How do you top a classic? That was the problem facing
the development team at BioWare as the group set out to build on
the phenomenal success of Star Wars: Knights of the
Old Republic. Now we can see that the members came to the
project with something old and something new: They've taken the
familiar roleplaying (RPG) elements of the previous titles,
improved them, and further enhanced the game with combat and
storytelling elements that we've never seen before. Recently
BioWare's CEOs, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, and Producer
Jim Bishop took some time to let us know how this groundbreaking
game is looking.
Xbox.com: Your previous release for Xbox,
Knights of the Old Republic, was a breakaway success. As
much as that was a blessing, it's also something of a curse because
now we're all expecting Jade Empire to meet or
even exceed the game's standards. How does the team feel about
those expectations, and how do you think die-hard KOTOR
fans will feel about your new game?
Muzyka: At BioWare, one of our goals is to make
each game better than the last. So we're definitely trying hard to
make Jade Empire our best game yet. It's a lot of
pressure, but I think the team is really relishing this
challenge—we don't want to let our fans down! In many respects,
fans of BioWare's past roleplaying games will find Jade
Empire very familiar. We have an epic story line and immersive
character interaction (full voiceover in all conversations, with
lip-synching), and we allow the players to explore a huge world and
to customize their character progression as they learn new martial
arts styles and gain levels. The really neat thing about Jade
Empire is that we're fusing these great role-playing elements
with an amazing real-time action combat system—to truly allow you
to role-play as a martial arts master!
Xbox.com: We've heard that Jade Empire
uses the KOTOR engine, but how will the games be
different? For instance, how will the graphical quality of Jade
Empire compare to the previous title?
Zeschuk: Actually, the engine used in Jade
Empire is completely new and features a number of improvements
based on what we learned while making the engine for Star Wars:
Knights of the Old Republic. Jade Empire features a
number of interesting new systems, including a physics-based cloth
system for capes, belts, and similar dangling cloth, an entirely
new material system that gives our artists greater control over the
look of the game environments, a new animation system specially
designed to support motion-captured martial arts animation, and an
advanced facial animation and lip-synch system for dialog and
storytelling. We've also spent a lot of time optimizing the engine.
We make sure at each milestone that the game is always running at a
minimum of 30 frames per second. The graphics and speed of the
engine in Jade Empire are tremendous, and we're very proud
of how far the Jade Empire team has pushed the technical
capability of the Xbox.
