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.

Early today, Gamasutra revealed that BioWare and LucasArts will be utilizing Monolith Software for their IT management. They believe Monolith will provide a server monitoring solution with the customization and speed required by an MMO on the scale of Star Wars: The Old Republic™ come launch. Quoting Gamasutra's Eric Caoili:


Hat tip to Chronium.

This week's DevTracker Highlights discuss what the developers prefer to play, video capturing, hints on upcoming videos, and more after the jump.

GTTV is promoting an exclusive behind the scenes making of a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer. The footage will be part of a slew of E3 world premieres set for broadcast this Friday at 11PM. Inside the promo we recognized a few of the team members of Blur, the studio that brought you the original Deceived trailer.

UPDATE: BioWare's Sean Dahlberg announced the following today:


New TOR-related items are also available from the Star Wars Shop, and a countdown clock is appearing as part of the SWTOR.com homepage Flash animation as well.

In related industry news, Gamasutra is reporting Epic Games China CEO Paul Meegan is LucasArts' new president, filling the vacancy left by Darrell Rodriguez.

The teaser image for E3 happens to be a logo for the Havoc squad, possibly alluding to the content of the trailer.


Credit to Poseidon on the image.

BioWare's Sean Dahlberg confirmed there was a press event in the UK the past day or two:

BioWare recently revealed a new section of the HoloNet titled Inhabitants. This section of the Star Wars: The Old Republic official site is dedicated to the NPCs and mobs we will encounter in-game, broken up into three subcategories: Creatures, Droids, and Humanoids. In addition to new screenshots and animations, each entry contains few paragraphs dedicated to the mob's defining traits and features. We took a closer look at the writing on these pages (both English and Aurebesh), picking specific statements that inspired gameplay speculation.

A couple weeks ago we were our first look at the new Blood of the Empire webcomic. As we learned with Threat of Peace, these comics are a wellspring of clues about Star Wars: The Old Republic. Always hungry for any information on TOR, we dug into the new comic to see what we could find.

The big announcement for Star Wars Day came from LucasArts' official Twitter and Facebook: The Force Unleashed 2 will release on October 26, 2010.

From all of us at Darth Hater, May The Fourth Be With You always!

We previously touched on our opinion regarding BioWare and LucasArts focusing on avoiding common MMO problems as a basis of our speculation articles. Many of the common problems relating to the retention success and failures were highlighted in BioWare Austin's Co-Studio Director Gordon Walton and consultant Scott Hartsman's GDC session, "MMO Retention -- Learning From The First 25 Years." During the talk, these industry veterans provided some insight into possible retention strategies in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We spent over a month listening to this presentation, debating all of its points, and dissecting it to find all the clues we believe are hidden within.

While talking with Jake Neri about the Trooper, we decided to use the opportunity to gather more information about Star Wars: The Old Republic. The LucasArts producer offered what limited insight he could into BioWare's James Ohlen and his recent comments on endgame.

Official Star Wars: The Old Republic Twitter feed included some interesting news about this year's E3 Expo:


E3 Expo is June 15 through June 17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

In the shameless plug department, if you want to support Darth Hater's coverage of E3 Expo and other conventions this year, then please help us out with a donation.

Official forum poster armenak reported that while taking a casual glance at this year's E3 Expo Exhibitor List, he noticed both LucasArts and BioWare's parent company Electronic Arts booked their meeting rooms.

Although there isn't a booth confirmation yet listed, both meeting rooms are in close proximity to one another: LucasArts will be in Meeting Room 404AB, while Electronic Arts booked Room 406AB, and no one is listed for Room 405 yet.

E3 Expo is June 15-17 at the LA Convention Center.