Kings of Chaos
Categories: 2002 computer and video games | Massively multiplayer online role-playing games | PC games
Kings of Chaos is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game. It was created by four students at Thomas Jefferson High School For Science and Technology in December of 2002 as a web-programming exercise. Within days, hundreds of players had signed up and mundane for-fun endeavor was suddenly transformed into a very popular text based game.
Play is segmented into ages, which do not have a set length but so far have lasted for about six months. Age 1 launched in early January of 2003, and Age 2 launched in late August the same year. Age 2 ended February 2004, and was followed by a public beta of Age 3. The full version of Age 3 was launched on July 15, and Age 4 began on February 21, 2005. The fifth age was launched on October 9, 2005.
The game features characters from four races: Humans, Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves. Players gain strength and money by recruiting friends into their army through the use of a special unique recruiting URL issued to each player.
Players can attack, spy and sabotage other players, inflict casualties and steal gold from their opponents. Players are ranked hourly according to their various strengths (Strike Action, Defense Action, Spy Rating and Sentry Rating).
The gameplay is simple enough that during Age 3 many bots started to appear, which raked the pages for information and played the game without any human intervention. As a result, for Age 4 the creators have put in captchas in front of some actions. Many clans of the game adopted the strategy of using "Recruiters", which enable players to click anywhere between 20-500 of their follow clan members unique links giving them soldiers; in return the clicker will receive approximately the same amount of men back.
The game is free and supported by advertising. It enjoyed an article in the Washington Post on December 24, 2004, which talked about the everyday lives of the four creators, three of whom currently attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Rocco, Ben, and Nick), and a fourth who attends George Mason University (Aman).
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