Realms of Kaos

Realms of Kaos (commonly abbreviated to RoK) is a hybrid text-based/graphical MUD/MMORPG that was released in 1996 by developer and “DungeonMaster” Lance Hoskins under the name Up All Night Entertainment, or UAN.
RoK uses text and graphical interface elements, and a turn-based action system. Unlike most MUDs, RoK uses a proprietary client to connect to the server instead of telnet or a MUD client such as zMUD.
Players create characters based on ten races and twelve classes, each with unique attributes and skills. The game world has been developed into thousands of rooms, items, and monsters, creating a rich environment complete with a well-developed history and religion system. PvP combat is a strong focus in the game, and is not optional although new characters are protected from the attacks of other players until they reach level 9. While the game is by definition an RPG, the RP community in RoK has dwindled in recent years, and combat, leveling, and trade have taken the primary focus.
The game has always been free of charge to download and play when it has been active. The game went offline in July 2006 due to server failure. Preparations to return the game to public access were announced in early 2006. The game was heavily tested by limited users in October 2006. It was planned for a release before the start of 2007, but this was not to be due to the discovery of major bugs.
As of January 2007, the new Realms of Kaos is up and running. Please note that the server does have small periods of downtime due to errors or unforeseen conditions. Personnel responsible for the server do try to get the server back online as soon as feasible.
Setting
RoK is set in a D&D-style universe on the fictional continents of Syndar and Tanjir. Players begin the game in the cities of Terra, Syndar or Gaia, Tanjir. The game's creator Lance Hoskins penned the many aspects of the game setting, and various staff members called Builders have expanded the game world over the years.
Races
*Humans: The easiest and most well rounded characters, they do well for any class.
*Elves: While not as strong as the average human, Elves are often more Intelligent and wise.
*Half-Elves: More intelligent and wiser than the average human, Half-Elves are not quite as intelligent as elves, although they tend to be stronger.
*Dark Elves: Not as friendly as their surface dwelling cousins, Dark Elves are a dark and cunning race that live in immense underground cities.
*Halflings: Almost as smart and agile as gnomes, but hardier and better fighters. Halflings make great thieves and druids.
*Gnomes: Even more agile and intelligent than Elves, Gnomes make great spellcasters or even thieves.
*Dwarves: Strong and stout, Dwarves make excellent warriors, although they can be weak as spellcasters.
*Goblins: Not the brightest or most attractive of races, but agile and hardy. Goblins make excellent thieves.
*Saurians: Saurians are large reptile humanoids that resemble a large upright walking lizard.
*Half Orcs: Half-Orcs possess great Strength and endurance, making them great for fighter roles, such as warriors and barbarians.
Classes
*Fighter > Knight > Cavalier
*Rogue > Thief > Brigand
*Healer > Cleric > Priest
*Rogue > Bard > Minstrel
*Fighter > Barbarian > Berserker
*Fighter > Paladin > Guardian
*Fighter > Ranger > Stalker
*Fighter > Monk > Ninja
*Rogue > Assassin > Slayer
*Mage > Sorcerer > Enchanter
*Healer > Druid > Elder Druid
*Mage > Necromancer > Death Mage
Divinity
Realms of Kaos features a religion system in the form of a divinity circle. New players are required to choose one of five gods to follow when creating their character based on aspects of fire, night, earth, storm or ice. The majority of the creatures in the world are also aligned with one of the five divinities. The deities are: Targos God of Fire, Nallyssa Goddess of Night, Hommet God of Earth, Valkyzar God of Storm and Alustria Goddess of Water. These divinities bestowed certain unique characteristics upon their followers. For example: Followers of the Night-Goddess Nallyssa received XP bonuses during the night hours of the game. A sixth divinity, Kaos, calls claim to all non-player characters and creatures that have no other god. Plans to allow players to follow Kaos have long been in the works, but have not yet been implemented.
Followers of each divinity have advantages against followers of one other divinity and weaknesses against followers of another in a circular "rock-paper-scissors" arrangement. For example, followers of the fire god Targos gained bonuses when fighting followers of the Night goddess Nallyssa, but suffer penalties when in combat with followers of Alustria. By scattering different divinities on monsters, areas became less congested as different players had different strengths and weaknesses and as such would spread out to find monsters that suited their divinity.
Leveling
Currently the maximum level attainable by player characters is level 25. Characters gain level by completing quests or defeating monsters to gain experience. They start out as one of four base classes, depending on their selected class at character creation. Clerics and Druids start as Healers, Sorcerers (spelled as is in game) and Necromancers begin as Mages, Assassins, Bards and Thieves are Rogues and Knights, Barbarians, Paladins, Rangers and Monks all start as Fighters. Characters attain their full class name at level 8, and at level 25 they gain Third Tier status with yet another title. See the Class section for details.
Development
RoK development had been sporadic at times over the years, but each new feature brought with it an innovative new aspect of the game that kept fans eagerly waiting the next development. Major updates occurred roughly twice a year up until 2004 when development essentially stalled completely.
