Jade Empire - BioWare Newsletter Goodies

[Dhruin]

BioWare's latest newsletter (http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/news/2007-02-06_newsletter236/index.html) has a "sizzling" new trailer for Jade Empire Special Edition, as well as two new desktops and a bunch of screens, brought to you via some "mad overtime hours". You can also preorder Jade Empire because "if you thought you knew awesome before, you are sadly, sadly, mistaken".
Someone doesn't need any more coffee. You can also check out links to Mass Effect previews that we've already covered and links to some Dragon Age discussions on the forums.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=3804)

[Lord Alex]

I know that folks here have mixed feelings about this one, but would appreciate some recommendations or reasons for not recommending.

I know the graphics will appear sub-par at this stage in the game, and the emphasis on combat irks me a bit, but how is the story? NPCs? Level-up scheme? etc. Thanks!

[fatBastard()]

Well, I for one am hooked on Asian movies and especially the Hong Kong martial arts movies so I really can't afford to pass up a game like Jade Empire.

I haven't played it on the xbox, however, so I don't know whether it is good or bad ... but the martial arts theme is pulling me in like a lollipop on a string in a kindergarten :D

[PatrickWeekes]

If you like BioWare stories, that's a plus. If you like relatively easy action combat, that's a plus. If you like BioWare's humor, that's a plus.

The people who'll be disappointed with the game are hardcore console combat people (who'll find the combat way too easy, even in the PC version, I think) and people who like a ton of numbers and stats in their character build. Jade doesn't have enough inventory customization to provide a really deep experience there. It didn't bother me when I played (there's some level-up customization and some very minor inventory stuff that will affect things, and really, I was playing for the story), but if you can be really happy playing for two hours and having those two hours be "sell my loot, crunch some numbers, equip new stuff, try it out, crunch some more numbers," you might be disappointed.

The game also doesn't have much open exploration. I think that the new PC graphics look fantastic, but it doesn't have Oblivion's wide-open world. If you've played NWN2 and noticed how NWN2 has you running through wilderness areas that are actually wilderness tunnels, figure on having the same experience for Jade PC. (It doesn't bother me in NWN2, but it did bother a lot of other people.)

I had to play the game for work (designers who don't work on a given project have to play the project ASAP after shipping, so that we're all on the same page in terms of "Let's have a fight like _____" or "Let's not make the mistake we made with _____"), so I was gonna play it anyway. But I did enjoy the story a great deal, and the combat was about at the right speed for me (I've played combat games, but I'm not very good at them, so for me, that was about the right difficulty level).

Take all that for what it's worth. :) I did enjoy the game a lot personally, but I also work there, so I know that me saying "It's a lot of fun, buy it!" is gonna sound pretty biased. Don't go in expecting Oblivion in terms of hours of gameplay. Go in expecting a long adventure game, not a long roleplaying game, in terms of hours of play.

[Lethal Weapon]

The fact that it's nothing like Oblivion sounds reassuring. :)

Personally I'm enjoying good stories in games, I also like the 'not-too-hard,fun combat' part. If there are enough dialogue options and nonlinear storyline that will compensate for the lack of open exploration too.

Also the fact that is Bioware guarantees a certain quality, if nothing else. I don't like every Bioware story, but I loved the story-telling in every Bioware game. Definitely will give it a go.

[Dhruin]

I'll be getting it as soon as its released. I'm not into Asian themes at all and it's not really my style but a combination of curiosity (being PC only, I haven't played a BioWare game for a while) and the fact that I've played relatively "hardcore" stuff for a while like Avernum 4 and Geneforge 4 means I think I might enjoy a nice lightweight action/RPG with good production values. It sounds like a bit of fun.

[Lord Alex]

Take all that for what it's worth. :)


It's worth a lot. Thanks! I didn't expect to get a Bioware dev to chime in, and am grateful for the fairly non-biased viewpoint. ;)


I did enjoy the game a lot personally, but I also work there, so I know that me saying "It's a lot of fun, buy it!" is gonna sound pretty biased. Don't go in expecting Oblivion in terms of hours of gameplay. Go in expecting a long adventure game, not a long roleplaying game, in terms of hours of play.

Well, a rousing adventure with RPG elements isn't so bad... In fact, some of my favorite games would fall into that category (such as, Anachronox, Deus Ex, etc.). So long as the story is good, the characters are interesting, and the real-time combat elements are not "too" challenging, then I think it'll be worth a look-see.

[mudsling3]

I hope it has a KOTOR kinda story with a better graphic... I am sold on this one.

