Entrevista sobre Jade Empire

HomeLAN - Jade Empire is the first BioWare original title since Shattered Steel. Why did it take so long to come up with a game based on your own property?

Dr. Ray Muzyka - Greg Zeschuk, my Joint CEO at BioWare, and I have been dreaming about the idea behind Jade Empire for many years now – nearly a decade, actually. We’ve always found the concept compelling, and we wanted to wait until the right point in BioWare’s history to develop this title. We wanted to ensure that we had the experience as a company to build BioWare’s first new intellectual property project, and furthermore we wanted to wait until we had the ideal platform to develop on – the Xbox is very technologically advanced as a system and it will allow us to achieve our design goals for Jade Empire.


HomeLAN - The game is based largely on Asian settings and myths. Why pick this setting and mythology as the basis for the game?

Dr. Greg Zeschuk - The game is set in the Jade Empire, a mythical version of ancient China. We’ve drawn on the literature, mythology, and legends of ancient China to create a sort of alternate world; a China that might have been, if all the legends were true. The landscapes are lush and gorgeous, full of colourful characters and dangerous enemies, and rendered with a brand-new second generation graphics engine.

One notable area is the Imperial Palace, which is an immense floating bronze city located at the precise astrological center of the Jade Empire. Flowing from great stone fountainheads to the countryside below are streams of pure, clear water. The Emperor's magical creation of this water has brought prosperity and peace to the land. Another cool area is the player's starting town: a small walled martial arts school in the rural Golden Delta province. This town is located at the nexus of two rivers, and stands on the site of an ancient settlement--one of the oldest in the Jade Empire.

Many different sources have inspired us as we worked on the game. We have read a lot of books on mythological China – books like Outlaws of the Marsh - and watched film series like The Water Margin from the BBC, as well as lots of classic Hong Kong cinema – movies starring actors like Bruce Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat. More recently, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has been an inspiration to the team. I have visited China (Beijing and Hong Kong) as well as other locations in Asia (Korea and Japan) during the period we’ve been developing this game, as have Jim and others on the team, and it’s been very inspiring to see sights like the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and the Ming tombs. We’re drawing design and artistic inspiration from a variety of periods in both Chinese history as well as mythology – as Jim mentioned already, this is a tale of a China that might have been. It’s a very cool setting for BioWare’s first new intellectual property to be set in!

HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the game's storyline at this point and the types of quests that will be in the game?

Jim Bishop - Jade Empire is an action RPG that puts the player in the role of a martial arts master. At its heart, Jade Empire is about epic adventure in the world of mythical China. The player masters exotic martial arts and mystical powers, and attracts followers to his side.

At the beginning of the game, the player is a young martial artist just beginning to explore the world. From the outset it is clear that something is wrong: spirits and ghosts are being sighted more and more frequently, and are even attacking people in outlying villages.

The player must investigate this threat, and eventually uncovers the truth behind this mystery – it’s just the start of the epic story in the grand BioWare RPG tradition of games like Baldur’s Gate I and II, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

HomeLAN - How do you create your fighter character and how do they advance and grow in the game?

Dr. Greg Zeschuk - At the start of the game, the player can choose his starting style, his ability scores, and his appearance. During the game, he can choose which styles to upgrade, which new styles to learn, and which ability scores to upgrade. Finally, key events in the game can change the player character’s appearance to reflect his changing circumstances.

Finally, players can choose which followers they attract to their strongholds and as well they make choices in the storyline which affect how people in the game world perceive them (good or evil) – much as in our last Xbox title, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the choices you make in the storyline are very meaningful. We anticipate that there will be a LOT of replayability in the storyline and in character development and style choices in Jade Empire!

HomeLAN - How is the combat system handled in the game? Will it be as extensive as a console fighting game?

Dr. Ray Muzyka - The combat system revolves around styles and tactical style switching. A style is a collection of moves, no more than seven, that are all arranged around a common theme. Each style has its own strengths of weaknesses, and players can find ways to switch between them quickly during combat to produce a winning strategy.

Fighting styles are grouped into three categories: martial arts styles, magic styles, and weapon styles. Within each of these categories styles are described as being "fast", or "strong", or "defensive" relative to each other--so the player could learn a strong weapon style (such as Eight-Ring Sword style) or a fast martial arts style (such as Centipede style), or a defensive magic style (such as the damage-absorbing Willow style). You can think of it as a matrix, with each style falling somewhere into the combination of category and type.

