Darth Hater is back at PAX in full force with our in-depth coverage of everything related to Star Wars: The Old Republic. If you are attending, then please note our meetup is Saturday at Gameworks Seattle from 8PM until at least 10PM, and that is the event to be at to get your Darth Hater buttons. Remember to look for the Darth Hater shirts to identify the team on the show floor and all other events throughout the convention. If you manage to get your hands on the game in any of the sessions, please share your commentary and thoughts with the rest of the Hater community on our official thread.

Here is the current schedule (all times are PDT), and keep your eyes on this post throughout the convention for round the clock updates (and please remember to watch our @realdarthhater Twitter feed, as we'll tweet any major updates there too so you don't break your F5 button):







If you wish for us to include links to PAX interviews from other sources, then please post the link as a comment to this article and we'll include it in the roundup section here.

Kotaku, Gamasutra, and the LA Times are reporting significant restructuring at LucasArts with approximately one third of its staff suffering layoffs. LA Times updated its initial article to state that the layoffs majorly affected game programmers, and excluded its marketing department. Kotaku's Micheal McWhertor reports "an estimated 60 people let go from development and 25 from external production and QA getting the employment vibro-ax."

At the moment it is uncertain what effect, if any, this news will have on The Old Republic. However, it is always unfortunate when people lose their jobs. We here at Darth Hater wish the best of luck to all those affected by this news.

Episode 50 "Chocodiles and Insurance Rates" of the Darth Hater Podcast is now live. Check the bottom of the post for the stream and download links. Podcast notes after the jump.


Download

This week's Friday Update for Star Wars: The Old Republic brings us the continuing adventures of Teneb Kel, Maggot, and Exal Kressh in Blood of the Empire #10. With a strong focus on companion characters, this issue continues to expand on the dynamics between the Sith and his slave.

For those of you looking for more information on the game, be sure to check out our forums for active discussions on all things TOR; including great debate on space combat, referenced planets, class abilities, and nearly any other relevant topic.

Noteworthy threads for the week of August 26th:

Ord Mantell (trooper start area) broken down in details and size. - Created by: wOOOOt and Hest

Buffed.de interviews with James Ohlen and Kevin Barrett - Created by: Angzt

My 45 minute hands-on experience with SWTOR @ GamesCom 2010 - Created by: Raul

Our European friends at SWTOR-Station appear to have images of most of the abilities leading up to level 46 for a few of the classes. The abilities themselves have exciting possibilities but the fact that these abilities seem to stop at level 46 lends more credence to the argument that level 50 could possibly be the cap (see our interview with Arnie Jorgensen for more). The important thing to remember with these abilities being seen is that this is not a complete list, these appear to be only the class shared abilities, meaning non-advanced class or tree abilities. Beyond abilities, there are images of a few of the origin world maps and more. Note: Make sure to click the British/American flag for English.

Hat tip to chronium on the heads up.

It is podcast time this week, and as always, we're looking for questions from the community. If you have any Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ or website related questions you would like to have answered on the podcast, then feel free to ask them in the comment section of this post.


This week's community poll/discussion after the jump.

Darth Hater currently has several open positions for those seeking to become a part of our team, get some potential exposure in the gaming industry, or just want to lend some time helping us follow Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Episode 49 "The Rule of 4" of the Darth Hater Podcast is now live. Check the bottom of the post for the stream and download links. Podcast notes after the jump.


Download

This week's Friday update is now online:


You will notice these Starships have been dissected from the Space Combat Video that came out earlier this week. As well as Starships there are new polls available for your perusal. The poll questions are:


As always, we look forward to seeing the results of the new polls.

There is also a Fan Friday featuring artwork from community members Wraloa and Kiuas, a fan-created video from Tukor, a showcase of a community RP thread, and more new avatars.

But most importantly, the Developer Corner outlined everything announced during our Gamescom presention about Advanced Classs (where we failed the "let's see how many data points we can write down in 20 seconds and if we can read our own handwriting" test -- self-depreciating humor there folks, but you can now see why we had some stuff missing), and new concept art that seems to show HK-47, or at the least a model of his same type.

Aurebesh translations after the jump.

We were able to have multiple members of the Darth Hater staff on hand to help compile the following ability stats at Gamescom. With the rushed nature of our hands on time, the consistency from one class to the next is understandably variable. Additionally, it should be noted that we were repeatedly reminded that all in-game text from character sheets to tooltips are considered "placeholder" and may be subject to change.

Note: We played Level 2 characters. Although we previously mentioned many abilities in prior dissections and other content, we included them to contrast and track changes between the various builds. Changes from one build to the next are highlighted in bold.

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.