Microsoft, BioWare host tour of the frozen northern climes and the rich tapestry of Jade Empire

By Michael Lafferty

“We are having more fun as a company than we’ve ever had”

The skies were overcast at the departure airport in the northwest part of the United States, but the weather was temperate for the time of the year – upper 40s. The rapid check-in machine took all the pertinent personal information, then seemed to process it for few minutes, as though carefully considering it.

Finally …

“You are going to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada?

There were two possible answers: Yes and No. Yes was entered.

The machine paused again …

“Are you sure you want to go to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada?”

Yes.

Another pause …

“Have you seen the weather in Edmonton?”

Yes.

“And you are certain you still want to go…???”

Yes.

“Oooo-kay. Do you wish to provide emergency contact information?”

Edmonton welcomed the Microsoft media tour to BioWare with sub-freezing temperatures and a soft blanket of snow. Breath crystallized on the air, and when it wasn’t incredibly cold, it was snowing. But the reception was warm, and the focal point of the trip was for the BioWare developed/Microsoft published title, Jade Empire, which is slated for release in March 2005.

Jade Empire is an action adventure, which combines role-play elements with an action-based story that takes place in a mythical world, which has strong ties to Asian mythos.

The folks at BioWare began the day at their company offices with a general welcome by Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, joint CEOs of the company and co-executive producers of BioWare’s games.

Muzyka began with an overview of BioWare and stated that “we really try to focus on quality and that’s what separates us from our competitors.” With sales of more than 12 million BioWare titles, most over the past year, and a stable that includes such amazing titles like Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and the Baldur’s Gate title, it would be easy for the company to become infatuated by the numerous accolades and awards it receives, but that is not the case.

“BioWare is founded on two core values,” Muzyka said, “humility and integrity.

“We always try to do better.”

BioWare may be tucked into the chilly confines of the northern part of Alberta, but the games are red hot, and Jade Empire looks to continue that tradition.

The game is exclusive to the Xbox console system and “it’s what ancient China would have been like if all the myths and legends were true,” said producer Jim Bishop. “It’s not just a brawler, a button-masher; we’ve tried to present a rich storyline.”

The game has multiple endings and plot arcs that revolve around choices players make in the game. Jade Empire was first conceived 10 years ago, but was shelved until such a time when technology would allow the developers the opportunity to create the vision they wanted. The core of the development team was drawn from the Baldur’s Gate 2 and MDK2 teams, and early research into the setting was derived from such novels as Outlaws of the Marsh, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West.

The game looks to be about 25-35 hours of gameplay, but since BioWare always seems to underestimate that figure, it could be considerably longer. The game also sports a brand new graphics engine, which allows – among other things – a new facial animation system which expands on what was in KotOR, and all the human animation is motion capture. Master martial artists were brought in from around the world and are responsible for much of the character movement seen with the game.

“Our goal with every game is to make it better than anything we’ve made before,” Bishop said, “and we hope that Jade Empire realizes this.”

The game features a real-time combat system, which leads to some tactical elements, dozens of fighting styles, which include martial arts, weapons, magic and transformations. As players move through the game, they accrue style points that can be used to improve skills.

In the role-playing department, conversation skills allow will allow player-controlled avatars to influence NPCs (non-playable characters), and avatars can attract up to a dozen followers, though only one can accompany players into battle settings.

The game features a vibrant storyline. “We think this may be our best storyline to date,” Bishop said.

After the general welcome and talk, there were breakout sessions with various members of the Jade Empire/BioWare team. First up were Muzyka and Zeschuk.

“Coming up with the IP was not the hardest part,” Zeschuk said. A source book was created that was used as a road map for the world of Jade Empire. “When it came to designing areas, it all came together when they used the source book as the guide.”

“The stuff the designers have done are really fun to read,” said Muzyka.

When it was asked if the source book might be available to purchase later on, Muzyka simply stated that “we are really excited about doing ancillary projects with Jade.”

The idea behind Jade Empire immediately appealed to both Muzyka and Zeschuk. “We really loved the concept behind it,” Zeschuk said. “It’s something we thought would be a cool idea to become a martial arts master.”

