I Have A Bioware Prediction

This is basically just for Travis but this is my position, based on nothing beyond my own female intuition - the Mass Effect Trilogy will be completed, SWTOR will come and go, and you will start to hear talks of a Mass Effect MMORPG....within the next five years. Run to your bookie and make the bet now.

I say this for a couple reasons.

First reason: the conflict of the Mass Effect arc cannot believably be solved in the way they've framed it.

Say what you want about Commander Shepard, but to think that even he alone is capable of taking on such an enormous foe as the Reapers is hard to sell as believable. One Reaper nearly destroyed the entire Citadel defense fleet alone, and the true might of the Reaper fleet is incalculably stronger than Sovereign. However, taking down insurmountable threats is an MMORPG staple. See: any of the bosses in WoW in the last three years. Also consider that the pacing of the MMO basically sets itself, as the Reapers have to travel to Council space from dark space without the assistance of the Citadel as a Mass Relay. In other words, they are not getting here tomorrow, and in the mean time they can use agents in their place to try to weaken the denizens of the known universe. Someone like, oh let's say the Collectors, which is essentially the entire plot of Mass Effect 2. It's not unreasonable to think that the Reapers have dozens of back-up plans in the case of Sovereign's and even the Collectors' failure. Indeed, the last lines you hear from Harbinger are, "You have failed. We will find another way."

One more thought on this: in the course of Mass Effect 2 you enter the shell of a millions of years-dead Reaper. Despite being dead, it still has the effect of warping the minds of whoever stays on it for too long. One crew log aboard this nameless Reaper has a man who says, "The god is dead, but it's still dreaming." In this regard, Reapers are likened to the level of Lovecraftian horrors (such as Cthulu), each one its own entity of terror and destruction. Alternatively, one might posit that because each Reaper is its own 'nation', that some Reapers may not be spurred to destroying everyone on the basis that this particular batch of civilization is more interesting in its defiance. A schism like that would be inadequately covered in a standard RPG but more than aptly covered by a well-put together MMO.

Second reason: SWTOR is not designed for longevity.

SWTOR by design appears to be a story-driven game. What does that mean? Well, that means that you'll get through the content and then sit and wait for more. If SWTOR is not end game-oriented as it seems to be, then either the team will have to write stories fast enough to keep players interested, consistently, and have it approved as canonical by LucasArts, or hope that the PVP turns out to be spectacular. A lot of their hopes are already pinned on the concept that everyone will play through all of the classes. WoW lives on throwing new, even crazier boss fights and locales at you on a semi-regular basis. While SWTOR has the crazy locales, if it's not boss-centric then it's hard to say the pacing of the game is going to be anything but quick.

Another problem that SWTOR faces is that it has to stay true to a universe Bioware did not create. While they have more experience in it than most, there are still certain things they won't be able to do, try, or manipulate the way they might want to. Not only that, but monetarily being part of a universe they don't own is always going to come out to be less money than they could be making with their own IP - like say Mass Effect, for example.

My theory then is that SWTOR is probably the unintentional (or possibly intentional) set of training wheels for Bioware. They've never made an MMO before, so everything they do with SWTOR will be a learning experience, and at the cost of the Star Wars franchise, which can stand mediocrity, as opposed to one of their own IPs that could be soiled by it. They will learn a million things in the course of SWTOR, in terms of player expectations, technological demands and financial structuring, alone. And SWTOR doesn't have to end badly, either. It could be a brilliant flash in the pan, a short-lived and well received hit. An MMO doesn't need longevity to be great; it just needs longevity to make money. I don't love WoW more just because I played it for four years, and to be honest it had periods after each expansion where it had basically outstayed its welcome, I only stuck around for the community. That last aspect is something that could easily be transferred to a more stable MMO...like, I dunno, say Mass Effect.

Reason number three: Mass Effect functions better as an MMO than a standard RPG.

The biggest problem Mass Effect has as an RPG is also potentially its greatest trait as an MMO: ambition. Look no further than the Citadel itself. As the hub of galactic civilization, it's the home of a thousand different races, a space-faring megacity where you could walk in one direction all day and not reach the end of the street. The novels depict it as constantly bustling with activity, crowds of thousands of faces every minute that you'll never see twice.

Then you see the Citadel in the games themselves. In the first Mass Effect, the entire Citadel is distilled into two areas that are underwhelming to say the least. All of that sense of scale you see as you are pulling up to the dock is lost the second you start moving around in the station itself. It has no grandiosity whatsoever. In Mass Effect 2, they seem to have realized this, but again, the Citadel seems small by virtue of being so closed off. Bioware was clever to use the conceit of "Sovereign rendered these sections damaged so you can't go there yet." That's a good way of reminding you that the rest of the station exists and is huge without letting you actually see it. They establish that sense of scale in the small area you do get to move around in; while only being three levels, it definitely feels far more like the Citadel as it was conceptualized than the first game.

In the previews for this game, you saw endless cityscapes and cars on multiple planes headed in all directions, reminiscent of Coruscant, which I took to be the Citadel. But this turned out to be a combination of the Citadel, Illium and Omega, all three of which feel one hundred times smaller than what they were written or dreamed to be. And understandable, because giant locations don't work for a standard RPG. It's too much disc space for a place you aren't going to get a lot of story-telling done in; RPGs don't use 'hubs' in the same way that MMOs do, typically, for this reason.

The same cannot be said of an MMO. The Citadel through the eyes of an MMO could realize its full scale, easily. You could have every level of every ward, the Presidium could be as large as they make it look like it is, everything could be to scale, or at least, closer to scale since a city that huge would basically be too difficult for the average player to navigate. Omega, Illium, Earth, the Migrant Fleet, these are all locations that could be given the space they need to become as vibrant as their potential. Instead of noting how constrained you are, you could actually go to all the places you can see, and marvel at what is given to you. I've always been a gamer who resented being shown things that I couldn't have, and geographically, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are the biggest cockteases I've ever played. They're both beautiful games that are frustrating because it feels like the framework of the game itself is holding you back from truly experiencing it. And it is.

Beyond that, the Mass Effect universe is inherently dangerous and thus ripe for MMO content. Batarians are almost universally extremist. The Krogan have a variety of means of overcoming the genophage. The Geth are split into two distinct factions, and neither one is necessarily friendly to organics. The Quarians, although friendly with Shepard, have an ENORMOUS fleet, as pointed out in Mass Effect: Ascension, which could conceivably be used to many ends, like maybe retaking their homeworld. This content almost writes itself at this point. Add to that the unlimited number of new alien species/interactions that can be added at any time and the already tense nature of the Citadel alone and you have conflict in some form or another constantly that works for an ongoing MMO for years, easily. And Mass Effect can work with the mechanics and end-game content system that WoW has championed and STILL be everything that SWTOR promises in terms of writing, voice acting and intellect. And, as has been previously mentioned, you don't have to have everything okayed by LucasArts because they have no say, and they won't be making any royalties.

Five years before you hear whispers and rumors that are legitimate about this AT THE MOST, if Bioware is as smart as they seem to be.

EDIT:
Hrm, I wonder what this could mean