[Cormac]

Lord Alex:
I played the Xbox version. If you've played previous Bioware games you should find the story rather familiar; combat is simplistic (for my tastes) and the characters, with one or two exceptions, are uninteresting. They reveal their past to you just like in Kotor, one spoonfull each time you level up, and while some have pertinence in the resolution of the main story, their primary goal it seemed to me is to provide romantic interests to your PC. Some may like that, others may not. In combat you can have only one NPC helping you, either directly fighting on your side or by having him or her meditate on the sideline to boost your stats. On the Xbox version the NPC AI was plain dumb, your ally good only as a decoy to pull some of the adversaries away from you while you fight the others. Again, there's a couple of exceptions. One of the NPCs will pitch you winebottles that enables you to use Drunken Master Style, a powerful fighting style, as long as you drink up. (Maybe you've seen this in some old martial arts film.)
When you level up, you receive some points to invest in your martial art, weapon and magic/support styles. While you can learn many fighting styles and thus spread your points around, I think most players agree that it's best to concentrate on one martial art, one weapon, and a couple of magic/support styles.
You have three attributes: body, mind and spirit (translate into secondary abilities as health, focus and chi). You'll get points upon leveling to raise them and you can also find a large numbers of items, gems and techniques to boost them. Personally I raised them rather evenly with maybe a slight preference to focus, as it enables you to slow down time, very useful in combat.
The game is very linear, with small maps and locations, but there's a good amount of sidequests to do, especially in the Imperial City. I particularly enjoyed the Arena sequence, very well made I think. The whole Open Palm and closed Fist paths are pretty much the same as Light and Dark: when you're choosing a dialog option you get a close up of your Pc's face, like in Kotor, and if you choose OP, the man's eyebrows arch; if you choose CF, the eyebrows are frowning. Just like in Kotor.
It's a good game, but it disappointed me because I expected much more -- of course that wont be the case for someone else. I love the setting, mythic China, and the martial arts theme, but I wanted a bigger game with freedom of exploration, and a more complex combat system. Maybe in Jade 2 ? Hope this helps a bit.

[BillSeurer]

The fact that it's nothing like Oblivion sounds reassuring. :)

Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses isn't anything like Oblivion either. Get back to us with a review when you are done with it.

[Acleacius]

Looks like it's gold master day. ;)

Lethal Weapon
" The fact that it's nothing like Oblivion sounds reassuring. :) "
Lol, hey this could be a new standard for PC games many RPGers could get behind. :biggrin:

[Lucky Day]

...Drunken Master Style, a powerful fighting style, as long as you drink up. (Maybe you've seen this in some old martial arts film.)


Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979. It didn't exist before him. He redid the film in the 90's and its mediocre but it revived some interest. Don't quote me but I think Ultima Online 2 was going to add it.

[Dr. A]

Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979. It didn't exist before him. He redid the film in the 90's and its mediocre but it revived some interest. Don't quote me but I think Ultima Online 2 was going to add it.

The second drunken master was mediocre?! O_O For me, that was the best old school Jackie Chan movie ever. The first movie was "meh" for me - they were still using the hit-parry-pause combat which was incredibly annoying. The second movie had transitioned to a faster, smoother fighting style and was vastly more entertaining.

OT: Jade Empire is shaping up to be a great game. Anybody willing to share the trailer? ;)

[PatrickWeekes]

While Jackie Chan might have invented some of the specific movements he did, Drunken Fist is, I believe, significantly older than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_kung_fu

[Acleacius]

PatrickWeekes
"who'll find the combat way too easy, even in the PC version, "
Did you mean only hardcore console types would find it too easy?

I have been trying to pass some info to some regulars at Blue's News and I do recall you saying they removed the exploit from the console version about being able to jump over and hit them in the head (or something, since I haven't played it yet) but unless you meant only hardcore would find it too easy, it's a little confusing. ;)

[Acleacius]

Lucky Day
"Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979."

Lucky, Jackie didn't invent it he was protraying the the life of the Real Drunken Master as many have even Jet and the name he uses is the Real life hero of Chineese people. :)

I too found both films brilliant,though I saw the orginal versions in Mandrain, iirc.

[Cormac]

Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979. It didn't exist before him. He redid the film in the 90's and its mediocre but it revived some interest. Don't quote me but I think Ultima Online 2 was going to add it.

I should try to find all those old kung fu movies, my memory is a bit clouded. Was that the one where Chan, playing a policeman of sort, tracks down a group of malefactors, each with his own special brand of martial art -- one guy who climbed walls and poisoned his adversaries, another who was invulnerable (but had a weak spot), etc., or is it the one where he's up against one guy who only fights with his arms and is named Golden Arms, and another guy who only fights with his legs, and is named Silver Legs ? Or maybe it's another movie ?

[PatrickWeekes]

Did you mean only hardcore console types would find it too easy?

I'd like to officially hedge my bets on this one. I know that they removed the Jump-A exploit -- or at least, added some complications that are going to make that not always the way to automatically win every fight.

