This month, we talk to one of the guys behind the popular podcast site - darthhater.com as we look forward to the News Extravaganza on December 3rd.
Sado is on the right!1: What is your name?My name is Justin Lowe, also known as sado on the Interwebs.
2: What country do you live in? (you can get more specific then that if you’d like)I currently live in Miami, Florida – United States where I have been for all 24 years of my life.
3: What other mmo’s have you or are currently playing?I have played a plethora of MMOs over the years. The ones I most fondly remember are 10Six, Planetside, SWG (Pre-NGE), World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, and City of Heroes (before City of Villains). Lately I have been bouncing around a bunch of titles, such as Aion, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, and Eve Online; however, none of them really interest me enough to play them long-term. I seem to be in a rut with current MMOs where nothing out there appeals to me.
4: What feature are you most excited for in SW:TOR?I know the fans out there are going to crucify me for saying this, but I have to go with the story and environments. The characters and planets that we have seen so far really make me want to dig into the narrative. BioWare games always have such a rich and compelling story and it really has me wanting the game to come out already.
5: Are there any features that you aren’t too excited for?This might seem odd for me to say about a Star Wars game, but I couldn’t care less about getting to play a glow stick wielding character. We have already seen plenty of Star Wars games with force using characters, and I am currently a bit burnt out on the idea of playing a Sith or Jedi. I feel that force using characters are much less compelling story wise, when compared to their non-force using counterparts. That’s not to say I won’t enjoy hunting them down with my Bounty Hunter or Imperial Agent in game.
6: What character class do you believe will be the first one you try out?For a long time I was dead set on the Trooper. However, after the Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent were revealed I have started to like the possibility of playing one of those classes. I guess for me it all depends on which one is the least played at this point. I usually stick to the class that is the least played on my faction in MMOs because I like to feel at least somewhat unique in my class choice.
7: What kind of computer are you running?Custom. Currently the PC I am running is about a year and a half old. Running a Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz, 4 gigs of ram, 10,000 RPM WD Raptor drive, BFG 8800GTS 512mb, and a 4TB raid NAS. I might look at upgrading sometime soon, but I have plans on waiting for the DX11 cards to come out before I consider it. I always spend about 800 dollars on an upgrade and cycle out/sell the old parts putting the new ones in the case.
8: Do you own any consoles?I own all of the consoles. For those wondering my Xbox Live name is Zirak and PS3 name is sadonomic. I turn on my Wii probably once every year to play one or two games and then it goes back into hibernation. The PS3 has been getting some use lately, thanks in part to Uncharted 2, but if given the choice between the two consoles I always fall back to the Xbox 360. For me it’s not a question of whether one console is better than the other but more a question of if I have a group of friends to play with on that platform; so I choose the Xbox for the majority of the games. For those that don’t know, I have had sort of a torrid history with the Xbox with the story that was written about me ‘A Tale of 11 Broken Xbox 360s’ so the 360 as a platform for me has not been the most painless experience. Still, it remains my console of choice. The 60gb PS3, on the other hand, is still running fantastically till this day.
9:What are some of your other favorite games?I am an avid player of games on every platform whether it be PC, Wii, PS3, and 360. Right now Uncharted 2 takes up most of my time spent on the PS3. On the 360 I have been completely absorbed by Modern Warfare 2. The Wii has been in hibernation for the last 4+ months, but will likely come back out once the new Zelda and Mario Galaxy 2 come out. On the PC, Dragon Age takes up most of my time. Besides those current games my top 10 games of all time are Star Control 2, Deus Ex 1, Mass Effect, Kotor 1, Quake 3, Privateer, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Street Fighter 2: Turbo, and Super Metroid.
10: What’s your most memorable moment in the Star Wars saga?I don’t necessarily have a most memorable moment, but I do know that as far as Star Wars goes I have enjoyed the story of Kotor more then any other source, including the films. As far as I am concerned, I see Kotor as the best complete Star Wars story I have seen. That being said, I have not read any of the books so it is possible that there is a better story out there I haven’t discovered.
11: Anything else interesting about yourself you’d like to share with the community?I was immune deficient as a child, that is until I was hit by a car traveling 40+ miles an hour while crossing the street. The car accident, and subsequent break of my leg, somehow kicked my immune system on. It is very likely that if those set of events did not happen I wouldn’t be here. I am just trying to live as much as I can in response.
12: coke or pepsi or other?Neither actually, can’t stand either. I prefer tea, as lame as that sounds. (Ahhh you must some have British in you then! :p )
13. Tell us about the idea behind darthhater.com – who thought of it first and the impact the success has had on you and those that run the site?Originally I had an idea to make a personal blog out of my own excitement for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This website needed a name so I asked a few friends for some ideas. One response in particular stuck with me – Darth Hater. Nick Cerbini, a friend of mine, originally used the name as an alias in Unreal Tournament and he made the suggestion. After deciding it sounded right, I went to see if the domain was available and, to my surprise, it was. Apparently the person who owned it before let the domain lapse and went back on the market just a month or so prior to me attempting to register it. You could say I encountered a stream of unending luck.
Since then we have tried to establish ourselves as the place to visit for The Old Republic related news and events. Recently Dover and I were invited to San Francisco to visit the LucasArts campus, it was quite the ultimate experience for fans of Star Wars like us. Besides that, we have been graced with quite a lot of traffic thanks to the community behind our site and The Old Republic in general. All of our success with the site is a team effort. We number almost twenty people at the moment, staff and contributors, and continue to grow as the project demands. I can’t say enough to properly thank the community behind us, it has been an immense source of joy for all of the staff here at Darth Hater.
14: How long does it take you to put together an episode of the podcast?There is a bit of setup time in place for the podcast. A couple days before the podcast we generally poll the audience and start crafting the podcast notes around that. From there, after the public notes are made, we make our own personal notes on what to discuss on the podcast. After recording, we take it to the editing process where gaps and noise are filtered out along with adding in the bumpers. We then upload it to the server where the post is crafted and goes out through a series of tubes. All-in-all the process takes a couple days where we spend roughly 6 hours working on it in total before it reaches the public.
15. Is there anyone you would like to say ‘hi’ to from the forums and/or in real life?Sean Dahlberg (Bioware) and Adam Khan (LucasArts) have been extremely helpful in their involvement with us over these last couple months. It has made this process, and our ability to bring the community what they would like to see, much easier as a whole. Beyond Sean and Adam, we would like to thank everyone at LucasArts and BioWare who has spent time talking with us, however there are simply too many people to mention and thank personally.
I also want to thank the community at large for their immense support of us here at Darth Hater. Without having such a great community behind us this process would be much less rewarding. We love your input and thank you all more than you’ll ever know.
To the team at Darth Hater, thanks for being there with us making $0.00 throughout this process. It is amazing to work with a team that has much passion about this as I do.
