Order & Chaos Online: First Impressions

I see Exp, HP, MP, and stats. Sign me up!

Check out the full review of Order & Chaos Online here!

I’ve had a major itch develop over the past few weeks. Nothing unsightly, but definitely treatable. Several symptoms have come into play: Tax return money, the release of Rift, and the insatiable desire to get back into MMO’s. I thought long and hard about buying Rift, but the decision isn’t that simple. Rift is PC only and my current setup would probably top out at 7 FPS. Playing Rift would effectively cost me hundreds of dollars in upgrades, not to mention the software and subscription fee.

I’ve been playing a lot of World of Magic (iPhone MMORPG), but after leveling all three classes to 12 I have come to realize the game devolves into a perpetual grind around level 10. The only way to get more powerful is to grind for experience and grind for items. I don’t use that term lightly, since it is often used in a negative connotation to describe an RPG. There are no quests to give you more experience and the mobs scale at a higher rate than the gear you can afford. I caught a glimpse of my future, and I didn’t like it; a month later, I was level 15 and I had killed ten thousand Red Crabs to do it.

It was fun until I realized this is all I would be doing for the next month.

A few Google searches later, I found an MMO that was released on April 21—Order & Chaos Online. There is a limited amount of information concerning the game, but here’s what I do know:

• The game costs $6.99 upfront and includes a 3 month subscription
  • After that, you can renew for $0.99 a month, $1.99 for 3 months, or $2.99 for 6 months
• Fully real-time, fully 3D environment
• Four races: Elves & Humans fight for the Order, Orcs & Undead fight for Chaos
  • You can have an Order character and a Chaos character on the same server
• Four classes: Warrior, Mage, Monk, and Ranger
  • Each race can be any of the four classes
• IMPORTANT: Wi-Fi connection required!

You start with 12 inventory slots, but more slots are purchasable with gold.

This was my thinking: If the game costs me seven dollars and I really get into it, then that is dirt cheap for the amount of entertainment it will provide over the next three months. If I bust, then I wasted two gallons of milk. Tragic, yes.

Anyone who has played WoW or a clone will feel right at home

I started an Undead Ranger and a Human Monk on the Arcadian Forest server to scope things out. I chose that server because it had a population of “Medium” and the other two were “Low.”

As a new Monk, I am leaning on my Arrow of Faith for DPS.

I have an iPhone 3GS and the game runs decently. My game doesn’t look nearly as good as the screenshots in the App Store; I’m guessing those are iPhone 4 level graphics.

Kill 5 Lake Crocodiles? I feel like I've done this before...

The game is so new that many newbie quest areas are packed with fresh characters trying to kill wolves and boars. On quests to kill elite named creatures, there are a dozen people camping the respawn location and waiting for the mob to pop up. The best way to handle this is to invite everyone to party (with a max party size of 4), so you have a much greater chance to receive credit for the kill.

Waiting for a Named to respawn so we can complete the quest

Quest givers have a yellow scroll above their heads. You may select one quest at a time to follow and a blue arrow will appear next to your character to direct you. Some people might say this makes the game too easy and takes the fun out of discovery, but on a screen this size I appreciate the help.

Starting at level 5, you get a talent point for each level. Each class has two distinct trees it may invest in. For the monk, I am able to put points in the Divine tree if I want to focus on casting; if I want to be more melee-centric, I’ll go into the Military Monk tree.

The Monk talent tree. Pretty extensive, huh?

I’m only level 6 with the Monk right now, but I will be sure to come back next week with more information for you.

Select a quest to find out its destination