“Technology was the limiting factor” in not making this game 10 years ago, stated Zeschuk.

Rather than create a strictly good-versus-evil philosophy, the game employs two ways, which are called the Closed Fist and the Open Palm. “There’s still a good and evil path,” Muzyka said, “but it’s not as simple. There is some moral ambiguity.”

And as for training, the path you choose does come into play. “Certain masters won’t train you unless you subscribe to their moral philosophy.”

With the rich Asian texturing, it might have been easy for Jade Empire to move away from the Western style of gaming, but BioWare took great care to see that the gameplay carried a strong Western influence.

“Our primary focus is the Western market,” said Muzyka. “We were inspired by a lot of Asian martial arts, but we are trying to pull all the elements together to make a compelling title.”

“We’ve taken pains to make sure there is nothing that is historical, no real-world references, said Bishop, when he and art director Matt Goldman settled into the interview chairs.

With 4-5 days of discreet motion-capture work (which will be used in not only the gameplay, but in the cinematics, and will likely make its way into other BioWare projects as well), the producer and art director had a rich animation background to work with. But that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the look of the game.

Goldman created an art bible for the game, and then the work came to translating the look onto the screen, capturing the essence of the Asian-based world without creating stereotypical Asian environments.

“We invested tons of time in creating rendering paths,” Goldman said. “One of the bit things was to differentiate the surface qualities.”

“We have a ton of rendering levels,” added Bishop. “We did want to have more pixels on screen.”

Because of this commitment, players will find bustling cities and can expect characters to have almost double the pixel count as characters in KotOR.

“The animation was pretty well rewritten from scratch,” Bishop said. “We did the whole skeleton from scratch to support the motion capture.”

Aiding the efforts was the fact that BioWare was creating this title exclusively for the Xbox. “Close the doors and you can really optimize for the machine,” Bishop said.

When the world was realized, it rapidly became apparent that not everything designed for the game would make it to the final retail version. Bishop said the subtitle for the game could almost be “lots of painful cutting.” However, one guiding principle remained: We “always choose quality, to make the world as polished as possible,” Bishop stated.

Would all that was cut be simply scrapped, or might there be a sequel to Jade Empire?

Bishop said that there “is a lot more (of the world) to explore,” but sequel really depends on the publisher. But he was quick to add that “the painful cutting makes you want to make another game.”

The key to Jade Empire, stated designer Mike Laidlaw, is you “have to have balance, have to have fun and it has to be real time.” That underscored the two dozen-plus fighting styles in the game, all of which can be changed up with the press of a button. Players can learn different styles and incorporate them at any juncture during the game.

Being able to switch combat styles in the blink of an eye, well … “I think that is the most awesome part of the combat,” said lead designer Kevin Martens.

The concepts of good and evil (as previously stated) are encompassed in the philosophies of the Path of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist. But those who are not familiar with the Asian philosophical trees need not worry that this game will be out of their reach.

“For people who are not familiar with Eastern philosophy, we’ve made it accessible,” said Laidlaw.

And because the game evolves, so too do the characters. “Over the course of the game, you can change the alignment of your followers,” said Martens.

“The more evil or the more good you get, things happen to your character.”

Don’t expect very much in terms of costume changes, though. “We made a choice the we wanted to make the characters look much better than characters in KotOR, so no really costume changes.”

The overall game features findable items, and power-ups, there are mini-games and different chapters in the game have different feels, with some areas scaling up to the levels of the player’s avatars. (“In the open-ended areas, there is a lot of scaling,” said Martens.)

While the game has an involved and evolving storyline, while it couples real-time combat and tactics with roleplaying, while it has an amazing look, as Laidlaw stated, the objective is fun in an accessible world.

“I hope it brings action players into role-playing and I hope it brings roleplaying players into action,” said Martens.

It is certain that Jade Empire will add another notch in the legacy that BioWare is creating, though it is – by no means – the endgame for the company. The atmosphere in Edmonton is effervescent, and “we can honestly say we are having more fun as a company than we’ve ever had,” said Muzyka.

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