Jade Dynasty (video game)
Encyclopedia
Jade Dynasty is a free to play MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 game created by Perfect World
Perfect World (company)
Perfect World is a China-based online game company specializing in MMORPGs. Beijing Perfect World Co. was founded in 2004 by Chi Yufeng, the president of Human Software Corporation. The company aims to develop and market games with Chinese characteristics...

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The game is currently in its third expansion,Path of Glory. It is based on a popular Chinese internet novel called Zhu Xian.

Gameplay

Jade Dynastys plotline revolves around the conflict between six human factions called Jadeon, Skysong, Vim, Lupin, Modo and Incense Mage (the last one not released yet), and their eventual goal of attaining immortality - which they have through a process dubbed "ascension", thus the name of the 2nd expansion, Ascension - and six factions from the Athan race, known to be demigods, Rayan, Arden, Celan, Balo, Barbe and Voida (the last two are not released yet but upcoming)that are trying to prevent the Humans from becoming too powerful. Human characters choose which faction to join at level 15 (there are 150 levels total.) while Athan characters choose the faction they wish to play at character creation. Each faction in Jade Dynasty has different skills, strengths, weaknesses and styles of play.

Characters can purchase items from the marketplace using a form of currency called . There is an auto-route function which enables the player to travel to a specific location by just clicking on a name.

Espers are powerful items that provide a bonus skills and extra attributes to the owner. These attributes and skills can be increased both with special items or leveling up the esper. Every time the player uses an Esper skill, the Esper's proficiency increases by 1. When the Esper has enough proficiency, its level is increased, which empowers the bonuses that it grants. The Esper also changes its appearance every 10 levels and allows the player to use a function known as "invigorate" (which is commonly known as a "bot" a program, illegal in most MMORPG's used to make the character automatically attack enemies.)After level 90 a character requires esper energy to bot, items such as Lunashade stones provide this energy. Espers have different sections that allow the player to place HP and SP pots in them and select how often the pots are used. There is also a section to add skills other than the Esper skill to the Esper allowing these to also be automatically used.

Players are able to obtain pets and train them, improving their quality and evolving their appearance. Pets are very useful in-game as they attack enemies and possess skills of their own. A pet workshop exists to craft training material or gear for pets. The mood of the pet determines what it says to the player.
Pets have levels just like players, but their power is more affected by the pet's grade. A pet will level up either by fighting along side it's master or by using items such as Kylin or Miradrake Orbs, which when consumed increase a pet's experience.
Pets are divided into grades. There are 20 grades, which are improved by using pet jades obtained through quests, such as Pet Tamer Totto's Free Lunch quest or trading in "Celebeans", an item purchased in the marketplace. (see marketplace) The higher the pet's grade, the stronger the pet becomes. The pet's appearance can radically change at grades 12 and 18 using a special item, the "Red Mushrooom". The appearance change is purely aesthetic - it does not affect the pet's skills or attributes. Pets have different star signs which change which attacks they have and their effectiveness.

There are different ways of getting around on Jade Dynasty:
-Skylords allow players to teleport between towns for a small fee, but players can only teleport to areas when their level is high enough.
-Skyblades allow players to fly through the air, however skyblades require Esper energy and you will occasionally find yourself running into an invisible wall. Permenant skyblades can be obtained from the market place and from the Wind Fairy in Sunstream. A temporary skyblade can be obtained by completing a weekly quest from the Wind Fairy. Skyblades also have levels and grades which will increase with use. You can not fight on skyblades.
-Mounts allow a player to travel on the ground faster than they could run, however Ardens can out run most mounts due to a "Fox Form" skill that increases resistances and speed. Permanent mounts can be bought from the market place or temporary mounts that can be won in a Kunlun Fairground game.

Classes

As like in most fantasy MMORPG's, the games different classes, or factions, follow some common archetypes. Their names are, however, very original, and seem to break the mold of "Warrior", "Archer", "Wizard/Mage", etc.

