It appears that August is interview season for those of us following Star Wars: The Old Republic. We recently had some excellent face time during Celebration V, and this trend continues in Germany with James Ohlen. In our first interview from Gamescom, James gives us insight into why there are advanced classes, who they are designing PVP for, and what we can expect from space combat.

Celebration V supplied us with a great deal of insight into the creative minds behind Star Wars: The Old Republic. We talked with writers Drew Karpyshyn and Hall Hood about creating stories and concept artists Clint Young and Arnie Jorgensen about crafting visuals, adding a great deal to our understanding of the minds behind the game. As our final interview from Florida, we sat down with marketing specialists Leo Olebe from BioWare and Rob Cowles from LucasArts to learn a little more about Friday updates, media assets, community input, and herding cats.

Star Wars Celebration V allowed us to talk with multiple members of the LucasArts and Bioware teams; many of which, such as Clint Young and Hall Hood, joined us for their first official Darth Hater interview. Now we add to that list with BioWare's Lead Concept Artist Arnie Jorgensen. Read on to learn about concept art, as well as the loot and levels in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The Star Wars: The Old Republic development team was out in full force at Celebration V, and Darth Hater was there to hear what they had to say. Over the weekend we learned a great deal from writers Drew Karpyshyn and Hall Hood, and now our interview blitz continues with BioWare concept artist Clint Young. Hit the jump to learn just what it takes to craft art for The Old Republic.

We sat down with BioWare writer Hall Hood to get a behind-the-scenes look at the motivations behind the Smuggler class. Read on to get a peek at how factions are designed, and what goes into creating world stories arcs on the various planets.

As an addendum to yesterday's reveal of the Jedi Sentinel and Jedi Guardian, we were about to wrangle some additional details about the Jedi Knight class from Drew Karpyshyn, BioWare's Lead Writer.

Read on for the follow up to our Comic-Con interview with him to find out his take on what went into creating the Jedi Knight, and debunking the perceived Sith bias in BioWare and LucasArts' marketing efforts.

Star Wars™ authors were out in force at the San Diego Comic-Con, and we were on hand to pry as much information from them as we could. In addition to Sean Williams, we sat down with BioWare staple Drew Karpyshyn to learn more about crafting stories for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

After attending the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Comic-Con panel, we met up with Sean Williams, the writer of the new Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ novel Fatal Alliance. We were lucky enough to ask the Australian author a few questions about his new book and what it is like to work on the expanding narrative of The Old Republic™.


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Transcription of the interview after the jump.

GameSpot added to today's musical theme with a video focusing on composing the music for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. This video focuses on the nuts and bolts of creating the themes players will see in game and offers a great deal of insight into the minds behind the music. Although the video does not contain any gameplay footage, there are plenty of interesting comments for any audiophiles in the community. When you combine this series of interviews with today's update, anyone who loves the sounds of Star Wars may want to consider today an official holiday. For those of you that are looking for more information on the audio of The Old Republic, be sure to read our own interview with the LucasArts audio team.

Possible planet reveal after the jump.

We were honored to gain more insight regarding class design, group sizes, character progression, and other topics from James Ohlen, Creative Director and Lead Designer of Star Wars: The Old Republic™. As the game is still under development, we must warn you that some specifics mentioned about particular systems are subject to change after undergoing significant testing. An example of this is the combat systems for the Trooper changing to become something more fitting to the class in almost three months between our hands-on game play sessions, and the mysterious disappearance of double bladed lightsabers in the Sith Warrior HoloNet outfitting screenshots.

For the reason behind the latter and more, read on.

We had the pleasure to interview Daniel Erickson of BioWare about companions, warzones, player ships, party dynamics, and more.


The video portion is above, and the transcription is after the jump. Enjoy.

As BioWare's Sean Dahlberg said about Star Wars: The Old Republic activities for E3:


DH E3 Content:

...the Darth Hater team will have coverage from on-site at E3, and in-depth looks at the official updates every day.

Monday, June 21 at 6p PST / 9p EST - Live Q&A with the Darth Hater team on our Vent server to answer all of your questions. Set your Ventrilo client to vent.darthhater.com with port 26166 in order to participate.


No true Hater would be without proper attire, so we decided to make available for purchase to the general public four of the eight shirt designs the team is wearing at E3. Click on your favorite Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG pillar to purchase.

Story	Exploration
Combat	Progression