Quick quotes: BioWare had MMO "back up plans" in case SWTOR negotiations fell through

"We had backup plans. In all, the design team was like three of us at that point, in total. So we were looking at doing a Lord of the Rings MMO, a Silmarillion MMO, a kind of a Gunslinger-esque Dark Tower MMO, a Game of Thrones MMO. When we were first were deciding on what kind of game we were going to build, I really wanted to do a story-based massively multiplayer game because hey, it hadn’t been done before. I thought: 'hey, good way to innovate' – that’s what Bioware stands for and that’s what we’re good at. We had an in-built fanbase with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In fact, when you ask our fans 'what kind of MMO would you like us to build?' they almost always say 'how about Knights of the Old Republic massively multiplayer game?'" - SWTOR director James Ohlen to PC Gamer.