The Empire has the Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent. The Republic has the Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler and Trooper. Each class is unique, has it's own mechanics and storyline. Each class has two advanced classes for the player to choose from and sports different talent builds such as healing, tanking or pure damage (DPS or damage per second).
The game also has what are what is called instances in WoW, but in SWTOR they're called flashpoints. This is where a group of players can get together to do group combat and take out tougher enemies.
Of course no MMORPG would be complete without PvP, and SWTOR has this in spades. SWTOR has what is called warzones (rather than battlegrounds in WoW).
As you can see, SWTOR offers a lot of things standard in an MMO. But the depth of gameplay and amount of story in the game is amazing. SWTOR should be the first MMO that actually has staying power. If you haven't already checked it out and you even remotely like the Star Wars universe, give it a shot!