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.

A few months ago we got a not-so-subtle tip from Rob Chestney that the Threat of Peace webcomic is an important asset for internet detectives following Star Wars: The Old Republic. For us here at Darth Hater, we see it as a relatively untapped well of gameplay and story information, possibly rivaling the Holonet. To this end we thought it might be a good idea to look at some of the more unusual or interesting clues that may be hidden in the art and story of the comic. Hit the jump for a fresh look at the Threat of Peace.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

The Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor class forums are now online. The existence of these forums will finally put to rest the claim of them being a hoax.


You can find their respective class forums here.

Update: Sean's Update regarding the Consular and Inquisitor -

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.