Last week, LucasArts & BioWare extended an invitation to Darth Hater for another round of Star Wars: The Old Republic hands-on game play at the beautiful Presidio campus in San Francisco. Eager to take another look, Meg and I left GDC and made our way to Lucasfilm where we were treated to playing Level 6 Troopers on Ord Mantell, and also spoke in depth with Jake Neri of LucasArts and Daniel Erickson of BioWare.

While attending GDC last week, Darth Hater was fortunate enough to be invited out to the LucasArts office in San Francisco for a hands-on demo featuring the Trooper class. After finishing our time with the game we spoke with Daniel Erickson, Star Wars: The Old Republic's lead writer about the classes, their stories, and a few of the choices players will be facing in game.

This week's update is a Developer Blog. As Sean Dahlberg said:


After reading this blog, a few new people might be interested in playing a Jedi Consular. After you have finished reading this blog, feel free to check out our Afterlife Interview and our Timeline Synopsis if you haven't already.

In a previous article, we presented a chart showing the depth of customization players might expect after making the path choice in Star Wars: The Old Republic. BioWare's RPG signature usually includes foreshadowing an important decision with prior experiences and choices made during one's personal story, so the major decision of path choice shouldn't result in a surprise. Although we expressed our opinion of the depth and variety of customization that should exist after making this permanent decision, we didn't detail how we suspect you will initially acquire and progressively improve skills in what we call the "core class." Therefore, we here at Darth Hater decided to elaborate on our prior class combat speculations and delve deeper into what we feel "core class" really means.

The holonet for the second to last class, the Jedi Consular, is now up:


Sean also said in another thread that the Sith Inquistors page will be going up next week. Go check out this new Jedi class, and have your worries about having to wear a funny hat, put at ease. The latest issue of Threat of Peace was also released today. Have fun reading and searching for clues

Today is the day The Information Extravaganza has begun Below you will find links to all of the articles posted on December 3rd pertaining to what we learned at LucasArts about Star Wars: The Old Republic. This includes information regarding the Jedi Consular, Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler class trees, second part of our interview with Jake Neri, other general information learned during the hands-on demo, and our take on the four force users debate.

The final class announced for the Sith Empire is the Sith Inquisitor. This force user is based off of Count Dooku and Emperor Palpatine, and excels at the use of electricity to dispose of anything standing in its way. Unlike the Consular, who seems to prefer a more tactical approach to combat, the Inquisitor doesn't mind quickly getting into the thick of things. This powerful class is skilled at using lightning to leave charred destruction in its wake.

The final class for the Galactic Republic is the Jedi Consular. Based off of Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi, this force user is skilled in the use of a lightsaber, but focuses on force powers to help defeat his foes. The Jedi Consular is a master of telekinesis and telepathy, wielding the force like puppeteer strings attached to his enemies.

Character advancement and customization are integral parts of all RPGs and many titles have succeeded or failed solely because of their approach to these mechanics. For over a year now, we have waited patiently for the first hints of how we will customize our characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic and now the first official clues are being revealed. During our time at LucasArts we were able to see a small example of how advancement and customization will be handled in TOR.

Arguably the greatest rift in the Star Wars: The Old Republic community came from the possibility, now reality, of four of the eight classes as force users. This discussion spawned shortly after the Sith Warrior was released and described as a melee focused class, and only grew in intensity. Having nearly a month to think about this design choice, we felt it was important to weigh in with our opinion.

So the cat is officially out of the bag for the two remaining Star Wars: The Old Republic classes: the Jedi Consular and the Sith Inquisitor. This fills out all of the careers in the game, and the reaction to the last two reveals has been interesting to say the least. Over at the official forums, there is a veritable hotbed of opinions about the last two classes, from crushing disappointment, to concern over debate on no clear healing classes, to outright wild notions (that might be trolling). In other words, there's a lot of the typical MMO community reaction to any kind of definitive announcement; that, my dear friends, is a blend of mass hysteria and crazy jumping to conclusions.

A couple days agowe reported that a German gaming publication called PC Games was featuring Star Wars: The Old Republicas a cover story. Donner, a commenter on our site and the one who originally notified us of the article, is reporting the main feature of the December issue does indeed reveal the last two classes as being the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor.

Donner informed us that, after visiting a local gas station, he was able to retrieve a copy of the anticipated magazine. He also noted that the featured article not only lists the two classes, but also a small series of possible names from those classes' abilities. Additionally we have been provided scans of the issue in question and they appear to be authentic, however we are unable to reproduce the images on our site. Stay turned to Darth Hater and we'll try to keep you up to date as information comes in from Germany.