- The Jadeon -

The Jadeon are one of the two good human factions (Skysong being the other), and are the "glass cannons" of the game. They possess very powerful ranged and Area of Effect (AoE) attacks (damaging many enemies around a specific point, usually the casting character.), but low health and defense. It is considered by many one of the classes that can level up the fastest, due to its being the main AoE faction of the game. Their equipment consists of hats, cassocks, shoes, and swords.

- The Skysong -

The Skysong are the healers of the game. They are very valuable in group combat due to their ability to cast skills that benefit, and heal, their allies. They have low defense and attack power but are very resilient due to their heals. They are thought to be the most cost-efficient class to use because of their heals, which make it useless to buy healing potions and be able to save those received from the Treasure Box and Brocade Box (see below.). They use staffs as their weapons.

- The Lupin -

The Lupin are the human assassins, sharing the role with the Athan faction of the Rayan. They focus only on single-target skills (they only receive one area of effect skill, while all other factions except the Rayan receive 3 or more.) and 'buffs' that increase their damage or critical hits. They really shine in player versus player (PvP) situations due to their high damage and two of their skills (Ancient Prayer and Thicken Blood) that radically improve their maximum health. They use the glaive, a round weapon with 2 to 4 edges wrapping around it. When shown in combat, the glaive spins at a very high speed around the hand of the Lupin player and will be thrown towards the opponent at close range.

- The Vim -

The "tanks" of the game (though this term cannot really be used as there is no need for tanks in Jade Dynasty due to the lack of any dungeon system), along with their Athan counterpart the Balo. Originally a faction for Good but their disregard for life and careless fighting style has isolated them from the Jadeon and Skysong factions. They have very high health and defense, and are very easy to use and efficient in the early stages of the game due to their survivability and, in PvP cases, their annoying ability to stun and paralyze other players. They are said, however, to lose a lot of this efficiency in the endgame, as most players will have matched their survivability and will have acquired the sufficient amounts of resistance to ward off the paralyze and stun effects that the Vim can cause. They also have the ability to attract monsters attention from other pl,ayers due to agro effects. Their weapon is the duoblade, a blade with a hilt and two edges protruding from each end of the hilt.

- The Modo -

An incredibly versatile class, which is very bad early-game but becomes incredibly powerful at levels 90 and over. They can transform into three forms, the first being Demonic Posture, a melee form that focuses on improving their health, attack, and defense, but lowering their resistances to effects like the aforementioned Paralyze. The second form is the Modon form, which is the main form used in PvP situations. It focuses on improving resistances and spirit (mana/sp), and using ranged bleeds and attacks. The third form is the normal Human form, which can cast powerful AoE attacks. The power of this class is the unpredictability and versatile range of attacks. This class is not recommended for players new to this game due to the effort it takes to master it. They use the fangclaw, a claw that is attached onto their hand (think of a Wolverine glove.)

- The Arden -

The archers of Jade Dynasty, a fox-demon, they can also summon plants and wild beasts which can induce status effects on monsters and players, each skill tier contains a different plant and beast, to aid them in battle. Their attacks have the longest range, surpassing that of the Jadeon and Modon Form Modo. They lack health and defense, but often kill a monster before it can get to range due to their great DPS. They have the ability to shape shift into a fox, raising their speed and resistances exponentially but making them unable to attack. In 'normal form' they have ears and a tail which you can alter the color of.

- The Balo -

The other tanking class of the game, they wield axes and focus, much more than the Vim, on health and defense. They do not, however, have much potential in dealing damage, another drawback is they are quite slow levelers compared to other Athan (and human) factions. Many people prize the Vim over the Balo due to their ability to do good damage while having good early and mid-game stats.

