With the PC Special Edition of Jade Empire finally released, this page just got a massive update. I was Lead Technical Designer on Jade Empire and hope I can offer some insight into the inner workings of the game to enable and support modding by the community.

If you have specific questions about systems in Jade Empire, please feel free to drop me a message on the BioWare Forums.

Please see the Jade Empire Mod Index Page for a list of finished modifications.

Want to learn to Mod Jade Empire. Here's some links to start.

These threads on the official Jade Empire Forums has a lot of information on how to mod the game, as well as links to various mods:

• http://jade.bioware.com/forums/myviewtopic.html?topic=551760&forum=108&sp=0 - Part I
• http://jade.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=559879&forum=108 - Part II
• http://jade.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=570333&forum=108 - Part IIIa
• http://jade.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=579961&forum=101 - Part IIIb (spoilers)

• http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=177647 - Comprehensive JE modding tools list at the Lucas Forums.

Some tutorials or explanations regarding Jade Empire game mechanics.

Alignment in Jade Empire is a byte value from 0 (Closed Fist) to 255 (Open Palm). Alignment hits are given via the ar_*.2da files as part of area reward events. The alignment column in that 2da governs the strength of an alignment change, from -3 to +3.

The actual change on the player's alignment is retrieved from good_evil.2da, which translates the value of -3 … +3 on a shifting scale based on the player's current alignment. A player who is very closed fist will receive only minor changes for all but the most evil deeds, while a player who is very Open Palm, would receive strong hit for even a minor evil deed.

The full implementation of the alignment system is available in clear text in the game's override directory in the file j00_i_reward_al.nss.

The player's appearance on the UI as well as the presence of the alignment specific visual effects is controlled from the file def_goood_evil.2da.

A tutorial by Barney Calhoun on how to change the available player models to include NPCs such as Death Hand. You can also download the full results of this tutorial in form of the Character Mod below!

|Tutorial |http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/jadeempire/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-34298644&pid=932971 |

Video:

Intelliyole has developed a .tlk (talk table) viewer for Jade Empire. It allows offline browsing of the game's conversation files on the PC.

I created a couple of Jade Empire themed widgets for the Yahoo Widget Engine a while back.

Check them out.

2da files are two-dimensional data arrays, the standard format for flat data in BioWare Aurora, Oddessy and Jade Empire Engine games. By modifying these files and placing them into the game's override directory, it is possible to modify the rules and behaviors of the game.

File	Size	Description
items.2da	~ 84 kb	This is the master file that describes all the items that exist in the game. Note that items in this file always reference a sub 2da that has further information on the item. To give an item as a reward, you can add it to the various ar_*.2da files for the game.
powerups.2da	~ 16 kb	This file defines the various powerups found in Jade Empire. Note that any entry into this file also needs an entry in items.2da, pointing to it.
gems.2da	~ 24 kb	This file defines the various gems found in Jade Empire. Note that any entry into this file also needs an entry in items.2da, pointing to it.
good_evil.2da	~ .5 kb	This file defines how alignment changes are handled for the current alignment of the player.
def_good_evil.2da	~ .5 kb	This file defines at which point the player get the alignment specific visual effects as well as the menu background for various alignments.
levelxp.2da	~ .5 kb	This file defines how much XP is needed for each level in Jade Empire. By default the file goes to 32, meaning that reaching level 33 needs MAXINT32 XP (impossible to get in the game). Adding new lines to this file will allow you to level higher.

These are excel source files, used to maintain more complex 2das in the game. The game itself is not capable of reading these files, each worksheet inside the file needs to be converted into a seperate 2da and added to the override directory to have an effect on the game. You can learn more about the 2da format at this page at bioware.com.
AR_* files are Area Reward files and contain the definition for all the sweet rewards the player gets for different situations in the game. Each entry in the 2da represents a game event and contains all the design specific information on how the player is rewarded for a specific event - alignment changes, silver, items, XP, mapnotes that get enabled, and so on. These files also contain the random treasure tables for each chapter (RT_* worksheets).

File	Size	Description
ar_ch1.xls	~ 88kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 1 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch2.xls	~ 121kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 2 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch3.xls	~ 143 kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 3 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch4.xls	~ 26kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 4 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch5.xls	~ 39kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 5 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch6.xls	~ 28 kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 6 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_ch7.xls	~ 33 kb	Excel file with all the data for all area reward (ar_*) files for chapter 7 of the game. Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.
ar_global.xls	~ 24 kb	Excel file with all the data for all global game rewards (such as from winning skillchecks). Note: This file is for reference only, the data does not contain the additions made for the PC version of the game, so using these may disable some of the PC specific special features.

Barry Scott Will from http://papagamer.com hosts a list of extracted and text formatted 2da files for Jade Empire: