Order & Chaos Online Beginner's Guide Part 1 for Windows Phone 8

Last week’s Xbox Windows Phone 8 release Order & Chaos Online is pretty much the largest game on the platform, as far as quantity of content goes. One can’t possibly see all there is to see in an Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) in only a week’s time, so we’re going to hold off on reviewing it for a bit.
Today Windows Phone Central brings you part one of our exclusive Order & Chaos Online Beginner’s Guide, complete with video. Stick with us to learn how the game works and get ahead quickly! Remember, you can play Order & Chaos Online until you reach experience level 8 for FREE (and purchase the game without losing your progress if you desire) so anybody who can run this game needs to give it a try.
Characters
In last week’s article we briefly covered the game’s various races and classes, so we won’t go into too much more detail this time. Players get three character slots with purchase of the game. Each class works differently from the others, so creating new characters provides a new experience and dozens of hours of additional playtime. You can also purchase a fourth and fifth character slot using Runestones, the game’s premium currency.
Here are the starting attributes (stats) for each class. Unfortunately the Mendel stats aren’t currently available online, but if you guys submit them to us, I’ll be happy to update the chart.
Talents
Every time you level up after level 5, you’ll gain one skill point to spend on talents. Access the Talent menu from a tab at the top of the Spells menu.
Each character has two different talent paths they can take. You can mix and match between both paths, but you’ll need to spend a lot of points on one path or the other if you want to reach high level talents. Here’s a Talent Calculator (more calculators here) to aid with planning.
If you need to change your talents, you can purchase a respec from trainers in Silence or Greenmont. Respecs cost 10 Gold.
Quests
Killing enemies is a decent way to grind for experience, but more so for money and loot. The best way to gain experience is by completing quests. You’ll also earn money, rare items, and equipment as quest rewards. Sometimes you have to choose between multiple rewards; pick the one that best suits your character’s class.
You can have up to 12 quests at a time. If you want to take on a new quest when you already have 12 active, you’ll have to either drop one (in which case you can restart it by talking to the NPC who provided the quest) or turn one in. Completing quests often opens up new quests, while other quests become available at certain levels.
Unfortunately, quests can’t be sorted by proximity to your current location. But you can decide which quest to work on by looking at its colors in your quest log. The color of the quest name indicates the recommended level for completing the quest in relation to your current experience level.
- Grey: Much lower level than you (Very easy)
- Green: A few levels lower than you (Easy)
- Yellow: Same level (Normal)
- Orange: A few levels higher than you (Hard)
- Red: Several levels higher (Very hard)
If the background behind a quest name appears in blue, that quest is ready to turn in.
Map
Nearby characters or objects that can provide you with quests, quest destinations, and places to turn in quests are marked by yellow symbols on your mini-map. These symbols can also be seen from the full map, but only if you zoom in on the map (it doesn’t zoom very far).
If you do see nearby quest markers on the map, it’s generally a good idea to do them while you’re in the area instead of leaving for a different area. You don’t even have to select the corresponding quest as your primary one; just head to the marker and see what progresses the quest.
Speaking of heading to quest markers, don’t just blindly follow the blue arrow created by your primary quest. Roaming the wild often leads straight into impassable mountains (not to mention hordes of enemies) and wastes time. Stick to the road as much as possible and you’ll reach your destination much sooner and safer.
Teleporting
The fastest way to travel is by teleport. Most towns have a Teleport Master (shown above) who can send you to one or more specific locations for a fee that ranges from 75 copper to 57 silver. That seems expensive but it actually becomes negligible at higher levels.
Teleportation Wings are single-use items that teleport you to a specific location instantly, no matter where you are. They can be handy for getting out of an unsafe area or just saving a lot of time, but they’re also fairly expensive (10-50 silver). Each one is level locked, so you can’t just use them to skip far ahead in the world. Buy Teleportation Wings in the city of Greenmont, near the Auction House.