- The Celan -

The Celan are musicians that use the Zither as their weapon. They are the "bard" class of Jade Dynasty. They can use different attacks that have certain notes to make musical combos and chains. They are one of the two classes implemented in the latest expansion, "Vengeance", along with the Rayan. Like Skysongs, they also posses the ability to heal. This class float slightly off the ground in a graceful glide. Their most powerful ability is an AoE "reflect" skill. Their healing and buffing abilities match those of a Skysong and they can deal good AoE damage while healing themselves. Their main downside is their high usage of spirit and their dependency on it, making them quite expensive for potions. The cost is balanced in part because of their low to nonexistent health potion cost, perhaps less than Skysongs (even though some Skysongs don't even buy health pots) because of their healing and reflection abilities.

- The Rayan -

The Athan's Lupin counterpart, they possess the power to hide in the shadows, making them invisible to monsters and players alike. They can summon shadows, clones of themselves that can attack, use skills, and be used in devastating combinations with the caster. Their power is in their skills that can transfer damage and debuffs to the shadow, teleport to the shadow, etc. The Rayan also possess great melee damage potential. Invisibility will not shield them from substantially higher level players' view. They use 2 scythes as their weapons.

Tiers

Each faction has 4 Tiers of skills. The tiers can be unlocked by completing the "Courier Pigeon" quest chain received every thirty levels. Tier 1 : level 15 for Humans, level 1 for Athans, Tier 2 : Level 45, Tier 3 : Level 75, Tier 4 : Level 105, Tier 5 : Level 135 - 150. Each class has an independant Tier 1 and 2 quest but Tier 3, 4 and 5 quests are the same for all classes.
The tiers start at level 15 due to the fact that upon starting the game (creating a new character) as a Human, you will be an "Initate" for 15 levels. The initate tier is designed to familiarize the new players with the four main types of skills. There is a Passive (a skill that cannot be used, but gives a permanent attribute bonus), an attack skill (used to deal extra damage), a healing skill (a skill that restores a predetermined amount of health to the caster or a target player), and a "buff', a skill that boosts certain attributes for a certain duration of time and that, depending on the skill, may or may not be able to be used on other players. Each Tier contains a certain amount of skills, 9 skills for Tiers 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 4 skills for the Initate tier and Tier 5.
Initiate skills require 8 skill points to access Tier 1 skills.
Tier 1 skills need 24 skill points to access Tier 3 skills and so on.
There are not enough skill points to attain all skills at maximum levels so players will follow a specific build chosing which skills they think will be the most useful. This system allows a variation within classes, such as Skysongs being able to focus on either healing or fighting. Some players will attempt to do both but this usually results in a character that is a "jack of all trades, but master of none", so the usual builds focus on expanding upon one thing in the class.

Refinery

Refinery is an important process of the game. It uses talismans and, sometimes, an auxiliary item to improve, or guarantee, the success of a refinery.

Refinery improves the quality of the weapon, adding attributes to it and giving it a glow of different colors depending on the level of the refinery (e.g. Refinery +1, Refinery +6, etc.). It is invaluable endgame in both PvP and PvE. Gears are guaranteed to break if the refining process fails. This may be avoided by using items that either enhance the chances of success or prevent items from breaking or guaranteed success. The following items directly affect the refinery process:

1. The Star Charm : The Star Charm increases the chance of success by 15%. (whether this is multiplicative or additive remains to be confirmed)

2. The Serenity Jade : The Serenity Jade prevents the item from breaking. However, should the refinery process fail, the refine level will be reduced by 1 (i.e. if your item was +5 and the refine process fails while you used a serenity jade, your item will be returned to you +4 and the serenity jade and refinery talisman are consumed)

3. The Bronze Sigil : Guarantees success of refining your item up to +5 and cannot be used for gears that are already +5 (this means the max refine you can obtain with bronze sigil is +5). However if you trade in 3 bronze sigil at enchanter NPC, you may obtain a silver sigil which will guarantee refinery up to +6. 3 silver sigils may be traded in for a gold sigil and this process is repeated for a dragon sigil which allows max refinery of up to +9 (again does not include items that are already +9).

