No need to jump down the guy's throat, everyone - not everybody is familiar with the extended lore of the Star Wars franchise. Hell, since they decided to keep the technology consistent with what you see in the two trilogies, it's probably that much harder to figure out that this takes place so much further in the past than the movies. Now, to the OP - as everyone has said, Old Republic takes place an even longer time away in a galaxy far, far away, but substantially after the events of the Knights of the Old Republic games and comics (If you haven't played the games at least, I'd definitely recommend them - they're a bit old, but are still great older BioWare RPGs! In this part of the whole SW continuity, the story revolves around the war between the Galactic Empire and the Republic, as well as the actions of the sith lord Revan - I won't go into too much detail about him as it's a bit spoilery, but you'll hear a handful of references to him at the very least in the Sith storylines on SWTOR. So nope, no Vader, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie or C3PO, but if it were in that timeline, you wouldn't be able to play a Jedi or Sith either, since they're all basically extinct.