See the Order & Chaos Online Wiki for a full list of Teleport Master locations and Teleportation Wing destinations.
Lucky Crosses
To play the Daily Lottery, either touch your character’s portrait and access it from there or select it from the map screen. One of the frees prize you can win is the Lucky Cross. Its description enigmatically reads “It will bring you good luck, keep it for further use.” But what does it do?
As it turns out, Lucky Crosses do nothing on their own. But you can trade them for prizes in the city of Greenmont. Located at the northern border of the Arkadian Forest region, Greenmont is the first major city that most players will visit. There you can start a guild, buy Teleportation Wings, auction items, and much more.
Right in front of the Auction House, you’ll see a Mysterious Trader (he is designated by a red symbol on the map). Just to the left of him is a wooden object with a cross on top called the Kating. Activate the Kating to trade your crosses. The cheapest prize costs 10 Lucky Crosses, so it will take a while before you can cash your crosses in. Place them in your Storage Box until you can afford a prize.
Camera views and getting unstuck
New players often have trouble with getting stuck in first-person view. To adjust the level of zoom, use two-finger pinching motions. Zooming in all the way switches to first-person and zooming out goes back to third-person.
Another beginner problem is getting stuck and becoming unable to move. If this ever happens to you, tap your character’s portrait and go to Options. Choose Help and then “Break Away.” You’ll re-spawn at the nearest cemetery.
Dying
Whenever you die, you’re given the option to re-spawn in the same location by spending one Runestone. Most players will choose to re-spawn in the nearest cemetery instead.
Sometimes tough enemies will surround the cemetery, making it difficult to escape from where you re-spawned. If that happens, you should ask for another player help from your guild or via Global chat. Also, if you’re teamed up with a Monk who has the Resurrect spell, just let him or her revive you instead of re-spawning in the cemetery.
There is no penalty for dying until you reach level 10. After that, the game charges a fee in silver coins every time you die. Thus it’s very important not to take on enemies and quests you can’t handle at the current level. If you’re not holding any money when you die, you won’t be charged the fee.
To be continued
That’s it for part one of our guide, loyal readers! Don't miss the second installment, in which we go over auctions, guilds, earning and buying gold, and much more.
Order & Chaos Online – Windows Phone 8 with 1 GB RAM – 1012 MB - $6.99 – Store Link
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Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!
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Omnomnomnomnomnom
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Very nice, looking forward to reading part 2.
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I'm sad because it needs 1Gb RAM :(
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And it plays on an iPod touch 4 (256 MB ram).
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Blame the developer for using lazy memory management.
They could have two versions in the store, which knows which device you have, one with standard textures and another with lower quality textures for devices with less memory. -
Hey, let's edit the first comment instead of triple commenting. Anyway, the solution you're suggesting would require double the Xbox Live certification time and cost for the dev, so it's hard to blame them for not submitting two versions.
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They could have included multiple texture packs and let the installer choose which pack to install based on the device, if they don't want to use the bootstrap installer method. Where the install first downloads a small app, which then downloads the actual version you need.
Lol, ya I did. This wonderful edit feature duplicated it. -
That's something we haven't seen in an Xbox WIndows Phone game, but it would indeed work.
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That would also eliminate the need for triple amount of storage when installing. But devs probably not doing this because of store policies.
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The edit feature on the app often double posts :(
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Lol
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Thank you for this. I brought it and have no idea how to play. It annoyed me.
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Hmmm maybe the trial would have been the first option for you before you "bought" it =)
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Lol perhaps
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Never played an mmorpg. As a Halo gamer, will I find this interesting?
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They're very different styles of games. This one's all about completing quests (hundreds of them), building up your character over time, and teaming up and socializing with other players. Best thing you can do is give the trial a go and see for yourself.
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Flight control n blobster looses nokia exclusitivity
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Paul..does this game take advantage of cloud saving. So if I start it and switch devices I won't have to start all over again?
