17-Nov-2003 The developer behind RPG smash Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic chats exclusively with us about its latest Xbox project Canada-based BioWare already has one superb Xbox RPG stuffed into its belt in the shape of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the developer is now seeking to echo the success of this masterpiece with new Xbox role-playing game Jade Empire.
Set in a world based around mythical China, Jade Empire follows the fortunes of a martial artist who, at the start of the adventure, sets out on a quest to investigate reports of hostile ghosts and demons.
BioWare is keeping further plot specifics a closely guarded secret at the moment, but a recent chat with the developer did reveal shed-loads of info on the title's stylised combat, mystical powers and other core parts of the game.
Answering questions are BioWare joint CEOs Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, with Jade Empire producer Jim Bishop.
Can you introduce us to Jade Empire, telling us about the genre, setting, plot, main character and that character's objective in the game?
Bishop: Jade Empire is an action role-playing game set in an original world based on mythical China. The main character is a martial arts student who grows up in the village of Two Rivers, a tiny town in a remote corner of the Empire.
As the game opens, the player character hears rumours of ghosts and demons that haunt the countryside. Many of the first quests surround this problem of hostile spirits, but the story has many twists and takes the main character across the continent over the course of the game.
We can't discuss many details of the story yet, but we can tell you that it is an epic adventure in the tradition of games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights.
Players can customize their characters' appearance, abilities, and styles, and can choose between good and evil paths through the story on their way to become masters of martial arts.
Jade Empire is being built on a "revolutionary second-generation Xbox engine". How will this impact the game visually, and what benefits does this bring to gameplay?
Muzyka: Jade Empire will be a stunning looking game; our goal is for Jade to be one of the best-looking games on any system when it comes out next year. We're using everything that we've learned from the development of our last Xbox RPG, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, to put together a great feature set for the new graphics engine we're building for Jade - the BioWare Jade Empire engine.
For example, we're putting in full motion capture for all animations in the game - this is a first for BioWare. We've been very happy with the results - they look very realistic and really pull you into the martial arts action. 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.
As well, 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, more complex skeleton built to accommodate the motion-captured animation system.
Finally, characters in the game will have roughly two to three times the number of polys per character compared with Knights of the Old Republic, which, when combined with the cinematic cut-scenes and full VO/lip-synching, will create even more realistic-looking characters.
Combat in Jade Empire is martial arts-orientated. What exactly can we expect to see here - and what fighting styles are being included - and how have you enhanced the combat mechanics and interface seen in KOTOR?
Zeschuk: We're doing a very large amount of work here at BioWare on the combat system for Jade Empire - it's unlike anything we've ever done before. We've designed a brand new skeletal animation system right from the ground up to provide maximal flexibility for the character models.
We're also using full motion capture for all of the human combatants - the result is an extremely fluid and slick martial arts combat system.
There are three main categories of fighting styles in the game: martial arts, magic and weapons. Each has various sub-classifications such as: fast, defensive or powerful martial arts styles; offensive, defensive or transformation (allowing you to take on the form of enemies) magic styles; and either improvised (using chairs and various environment objects) or specialized weapon styles (Chinese broadsword or halberds as examples).
These are but a small sampling of the various styles that will be available in the final game. Most importantly, combat occurs completely in real-time, with each button press eliciting an action! This is something new for one of our role-playing games (though we have done real-time combat in some of our past games, like MDK2).
Players will have access to a range of mystical powers in Jade Empire. What powers are we talking about here, and in what instances in the game can such be used?
Bishop: All magic in the game is learned and used within the context of the style system - so instead of learning an individual spell (say, Magic Missile) you learn a magic style that includes several different spell attacks, blocks, and other moves.
There are many different examples of magic styles, ranging from: a style we're tweaking now that allows you to chuck fireballs around in combat; Bronze Golem style, which is a transformation style that lets you turn into an enormous war golem and stomp your opponents to death; to Paralysing Palm, one of Greg's favourites that lets you slow and stun the bad guys with the power of Chi.
You can use any of these powers (and many more) in combat, and the fun really starts when you chain these styles together-like stunning an opponent with Paralysing Palm and then backing away to unload with fireballs.
Like in KOTOR, players will be able to follow either the path of good or evil in Jade Empire. In what ways, if any, have you enhanced this gameplay mechanic from KOTOR for Jade Empire?
Muzyka: Jade Empire is an action RPG that allows the player to role-play as a martial arts master. 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 stronghold. As part of the struggle of becoming a martial arts master, choices must be made for good or evil.
At the start of the game, the player is a young martial artist just beginning to explore the world. It's immediately clear that something is wrong: spirits and ghosts are being seen 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 an 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.
But choices for good or evil which are made by the player can affect which followers are attracted to help you on your adventures, and even which martial arts styles are available. We try to integrate moral choices into our storylines in a way that makes the storyline more real, and the character interactions more compelling.
One of our goals for Jade Empire is to create a game that is definitely worth re-playing and the system of good and evil and the way it impacts the storyline will help us fulfil this goal.
Many of the writers and designers working on Jade have experience on multiple past BioWare RPGs, so their experience in writing this sort of story (where the player can make meaningful choices) can be applied to make the story in Jade Empire that much greater.
Will you be building Jade Empire on the d20 ruleset? Could you talk briefly about the experience system, character sheet, the party system, equipment and such? How many characters can we have in a party at any one time?
Zeschuk: BioWare is designing Jade Empire from the ground up with a new and powerful game system specially suited to real-time martial arts combat.
The system we've designed is simple, yet elegant - there are three primary character attributes (Body, Mind and Spirit) that correspond to the three secondary character attributes (Health, Focus and Chi). These attributes combine to provide the basis for character progression aside from the style system.
The style system provides the significant tactical elements in the game, and when combined with the character attributes allow players to completely customise their character.
The game features only a single playable character, but we do have a unique system of agents that will join the player depending on his or her actions in the game world.
These agents can teach the player new styles, create items for the player, or even be sent on missions to accomplish certain goals. The game system is completely unique and very satisfying.
One criticism levelled at KOTOR on Xbox was that NPC models were repeated heavily, which was down to hardware. Are you addressing this in Jade Empire? If so, could you tell us how?
Bishop: The team has spent a lot of time ensuring that Jade Empire will have all the variety required to create a compelling, immersive experience - allowing players to really feel that they are exploring a vast, expansive world of mythical China.
We're also building smaller, denser game areas that let us pack more detail and variety into smaller physical spaces.
We've really taken the comments we've heard on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to heart and we're trying very hard to make Jade Empire even better in every way we possibly can - one of our goals at BioWare is to make each game better than the last.
Obviously part of the appeal of KOTOR is that it's Star Wars - the first Star Wars RPG in fact. You're taking that away and replacing it with a mythical China setting - are you confident that Jade Empire will be as popular?
Muzyka: This 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. The world and storyline are built around a very cool concept and we've been waiting a long time to build it, until we had the experience as a company to do it right.
At BioWare we've been thinking about the idea behind Jade Empire for many years now. We've always found the concept behind Jade Empire extremely 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.
We also think that there is a lot of interest in the world of martial arts right now, so there is a real opportunity to make a game like Jade which has mainstream as well as hardcore RPG gamer appeal.
One of the unique aspects about Jade Empire is that it is a new intellectual property developed here at BioWare. In addition to all the cool aspects of this brand new world of the 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.
The distinctive setting, the detailed combat system as well as the lush area and character graphics, the motion-captured animation system and the storyline - rich, deep and non-linear, and full of re-playable options in the BioWare tradition - will really set Jade Empire apart. Everyone on the team is working hard and trying their best to make Jade Empire a truly great console RPG!
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