E3 2009: Jade Dynasty at a glance
Filed under: At a glance, Betas, Fantasy, Game mechanics, Launches, New titles, Free-to-play, Casual

The third game in Perfect World's portfolio, Jade Dynasty, has been riding quietly in closed beta for a while. At this year's E3, however, the Jade Dynasty crew brought out their game and let us here at Massively take it for a test drive. They also hit us with an announcement as well -- Jade Dynasty will be jumping out of closed beta on June 15th, and a European server will be added in on that day as well.
Overall, Jade Dynasty pulls much from Perfect World's other games: Perfect World and Ether Saga Online. The click on map to automatically move feature, cosmetic cash shop, and large amount of in-game quests returns, but a few new features have been added in that make this game a very interesting experience.
Join us after the break as we break down Jade Dynasty's features, a few of which may be controversial for some gamers.
Overall, Jade Dynasty pulls much from Perfect World's other games: Perfect World and Ether Saga Online. The click on map to automatically move feature, cosmetic cash shop, and large amount of in-game quests returns, but a few new features have been added in that make this game a very interesting experience.
Join us after the break as we break down Jade Dynasty's features, a few of which may be controversial for some gamers.
Jade Dynasty's class feature is unique in the fact that it's easily manipulated to your preferences. After the first levels, players must decide which faction they want to follow on their road to immortality. Each of the game's factions are the classes, but these classes can be manipulated so they can each stand on their own. While the Skysong faction is the healer class, their skills can be changed so they can be viable in physical combat with less emphasis on their healing.
The game's guild system is also unique in the fact that it works much like The Matrix Online's factions system worked. Players form first into clans, which can hold a total of 12 members. Clan leaders can then create alliances, which is more of a guild structure. Clans and alliances can receive quests to gain buffs and special abilities, such as the ability to share experience with all of your clan-mates who are online, regardless of where you are in the world.One of the main things Jade Dynasty attempts to do is give the player the ability to gain experience as they please. In towns or "safe areas" the player has the option to begin meditating, which places their character in a bubble of serenity and begins to give them experience every 60 seconds.
The flip side of the coin to this feature is the ability for your character to dream. Dreaming is very similar to meditation, except it can only be done while you're offline and it pays out three times better than meditation. However, dreaming cannot be activated unless you have a special item to trigger it. Dreaming is not simply logging out and getting rest experience -- it's full experience. So, when you log back in, you may actually have increased a level simply by dreaming. Each item you have gives you one hour of dreaming, so you'll need quite a few to actually make it worthwhile.
One of the most controversial features of Jade Dynasty, however, is the fact that you can essentially let the game AFK itself. Once a character acquires their pet, an esper, the player can choose for the esper to control their movements. This ability is called invigorate, and it's only available when the esper has above 50% of it's energy. Once that's available, all you have to do is press the button around an area of monsters and just walk away. Effectively, this is a built in bot program that pretty much everybody can use.
Once the esper's energy depletes, however, you're back on your own. So if you're not at the PC when that happens, you're standing around like a guy who was AFKing. Esper energy automatically refills as you're playing the game, however, so just a little more playtime will get you a little more AFK time for that sandwich of yours.
In short, Jade Dynasty isn't your average free-to-play MMO. Is it for you? Well, decide for yourself when the game launches on June 15th.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alex said on 6:05PM 6-04-2009
And yet ANOTHER shallow Asian grindfest that looks exactly the same as all the others.
DOES IT EVER END?
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mrbreck said on 6:39PM 6-04-2009
Why do they keep making these games?! BAH! I wish Massively would stop covering them. Or at most there should be one article a week (month?) called YAAG (Yet Another Asian Grinder) that informs us of the 50,000 new item-shop crap fests these people keep churning out. That way we just have one post a week to ignore instead of 15 a day.
And yes, Runes of Magic belongs in that category.
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Jarin said on 8:24PM 6-04-2009
What do you mean, "these people"?
Jack said on 6:50PM 6-04-2009
Asian Grinders MASSIVELY STOP cover this junk!!
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Jack said on 6:51PM 6-04-2009
This game give mmo a bad name!
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Skuz said on 9:00PM 6-04-2009
The problem with Korea is it is super-saturated with MMO's, these are short-lived, badly developed post release with next to zero customer service trash games that serve no other purpose than to make a few bucks as fast as they can from their item shops before the game's flaws, similarity to every other Korean MMO, & blandness finally kick in & wreck the player experience & they head off for the next piece of crap coming off the Korean MMO conveyor belt of crap.
I'm not usually one to discriminate against an entire group of people but I make the exception here de to the sheer volume, unless Korea can stop producing such junk & take the time to invest in a long-termism quality-led game design not reliant on churning out grab-the-cash-fast games with no future they are only going to make people sick of their product.
They have the talent, they have the artists, they have the coders, but they need to ratify what they produce & they really need to learn that centuries old adage of "quality is better than quantity".
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Skuz said on 9:04PM 6-04-2009
And I need to not post when drunk, this is Chinese not Korean, & RoM was Taiwanese & doesn't play as badly as the bulk of the junk MMO's from the east, probably as the lead devs lived in the states for a long time.
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Digest said on 3:47AM 6-05-2009
Maybe you don't need this kind of information but we do here in Asia. Not all of us here can play Pay to Play triple A MMO games. So if you have enough dough then just maybe, you guys can pay for my sub and for the rest of my friends?.... I think so. So why do you still keep commenting on F2P where its the only way for us to play an MMO.
Start talking if you will sub my account, otherwise if the above post don't have anything to say then stfu and piss off.
That's why its called Massively, its for everybody. Not only for people who got what it takes to have an mmo subscription base game.
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Richard Dobson said on 3:10AM 6-18-2009
Digest, you make absolutely zero sense, here's an example using the logic you used.
Person A: "What's your stance on Gay Marriage"
Person B: "Give me and all my friends $800, and then I might give you a half-assed answer."
Then Person A continues to gouge out Person B's eyeballs, skull-screw him, then knife his intestines out and strangle him to death with them. The cops come and ask him
Cops: "Why'd you kill him?"
Person A: "He played Korean MMO's, was a total douche, and used completely invalid logic."
Cops: "Ah, alright, have a good day sir, and watch out, we have sources that tell us there's some 11-year-old-sims-playing-tweens-who-claim-they're-gamers around these parts!"
Person A: "God help us all."
And that's my perfect world :D
Oh, and back to the point! Lurn2Logic!
Mr. Digital said on 4:56PM 6-05-2009
Another Asian-themed MMORPG full of Super Happy Flashies. Joy.
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Digest said on 2:03AM 6-19-2009
Logic?
Then it would be easy for you to understand the stars beneath my post compaired to yours. You know?
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