The Rakghouls are just starting to rise in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but BioWare has plenty of other pots on the stove for future content. In a new interview, game director James Ohlen discusses the team's plans moving into the next update and beyond through 2013.

The first major update focused on performance, while updates to game systems are being mostly saved for the the second update in March. The team is also working on a a second part of the Rise of the Rakghouls storyline, and a new planet called Denova, which will include a new Operation, a new Warzone, and possibly a new space mission.

Taking the longer view, Ohlen describes a few chunks of content that various sub-teams are working on. "In terms of game systems we're releasing the full Legacy system," he said. "It's a system that really benefits players who like to play alts - instead of having characters who have no relation to each other you can create a family, and when you're playing any member of that family you earn experience points for your Legacy tree. Those then unlock abilities and perks that help improve all your characters. I think that's going to be popular. Characters can be related to your main character in all kinds of ways."

Another team is working on new guild features, like Guild Banks, due with the March update. "Then we have a team focused on Player vs Player," he continued. "There's obviously a strong community of PvP guys, and we want to make sure that they feel that they're getting additional stuff to do. So we have them focussed not only on adding new Warzones, but also adding new systems and new functionalities. The first thing that PvP fans are going to see is PvP rankings; you're going to be able to compare yourself against other players."

So just how far is BioWare thinking ahead? Ohlen told CVG that "We have people working on content that won't be showing up in the game until 2013," says Ohlen. "We have writers already finishing off content for that, so I can already play through stuff from 2013 content - just not with voiceovers." He says the complexity of their content requires them to take a long-term approach.

Check out our extended impressions of the game for more details on how the adventure is shaping up in its current state.