If you ever used DKP in a raid to assign loot, then you should probably thank the guild Afterlife for inventing the system. Afterlife originally formed in 1999 as an Everquest raiding guild, and eventually migrated to World of Warcraft. The longtime group has several claims to fame: leader Thott created the Thottbot website, and Biny is the notorious Warlock who blew up the Auction House, causing Blizzard programmers to internally call certain bug fixes "Biny Code."

We sat down with Afterlife's Tabin, Attreus, and Biny to discuss their history and what they think Star Wars: The Old Republic needs to succeed.

The podcast team is on holiday break this week but we wanted to bring you something special to fill the void until next week's podcast. We have an audio interview with Darragh O'Farrell and Jake Neri of LucasArts. The questions/poll for this week's podcast will be held over for next week's episode. Next week's episode already looks to be a packed one. Until then, Happy Holidays.



Transcription of the audio interview is after the jump.

Note: Just because the podcast team is on break doesn't mean the editorial staff is. ;)

The history of the audio department at LucasArts is full of iconic video game moments. From Monkey Island to Knights of the Old Republic, the sounds coming from this studio tend to stand out. Thanks to Jake Neri, we were lucky enough to meet a few members of the LucasArts Audio Team while in California. In addition to a brief clip that will be featured on next week's podcast, they agreed to give us a written interview. We are pleased to bring you our interview with LucasArts on the audio of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

A couple weeks ago we released the first part of our interview with Jake Neri and now we can finally bring you the second half. We used many different sections of this interview in our other articles, but this is the complete transcript for context.

While we were in San Francisco we were able to talk with many of the employees working hard on Star Wars: The Old Republic. You got to hear us talk with Jake Neri, Producer at LucasArts, on the last podcast, and here is a preview of the second half of that interview. In this brief excerpt he describes the thought process behind the Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular.

Jake Neri: I think you know when we looked out at all the possibilities when we talk about Star Warsthere are lots and lots of directions we could go.

At the forefront of this we know there is a hearty passion for Jedi vs. Sith and that just seems to be a religion in a way. People are lining up Im gonna be Jedi, I hate Sith or Im gonna be Sith, I hate Jedi and so that maybe informed the decision a bit.

Mostly (in) Star Wars, a lot of it is about is about lightsabers and its about really amazing force abilities and it fit with what weve been trying to do from day one, which is to bring action packed star wars combat to a MMO. We really wanted to have the opportunity to challenge ourselves to do force classes that also had lightsabers and were effective somewhat with both. It was a natural thing. There is a tremendous amount of passion for the force and the force has been working so lets go with that So that is sort of how we got at that.


There was a lot of debate on this for a long time. I'm sure over time we will talk about things that didn't make the game, but there was plenty of other classes on the table. And at the end of the day, these just made the most sense. Were looking at having a round group of classes.

We talked a lot today about being able to customize your classes in a number of different directions. When you think of Sith Inquisitor, you're thinking about how were talking about him today in the Emperor Palpatine mold, the force lightning using guy. But as time goes on, we will show you other ways to customize that class that will give you a different gameplay style. We thought as core classes the Consular and the Inquisitor made the most sense. We thought they balanced well against the other two. You can think of the Jedi Knight and the Sith Warrior as more of a melee-style Jedi, and the other two maybe more of the ranged-style Jedi. I think it made a lot of sense.

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Keep an eye on your browser and watch for the full interview with Jake Neri,our impressions of the two classes, and a lot more. As soon as we can, we'll bring you the in depth, dissected coverage you have come to expect from us here at Darth Hater.

incgamers has a new interview with BioWare's James Ohlen on story and endgame raiding:


Hat tip to chillinvillain.

We had the chance to sit down with Jake Neri, Producer at LucasArts for Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the immanent Holonet announcement of the Imperial Agent, Jake Neri was able to give us some insight on the workings of this truly unique class.

Interview after the jump.

Gamespot has a new Q&A with BioWare's director of production Dallas Dickinson and senior game designer William Wallace on the newly announced Jedi Knight class. The interview gives quite the insight on the way the Jedi Knight will work in combat as well as the story aspects of the world at large with the Jedi Knight. One comment in particular that caught our eye in the Q&A:

New interview with Sean Dahlberg, Community Manager of BioWare.

A lot of stuff we have heard before, but one that jumped out at me was confirming you will not be able to switch sides at release. He did not go deeply into this subject, but it seems that you will be either apart of the Empire or the Galactic Republic, and lightside/darkside will not change the sides.

Thanks Nizdeb for the link.

..and if you haven't seen them already two interviews from G4 at PAX -

Trooper Interview

Story Interview

In an interview from GamesCom that was just recently posted on GameReactor, Rich Vogel confirms the existence of Battlegrounds. No specifics on what form of battlegrounds or anything else so do not expect to find it here in this interview or this early in the development cycle.

We had the chance to get a quick interview with Tim Temmerman and Jake Neri of LucasArts to discuss the Republic Trooper gameplay that was shown in the second demonstration. This the audio version of the interview and as stated before the video versions of all of our interviews will be up after PAX so look forward to that later on. Thank you again to Tim Temmerman and Jake Neri of LucasArts for the interview. For now we hope you enjoy the audio form of this interview.

We had the incredibly special opportunity to speak with Dr Greg Zeschuk, VP of Bioware, on an assortment of topics. This the audio version of the interview and as stated before the video versions of all of our interviews will be up after PAX so look forward to that later on. Thank you again to Dr. Greg Zeschuk and the Bioware team for the interview. For now we hope you enjoy the audio form of this interview.



Text transcript after the jump, click read more to view it.