The above items can be purchased in the marketplace.

The Marketplace

The Marketplace is a cash shop which contains items such as the Bronze Sigil. The currency used is named Jaden, and the exchange rate is currently 1 USD for 1 Jaden. Jaden can be purchased from other people who would put it in the bank for other people to buy. The in-game gold to Jaden (gold being the virtual in-game currency) ratio is steadily rising. Unlike some games you can play Jade Dynasty without using the market place but you will be at a disadvantage to cash shop players.

Treasure Chest / Brocade Box

The Treasure Chest is an item received by every new character and that can be opened every 5 levels and that contains many very valuable items, including some exclusive, and some from the Marketplace.

The Brocade Box is a box received by Inductees, characters on a new account who have used a level 60+ player's induction code, obtained by speaking to the in-game induction Agent. The Inductor receives Bonus Jaden each time his/her inductee reaches a certain level. The Inductee's Brocade Box is similar to the Treasure Chest in the respect that it can be opened every 5 levels up to level 90, after which it opens at levels 120, 135, and 150.

Ascension

Ascension is a process that can be accomplished through a quest reached upon achieving Tier 5 or by having a large enough ammount of honour, piety, charity, culture or renown. Your character will be reset to level 15 and you have the ability to change factions within your race, for example changing from Vim to Modo, with very large attribute bonuses and different skills depending on your initial and final class. You can ascend at any point over Tier 5 but your character will be stronger if you wait to ascend till 150. A new mandatory quest chain will be opened, and you will have access to many new areas, new gear, new skills, and the affinity and chroma systems.

Affinity

Upon reaching level 90 ascended, your character will receive a new Mandatory quest called "The Divination". Upon completing this quest you will choose between three Affinities - Dagos, Felkin, or Fuwa. Affinities grant extra skills, five of which are faction specific. There are other skills available to all characters possessing that particular affinity. You may only have one affinity at the same time, but some items in the Marketplace can enable you to switch affinities. The affinity skills from the previous affinity will not be able to be used, but if you choose to revert to the original affinity, the skills will automatically be at the level before the affinity change.(e.g., a Dagos Modo switching to Felkin Modo, thus gaining access to the Felkin skills, but not being able to use his Fuwa skills anymore. If he/she changes back to Dagos, he will be able to use the Dagos skills again, at the level that they were when he/she switched to felkin.)
Chosing an affinity allows the player access to a whole new map dependant on their faction.

Chroma

Once the character reach level 120 ascended, and have chose an affinity, the character is able to learn chroma skills. The first one is chroma burst. Three of the chroma skills are improved affinity skills. Four of the chroma skills are improved tier-5 skills. Three of the chroma skills are passive skills. Five of the chroma skills are general chroma skills that are not faction specific. Players will not lose their chroma level from switching affinity.

Private Servers

Jade Dynasty has many Private Servers, privately owned versions of the game. Due to copyrights on the second expansion of the game that introduced the Athan race and classes, private servers do not have Athans implemented and will not until Perfect World allows it. They do, however, have the ascension system. Jade Dynasty is a game that meshes very well with private servers, as there is limited dungeon content and all gear can be bought from NPC's. The system of looting gear that is often present in fantasy MMORPG's is mooted in Jade Dynasty. One of the most popular servers is Haruki JD, which offers an advertised "x999" experience rate. This feature can, through power-leveling, make a player level 150 in a matter of seconds. An unpopular feature in private servers is the server "reset" that happens at 12:00 PM EST and resets quest availability (example : if there is a quest that can be taken once a day, the daily reset will essentially enable you to take the quest again. Think of it as clearing a cookie, at 12:00 PM EST, that only allows you to do something once.). The quest to choose a faction is a "daily" quest. However, since leveling is so fast in many private servers, players living near EST usually have to wait a day to ascend.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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