Jade Empire RPG System Interview
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Q: How challenging was to implement, tune and balance Jade Empire's various character abilities and skills?
A: To balance a reflex-based combat system requires a very different approach than balancing a primarily rules-driven game like Neverwinter Nights or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Character abilities, styles and advancement need to have a noticeable effect on gameplay without watering down pace and player control over it. A dedicated combat team implemented and balanced the various aspects of the combat system in coordination with rules design, and revisions were tested and verified by BioWare and Microsoft QA and external focus testers.
For dialogue skills, our writers put a lot of effort into creating meaningful options tailored to your conversation partner's personality; i.e. intimidating an armed town guard doesn't sound like a good idea at first - but after you learn that he just signed up for the job for the cash and didn't ever expect to use his weapon... at that point the use of the Intimidation skill suddenly becomes a lot more... interesting.