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I'm 99% sure it does... But kinda scared to test it, heh.
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Wait ... Cloud saving? Isn't this one a MMORPG? MMO games always store user data on the server. So switching between devices should not be a problem. Even if you switching back and forth between iOS, Android and WP, you always continue your last session (tough having it more than one platform is unlikely since you have to buy the game. Just install the game, login, and you're good to go. If it can't do it, we shouldn't call it MMORPG.
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You can't use the same characters between platforms because they don't share the same servers, unfortunately. But yeah, I was pretty sure it stored the characters on the server.
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Try it, it's free.
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Have you played any RPGs in the past? MMORPGs are mostly just RPGs in an online setting. So, if you have played and liked games such as Skyrim, you would likely enjoy this. Now, there is a lot more on-foot (or mount) travel in an MMO, as the willy-nilly fast traveling isn't an option, and there can be a bigger level of grinding quests, but if you like the general makeup of a quest-driven game, MMOs will suit you just fine (most likely).
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Any word on this coming to Windows 8?
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Nope, and I don't think gameloft will ever port it.
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Just curious, what makes you say that?
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Gameloft has ONE game on W8, sharkdash, and they show no interest at all in W8. Besides, who would play games on W8? If you have the full W8 version, you're just going to play World of Warcraft, and if you have a W8 RT tablet, well... Not much people have a W8 RT tablet, so gameloft doesn't care.
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If you could share your account between WP8 and Windows 8/RT, I think that would be a pretty attractive selling point. But you're right that Gameloft just doesn't have any interest in Windows 8 at present.
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I don't understand what you mean, like downloading WP8 apps and games on W8?
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I actually meant buying both versions and being able to log into your Gameloft account and play the same characters across both versions. Play/Pause/Resume support, basically. But of course, universal app purchases would be fantastic too.
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Hmm just went to play it for first time and I can't log in? I think the server may be down right now.
Edit: finally connected!.. But why are the mendels so cute?! -
Agree, can't login right now
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I love this game, great fun and very addicting. This will suffice til Halo comes to all phones and beyond.
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Oh ya and he started a guild called WPCentral yesterday, so everyone should join! (if that's alright with "eastwind")
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Yes, please join the WPCentral guild, folks! Just PM EastWind whenever I'm online for an invite.
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This really needs controller support. I simply can't stand it with touch input. I'm going to wait and see if that ever comes, then I might give it a try again if it does.
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Same feeling here. Although I use 920 but still it's hard to navigate when 60% of the display covered by my thumbs
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I agree.
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Is this game any good? Is it like WoW?
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It's basically a ceneric clone of it, just as Modercombat is Call of Duty, N.O.V.a is Halo, and Shark Dash is Angry Birds. Knock-offs are GameLoft's wheelhouse.
That said, it's not a great one. It does the job, but the controls are kind of clunky (expect with a mobile MMO), and the Ranger class is nore of a Rogue than a Hunter, sadly. I'm not sure how involved the game actually is (not sure if it has any instances), but the core gameplay follows the MMO design--quests, quests, and more quests. -
I played it on my Android device and iPad on and off for about a year then got bored with it but still once and a while I will pick it up but it wasn't as fun as when I first played it!
I think for a Mobile MMO it's decent and somewhat addictive...
It does get harder as you progress and you will find yourself looking for help to complete some missions...
I wandered off into higher level PVP areas where I got repeatedly ganked guess I was just not paying attention to well...
There is crafting and it is helpful...
They have a in game store which is nice if you’re the type to pump in some extra's or give away stuff to your guild...
Now that it's on the Windows phone I might load it up just to see how it handles. -
Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this, I did download this to my 925 not my daily driver 920 & I must mention that the graphics and color/depth is absolutely amazing. So far the game is meh but its also 2am so thanks for the info all and will give this a decent run tomorrow. :)
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As great as this game is, when i noticed the live tile update i was hoping it was going to say H:SA was live. Oh well the wait goes on.