In the Xbox version, the "exploit" is that even though the game was more or less made with "block, attack, or power attack" in mind, the coolness of the jump meant that you could effectively bring "nuke" to the "rock, paper, scissors" game. You could jump over anybody's attack, come down behind them, and then whack them at your leisure. And if the bad guys had you surrounded, jumping all over the place pretty much got you out of trouble.

With that exploit removed, it now requires you to actually think a bit as you play. I don't think that the removal of that exploit means that it's gonna be HARD now -- it was never meant to be really really hard combat, except for a few fights -- but it does mean that it hopefully won't be at the un-fun level of easy some people complained about. (I was a little bothered by it, but not much -- after all, if you don't like the exploit, you don't have to use it.)

I still suspect that anybody who plays and enjoys console combat games (like Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur) is going to find Jade Empire fairly simple as combat goes.

And I'll let you know more once I get to play it myself. :)

[Acleacius]

Cormac

"Was that the one where Chan, playing a policeman of sort, tracks down a group of malefactors, each with his own special brand of martial art"
Humm, only guessing here as I am drawing a blank, atm.
It's really hard to remember he has made almost 90 films and is currently about 45 years old,

Some of Jackie's best playing a Policeman which you might recognise Project A, Project A2, Police Story 1, Police Story 2, Super Cop and more Secret Agent would be Armor of God, plus Armor of God 2 and one of the best directed action movies ever Mr Canton and Lady Rose he played an accidental Mob boss.

Do yourself a favor and Never Ever watch Fire Island as Jackie did it because he owed the director a favor and is utter trash as he plays 1 of 4 violent escaped prisoners being hunted by police.

If your used to watching indie and foregin films with subtitles you really can't go wrong with many of his films of the 80's and 90's since he was directing most of them.
Going back to the 70s you need to be more hardcore old style Ku Fung movies where he was still being forced to work as a slave in the school he we enrolled in, mostly they were trying to pass him off as another Bruce Lee.

Ok, thanks PatrickWeekes. :)

[xSamhainx]

Never got this one, but I think it's time to finally break down and try it. I'm bummed that the combat does not sound like it's very deep. I know, how deep was I expecting in some console game, but a martial arts title such as this could very well have a pretty unique and gratifying martial arts fighting system built around actual styles of Kung Fu and what not.

I'm still going to pick it up on Xbox tho, all this news is just piquing the interest up again. Should be in the bargain bin by now!

[Lucky Day]

Lucky Day
"Jackie Chan literally invented this style for the first big, big movie he made in 1979."

Lucky, Jackie didn't invent it he was protraying the the life of the Real Drunken Master as many have even Jet and the name he uses is the Real life hero of Chineese people. :)

I too found both films brilliant,though I saw the orginal versions in Mandrain, iirc.

ahh, thank you. methinks Jackie decided to give himself a little too much credit in that documentary I saw.

@cormac
I think the movie you are talking about is the one where Jackie plays soccer and ends up getting three girlfriends, which for some reason, never quite works out.

[Acleacius]

I can't imigine Bioware wouldn't refine it more in a sequel if it was popular enough, though I am unclear how Bioware works with nasty pubs like m$ and if m$ trys to get their mitts on Biowares IP in the exclusive deals, would totally suck if m$ has a say about sequels. :(

JE sounds very well done for what it seems to be intended as, sort of a interactive story/movie with you deciding plots points.
I am not sure you well it sold but I imagine even if it was enough for a sequel they are very much focused on ME and DA, atm.
Bioware has done well in the past developing in developing gameplay so if the orginal has is to easy, it sounds as they already are taking active steps to make it more challenging.

Also it sounds like they added a whole new character and inproved the grapics, so there is only so much they can do with a budget.
Especially when having to call in voice actors again for the new character, which could including new dialogues for many of the orginal characters.

[Lethal Weapon]

I think that the main character is going to be voiceless like in KotOR. It would be nice if they would have include at least 2 distinct voices for the main character - male and female.

[Gorath]

Did we already post that JE for PC is gold? The German print mags say so.

[Dhruin]

The official announcement was made today - check the front page.

[txa1265]

In the Xbox version, the "exploit" is that even though the game was more or less made with "block, attack, or power attack" in mind, the coolness of the jump meant that you could effectively bring "nuke" to the "rock, paper, scissors" game.

...

(I was a little bothered by it, but not much -- after all, if you don't like the exploit, you don't have to use it.)

It was funny reading this - brought me back five years to Jedi Knight 2 and how the patches kept rebalancing multiplayer combat as people learned to exploit special moves (e.g. spamming DFA - death from above) ... perhaps it is good that Jade doesn't have MP ;)

I think it is looking good - I have spoken quite a bit with Dave Long (from Games for Windows mag as well as GamerDad) and he was the opinion that it is over-rated but still a pretty good game. And that liking the PC version depends on your feelings about many of the things that Patrick mentioned.