We have several weapon styles planned. One example is the classic Chinese broadsword (Broadsword style). This is a slim, one-handed finesse weapon designed to give a good balance between offense and defense. Another example is the eight-ring sword (Eight-Ring Sword style), so called because eight heavy iron rings are attached to give the weapon more heft. This is a very heavy, two-handed weapon originally designed to cut down a mounted warrior's horse--in fact it is sometimes called a "horse sword". One last example is an improvised weapon: the bar stool (Bar Stool style). Sometimes a visit to the tavern takes a turn for the violent, and a nearby bar stool is just the ticket for smashing your way to safety. These improvised weapons don't have to be "learned" like other styles, they're available to anyone.

A few other things are very cool about the combat system: for example, if players want to pause to reflect on their strategic choices during a tough battle and choose that ‘perfect’ style they can do this at any time. Magic styles are also quite awesome – examples include the transformation styles where you can capture the spirits of certain enemies when you defeat them, and then transform into those creatures at the cost of some Chi. Imagine transforming into a giant golem or a horse demon in the middle of a battle! Other magic styles include Fire style, which allows you to shoot fireballs at your opponents, or Dirty Fighting style, which allows you to blind opponents with magical energies. Battles are very tactical as Jim mentioned, as you switch rapidly between different styles, such as martial arts styles, weapons (both learned or improvised) and magical styles – and styles interact in interesting ways which is really a form of emergent gameplay. We’re excited to see how players combine different styles to get interesting combination results.


HomeLAN - What other unique gameplay elements will Jade Empire have?

Jim Bishop - The unique aspect about Jade Empire is that this is a new IP developed here at BioWare. In addition to what Ray mentioned about the brand new world of Jade Empire, we designed a new rule set from the ground up for Jade Empire, using our experience working on games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. At the character level it’s deceptively simple yet elegant and deep: each character has three primary abilities and three secondary abilities.

The Focus ability is linked to the primary ability of Mind, and represents a warrior's ability to concentrate on his surroundings to slow them to a crawl. You can use this ability while in any style to slow down your opponents, and while in the mode you continue to move at normal speed.

Chi is linked to the primary ability of Spirit, and represents a warrior's store of internal energy. You can use this energy in many different ways, including healing yourself in combat, powering up a Chi strike (which you can do in any style), and using powerful magic styles (some of which use Chi as a resource much like mana).

Health is linked to the primary ability of Body, and works just like hit points in most RPGs. You can restore your health by resting, using special amulet gems, and spending points of Chi.


HomeLAN - What can you tell us about Jade Empire's graphics engine?

Dr. Ray Muzyka - Jade Empire uses an entirely new graphics engine and a new sound engine, both designed to take advantage of the unique power and capabilities of the Xbox console. BioWare gained a great deal of experience in developing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox, and everything we learned about working on the console has gone into the Jade Empire engine.

All animations in game are fully motion captured – a first for BioWare. We explored motion capture carefully before jumping into it, and we’re very happy with the results. We spent a lot of time gathering reference from movies and real-world sources, and brought in martial artists from as far away as mainland China to perform our styles.

The graphics engine has more than twice the number of render paths that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had, and cool new features like physics-based cloth, rim lighting, and an entirely new skeleton built to accommodate motion captured animation. The sound engine is designed to produce the most cinematic experience possible, and puts incredible control in the hands of our audio engineers.

The distinctive setting, the detailed combat system as well as the lush area and character graphics (roughly two to three times the number of polys per character compared with Knights), the animation system (Jade Empire’s animation is fully motion captured, a first for BioWare) and the storyline – rich, deep and non-linear, and full of replayable options in the BioWare tradition – will really set Jade Empire apart.

HomeLAN - Why did BioWare decide to make this game an Xbox exclusive and is there the possiblity of a PC release at some point?

Dr. Greg Zeschuk - At this point we are not able to discuss details of our publishing arrangements out of courtesy to our publishing partners. When there is information on new additions to the Jade Empire world we will make the appropriate public announcements.

HomeLAN - Even though Jade Empire is a single player game, will there be any kind of support for Xbox Live?

Jim Bishop - We’re building the Live features in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic right now, and we plan to examine how those go over with fans and use that feedback to help us plan out what sorts of Live content would be most appropriate for Jade Empire.

HomeLAN - What is the current status of the game's progress and when will it be released?

Dr. Greg Zeschuk - We are looking for a Holiday 2004 release of the game. We have been working on this project for just over two years already – it’s come a long way and we’re very happy with the lush world that is the setting for the game as well as the brand-new advanced graphics engine and epic storyline. The team on the game is now close to 50 people and they’re a great bunch of people – all creative, passionate, hardworking and very smart. It’s an honour for us to be able to work with them.




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