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Wonder if u can trick store into thinking you are with Verizon..... Food for thought
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It would be nice if gamloft ported its gangstar games
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We need these kind of games (also Batman spiderman and nova) on WINRT
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^agreed^ although I have Surface pro
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How is this as a quick play game? Can I jump in and play for a few minutes or do I have to put a lot of time into it? You know, is it a good bathroom game. :)
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As a former D&D player I've always been interested in these kinds of games but have held off because I worry about how much time it would take to finish quests and whether I would lose interest if I had long stretches where I didn't have time to play.
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You could get stuff done in a 15-30 minute session. You wouldn't accomplish much in 5 minutes other than chatting, selling gear, or checking your auctions, etc.
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Thank you, much appreciated. Good on you for taking the time to share your knowledge on this, will download and have a look, pretty big file size hey.
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Would download this, but knowing I have to hard reset after deleting this I won't do so.. I don't want 1gb more of other.
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^didn't think of that, have 600mb in other atm but before last hard reset it was 11gb! Don't want to do it again as I will lose YouTube app that was removed from store. This is a huge problem and I hope MS rectifies this other storage issue as my L925 only has 16gb so every kb is precious
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I'm enjoying it but I can't decide if I want to buy it. Halo is about to come out and it doesn't seem perfectly smooth on my Verizon 8X even though im only in the starting zone.
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I like this, but my battery HATES it. It also causes immense heat
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We'll have some battery saving tips in part 2. The heat is unavoidable in graphically intense games, sadly.
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Performance leaves a lot to be desired, the biggest problem being input lag. It often fails to register a swipe to turn when you're running. This is a huge problem because it makes kiting impossible, but it's a problem any time you need to negotiate obstacles. The rest of the experience feels tedious and not as friendly to a mobile environment as it should be. It's like they basically copied a PC-based game and didn't put enough effort into optomizing the interface for mobile. It also isn't as easy to find NPCs as it should be, even when you're standing right near your contact. It's not game-breaking, but it's annoying. Beyond that, the whole experience is incredibly generic. I've tried a number of MMOs over the years and all featured a distinct personality and style even when they were coping World of Warcraft. Gameloft also copied WoW but didn't do much to make the game compelling or unique. Typical of Gameloft actually. That's not to say it's a bad game, because it isn't at all. But fancy graphics aside, there are a bunch of other RPGs I'd rather play over this.
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Are there a bunch of other RPGs for Windows Phone you'd rather play? Or MMOs for WP? Sure, order & Chaos can't stack up to WoW or other big budget PC MMOs. But it IS the closest thing to WoW on mobile. I'm still stoke to be able to play a game of this size and depth on the phone. About the swiping while running, I haven't had that problem. Nor any issues with finding NPCs - not sure what you mean there.
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If player Windowsbacon and company is reading this: I sent my phone on repairs to be able to hold battery while charging. Got tired on the phone dying constantly.
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So sad..
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Sad about what?
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Thanks for this Guide Paul!
Whats your Name in Order and Chaos? Is one of those class the ultimate class? -
Glad you like it, man. My character is named EastWind and I play on the US server. I prefer the Monk class since monks can heal themselves or others, but they're all a matter of preference, really.
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I'm a Vapmire Warrior and the beginn is hard. I always died because they are too many monsters ;D
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Thank you Paul for this guide. I was carrying around those lucky crosses and ran out of inventory space! Now I know to put them in the storage box. Also, I noticed that my Lumia 920 gets really warm playing this game, and I wonder if Gameloft could release a patch to fix this issue. My battery also drains quickly while playing this game. I do own other Gameloft games and while playing I do not experience this issue until an hour into game play, but with Order and Chaos it happens in 15 minutes!
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Hey Paul, i play on euro server but want to join WP central guild. As we are on different servers does that mean i cant :(
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We're working on creating a European version of the guild. I'll let you know when it's ready.