New areas and items have been consistently added to the game over the years. Generally, most new areas are aimed for the players that had hit the "level 25" cap, and gave them something challenging to do. These areas included the desert Wastelands and the trader-town of Donas Dobhar and the untamed streets of the jungle city Tiaei. Eventually, new lower level areas were added as well. Some areas were redesigned or relocated to fit with the overall balance of the game.
In late 2000 a new movement system was implemented that necessitated a shift from the previous system of ten possible exits from each "room" (northeast, southwest etc.) to only six (North, South, East, West, Up and Down). The game's Build staff went to great lengths to rearrange the entire world to remove these intermediary exits. The goal of this new movement system was to have first-person images for every view in each room, and players could navigate using the arrow keys to turn and face different directions. The idea was eventually abandoned, possibly due to the amount of work needed to create new artwork for each perspective in every room of every region of the game. However, the changes implemented to exits were not wasted, since they were required for the automap feature that was released in the Beta client.
2002 marked the official shift from Alpha to Beta status, and included a new client that introduced an integrated automatic map which plots a player's movements as they explore new areas. The resulting map was displayed in a tab within the client's upper left corner and had special icons for different kinds of rooms, like taverns, arenas and academias. The new client also added graphical bars for the life, magic and "remaining actions" stats.
2003 saw the addition of two new classes to the game: the Bard and the Necromancer. Bards were a rogue-based class, able to rob gold from monsters and other players as Thieves, but with the ability to use a musical instrument to perform "songs" that has magical effects. Necromancers were mages equipped with spells based on death magics, which included summoning undead minions and draining the life of targets.
A major shift in the game was seen in 2003 with the implementation of simple repeatable autoquests assigned by key NPCs that reward both gold and experience. Quests would, for example, involve King Grunthow of Terra charging players with locating his youngest son lost in the sewers beneath the city, or demanding the head of a Goblin leader enacting a strike at the city's gates. RoKWorld, a player-run fansite and resource, has a complete guide to the autoquests of Terra which gives some examples of the format. Quests were also given out by Queen Portencia of Duskan, with many more planned but never implemented due to lack of building software development.
Another implementation of note around the same time was the "Play a Monster" feature, which allowed players to participate in special autoquests as specified monsters, battling players in arenas and across the continent. "Monsters" could speak to each other but were unable to communicate directly with players. As more quests were completed, the player accumulated experience in the form of "monster points" which allowed them to unlock additional monster quests, including some time-specific events (zombies could only be played at night, for instance). Unfortunately, due to server problems, this feature had to be disabled shortly after it was implemented. However, now it is fully operational, with many more missions in the works.
In early 2002 the development of a full 3D version of RoK was announced. A few screenshots were released later in the year and players who donated money to the game (via the "Charter" program) were promised spots in the early alpha stages of the new game. While the original "Kaos3D" was eventually abandoned, it was announced in 2010 that a 3D sequel called Legacy of Kaos was in the works, with a targeted closed alpha release date of Q4 2012.
Starting in 2006 in preparation for a re-release to the public, DungeonMaster once again started addressing new features and old bugs, and has taken on Josh Thornton, aka Acumen, to help with coding in some aspects. Acumen has started with a complete redesign of the Build software, which will allow Builders to more easily add more autoquests and areas to the game.
A new character creation process has been developed, doing away with the old random "roll of the dice" method for generating character stats. The new system allows players to allocate a given number of points into the various stats, within the max stats for the race and no lower than 10 on any stat. This system also incorporates a "bonus" wherein players may sacrifice 6 points to get one additional point over the racial max for any stat. This has the potential to open up previously unavailable classes for races that were limited by their maximum possible stats. Changes to the stats of some races have been implemented, most notably, the decrease in endurance of Half-elves.
With the coming of February 2008, the game's creator announced that the game would be available and maintained for as long as there are still people playing it, but development updates would minimal. He is currently working on an entirely new online gaming project with a new engine and some similarities to Realms of Kaos (although a completely different genre). He announced that new game to have a target alpha date of July 2012 with open alpha to starts a few months later.
Charter Memberships
In early 2003 a Charter Membership program was introduced where players could make a donation of money to help support the costs of operating the game and they would receive donor-only benefits in the game as a thank you. These benefits included customized houses, coupons for a free item improvement (enchants), an increased number of concurrent characters logged on, linked bank accounts between characters, and priority selection for the Kaos3D beta test. The Charter Member program was plagued with problems as memberships were tied to a single computer, so loss of that computer resulted in the loss of the charter membership.
The re-launch of Realms of Kaos did not include the Charter program.
Further development
In January 2009, the game's author announced that the game would likely be ported to the engine being used for his new project. This would result in a very modern 3D version of Realms of Kaos. While Lance Hoskins had not fully committed to this plan initially and only claimed to be 95% confident of its possibility, he has since announced that the sequel to Realms of Kaos was definitely in the works and that game is to be called Legacy of Kaos.

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