Contrary to popular belief, George Lucas is rarely involved in any Expanded Universe Star Wars product. He's responsible for the movies, consulted a bit on the story for the first Force Unleashed game, and has a hand in the Clone Wars cartoon. Aside from that, the storylines for the endless myriad of novels, comics, and video games are left up to the respective authors/writers, with oversight provided by Lucas Licensing, a division of LucasFilm.
All you need to know about Star Wars: The Old Republic is that it's a Star Wars RPG made by BioWare. If you've played KotOR or Mass Effect, you know that BioWare knows how to make a space-RPG.