Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II Interview

We've conducted an interview with Black Isle's Terry Spier, asking the designer several questions about the soon-to-be-released Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II. A snippet to follow:
GB: Can you briefly detail the item creation system and some of the more powerful a player can obtain this way?

Terry: Certain items in the game (weapons, armor, trinkets) have a quality level. Items with a high enough quality can have precious gems added to them to enhance their performance. Each item has three 'slots' that can hold up to 16 gems. The more gems you put in, the better result you get. For example, you have found a Fine Great Sword. Add 16 rune stones, 16 diamonds, and 16 topaz and you now have yourself a +5 Fine Great Sword of Justice, which has a 75% chance to disintegrate undead on a critical hit and does an additional 5-40 point of electrical damage on every hit. Quite a weapon, but no where near the top of the power scale. As I said before, the number of variations you can create is staggering. Rings, amulets, boots, gloves... anything you can wear can be crafted in to an instrument to aid your performance!