[Cormac]

Acleacius & Lucky Day:
I suppose it's the one with Jackie Chan, titled Drunken Master. I remember the protagonist drinking wine from jugs all the time and reeling all over the place -- and of course the hilarious dubbing. Soccer ? No.

[Maylander]

I am definetly getting this one, looks like KotOR in a samurai setting - can't go wrong with that. To be honest, I feel the old japanese/chinese settings aren't used enough in big budjet games. It's always a knight with a greatsword instead of a samurai with a katana.

[Lord Alex]

I played the Xbox version. If you've played previous Bioware games you should find the story rather familiar; combat is simplistic (for my tastes) and the characters, with one or two exceptions, are uninteresting.
To be honest, this is probably why I am fighting the urge to pass this up entirely. After some of the uninspired story elements in NWN2, I'm feeling a bit finicky about devoting 20+ hours to a game with little thematic pay-off.

The game is very linear, with small maps and locations...
Again, this appears to be the new gold standard for today's RPGs: extremely linear main story with small maps and little exploration coupled with a few area-specific sidequests. This design has been chosen by Bioware, Obsidian, and others for one simple reason: it is the easiest (read: cheapest/fastest) to implement. It is also a lot easier to bug-fix. ;)

However, linearity can often be a game-killer for me and is the reason that I've been struggling through NWN2 and still haven't finished it yet. So, I guess I'm still undecided on this one. Gothic 3 might actually suit my tastes better, once it gets a few more patches under its belt.

[aries100]

I remember reading in several interview with the good doctors that MS actually is very helpful to Bioware and try helping them as best they can.

Of course, MS also do this to get people to buy good games for their xbox and their xbox 360, so if they don't treat Bioware nice, then Bioware might be going to the competetion...

In the same interview the good Dr. Muzyk said that Mass Effect would have main quest of at least 40+ hours, combined with at least 25+ hours of side quests.

Here is the interview:

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1886/BioWare-Talks-Mass-Effect-Part-1/p1/
(sorry, don't know to to this link as just 'here' and then an line under 'here')

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses isn't anything like Oblivion either.

Oh, I didn't know there was an C-RPG out with this name !

Can you tell me more about it ? :)

[Lord Alex]

Dr. Muzyk said that Mass Effect would have main quest of at least 40+ hours, combined with at least 25+ hours of side quests.

The length sounds good, but that still doesn't say the type of "game" Mass Effect is going to be. My guess is it will follow a similar design as Jade, just a bit longer, because this is the style of game that Bioware likes to make these days.

From a financial perspective, there's plenty of good reasons to choose this option over some sprawling, interwoven magnum opus like BG, Fallout, or Gothic. However, these linear games don't stay on one's hard drive as long and simply don't have the replayable "legs" that keep one coming back for more.

And that's the point: they don't care if you come back for more, when a publicly-traded game company's primary goal is to move as many copies of a game in the first few weeks as possible. Longevity only serves to prevent you from purchasing their next linear game (as you are still exploring the complex nooks and crannies of the first one).

I think mods can fill this gap and the occasional indy developer not shackled to the whims/desires of shareholders.

[PatrickWeekes]

Think less Jade and more KotOR. Most of the planets you visit for the critical path are fairly linear (and getting significantly cooler combat-wise every day as we move from "ugly place you can walk through and technically complete the plot for by talking to placeholder people" to "holy cows, did they put in the geth with the explosive things today?") in much the same way that each planet in KotOR was fairly linear (some branches, some options, but generally speaking, we know where you'll end up and pretty much how you got there). However, you can do the planets in the order that interests you, as in KotOR.

Also, what KotOR didn't have were the uncharted worlds, which let you break up the big quests with smaller areas (either short fight-y plots or brief moments set up to reward roleplayers) and explore a little bit.

It's not a completely wide-open world game where you can explore anything, and I don't feel like I'm hurting the game by saying that. It's not trying to be that kind of game. It's trying to expand the side-quest quantity while sticking to a critpath layout that worked for the average gamer.

[Lord Alex]

Well, from all I've heard of Jade, KOTOR by its very nature is less linear. I enjoyed KOTOR a great deal, so comparing Mass Effect to that gets high marks in my book. In fact, KOTOR-style non-linearity is fine, as it at least makes you feel like you can avoid going to Planet A then B then C each time you play, even though the difficulty-level of certain creatures on said planets does restrict access to some degree.

Thanks for info. on ME. Sounds promising.

[Dhruin]

Check out the new interview linked on the front page. It gives some insight to the flow of the game and how these undiscovered planets work.