Blizzard sees it as "a fact" that BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC) will be a great game. From the house of the world's largest game, that's quite a compliment, but COO Paul Sams was quick to offer some advice to the Austin, TX, studio looking to become Blizzard's rival.

Sams warned that BioWare may not be expecting "players smacking them around"--no doubt in reference to an unforgiving Internet public--according to VideoGamer.com. The Blizzard executive also reminded BioWare of the online issues that plague MMO launches.

Star Wars: The Old Republic was finally announced in October

Thanks to the company's Battle.net service, "we had a level of experience that candidly no other game company had and so a lot of the bumps and bruises that we got would have been substantially, monumentally worse," said Sams of the experience of launching World of Warcraft.

Even for the accomplished BioWare, Sams implied that launching an MMO could still be an uphill battle. "You can have a great developer and you can have a great license but that's not it. Those are two of the key components to give you a shot, and so they [BioWare] have that for sure."

Speaking on Blizzard's next MMO, Sams reiterated Blizzard's intention not to make the new game a sequel to World of Warcraft. "There's no details about it at this point, but while we're doing it that does not suggest that it has to be a sequel," he said.

Instead, the 11-million-strong MMO will continue receiving expansions "for so long as there's a meaningful number of players that are interested in playing it."

Little is known about Blizzard's still-under-wraps "next-gen MMO" other than it is "cool, and new, and different," and potentially headed to consoles.