Getting started

What do I do in this game?

Hordes.io is a MMO game where players can move, attack nearly anything that moves, gather gold and loot, join or create clans, and socialize in global and clan chat.

What is an MMO game?

This is a game type where many people can get online to play at once on the same server. In Hordes.io, you will be playing with many other people from around the world!

Creating your character

Creating a character to begin your journey in Hordes.io requires you to pick a class and a faction. That's it!

Pick a class

From the main menu, you can select either Archer, Mage, Warrior, or Shaman. Each of these character classes have unique abilities and traits. The archer is a pvp-heavy class, the mage is a group battle class, the warrior is a tank, and the shaman provides the healing support. Check out the Classes section for more information.

Pick a faction

You have the option of selecting either Vanguard or Bloodlust. Those are the two player factions.

Your faction will determine which players you can attack (opposite faction), which clans you can join (same faction), and which areas your character will spawn into the game. Once you have chosen a faction, the decision cannot be reversed for that character. You are free to make separate characters that are of a different faction.

Your faction will be shown in the game next to your name in the identification window (in the upper-left corner of your screen), by the color of your clan tag in the game when people see you, by the color of your clan tag when you speak in global chat or clan chat, and also on the color of your name on the leaderboard if you happen to have enough fame.

Account registration

To register an account, you will need a valid email address (in case you have forgotten your password) and must create a password. Click here to visit the sign up page.

Saving your game

Your game is automatically be saved if you already have an account. You must have an account to have your progress saved. Before you exit the game, be sure to try and be in a spawn/base area for protection.

Loading your game

Click here to log in. From this point you will be prompted to log in to your account. Log in to your account, select “Play” from the list of options on the left side, select the character you desire from your character list, and click the play button.

I forgot my password

If you forgot your password, go here. Your email address will be sent an email prompt to change/reset your password if you have forgotten or lost it.

If you are having problems or difficulties with your account, please contact a GM or leave a brief message for a GM on the Hordes Discord Server for the quickest response. Email takes much longer to respond. Both the Hordes Discord Server and email contact can be found on the main page from the icons listed at the bottomcenter.

Name your character

You do not have to make a “unique” permanent name for your character, but you will be unable to join or create a clan if you do not. You can choose to make a “unique” permanent name at any time if you are at least level 10; however, once the name is selected, it cannot be changed ever again. Choose wisely! Once you have named your character, you can press the "Player page" button to visit your characters profile page.‎

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The Game

Moving around

To move your character, press the WASD or ←↑↓→ keys. You can change your vantage point by holding down a mouse click and dragging the mouse across the screen. You can also hold both mouse buttons to move forward.

Targeting and attacking

You can click on an enemy and press one of the attack buttons (1,2,3,4 depending on your class). Alternatively, you can auto-target by either selecting the desired ability key or pressing the ↹ TAB key before an ability key.

Monsters

Monsters are NPCs that have an orange health bar. Monsters give experience as well as either gold or an item. If two people attack the same monster, experience will be divided between players, but an item will first be seen by the player that strikes the killing blow.

Players and factions

Players have a class and a faction, just like yourself. Killing a member of the opposite faction will yield a fame number that will be added to your overall fame score. Getting killed by another player will cause you to lose fame. It is impossible to attack a member of the same faction.

Farming methods

Monsters will often respawn in the same general area. It is recommended to stick with monsters that are approximately 5 levels within range of your own level. The resulting experience rates will differ between mobs in regard to your level, so take note of how much experience you gain from your farming method.

Skills and upgrading

Your abilities can be purchased and upgraded at the bottom of your screen. These will be necessary for surviving!

Gold for upgrading skills

Gold is used to upgrade your skills or create clans. To upgrade your skills, hover your mouse over the four ability icons at the bottom of your screen when in-game. A plus sign should appear above each icon. If the plus sign is green, then you have enough gold and an appropriate level to upgrade that ability. Click on the plus sign to upgrade the ability.

What to upgrade

Generally, most players tend to upgrade their attack abilities first to farm monsters more quickly. Additional abilities can also be quite useful in a battle. Some abilities, such as those of a shaman, can simultaneously attack and heal.

Items

Items play a big role in Hordes. The better your items, the better your ability to survive in the wild.

Picking up items and gold

Items or gold will sometimes appear on the ground when a monster is defeated. To pick up items and gold, click on them when your character is close to them. You must be close enough to the item or gold pile to pick it up. Items disappear after a time when they are left on the ground.

Inventory window

Press B to open your inventory. Your inventory window will allow you to click-and-drag items around, view the total gold your character currently has, or to click-and-drag items into the tiny trashcan to delete them permanently. However, most people tend to sell their unused items so they may be turned into gold.

Item rarities

Each item has several stats such as Damage, Defense, Mana regen. The quality of these stats is randomized for each item that you find. Each stat has its own quality rating, and together they add up to determine the overall item quality.

Common Quality <= 60% roll

Uncommon Quality <= 80% roll

Rare Quality <= 90% roll, 2+ stat items

Epic Quality <= 100% roll, 3+ stat items

Adding up all the individual stat rolls for each item, and then calculating the average roll quality, will yield the resulting overall item quality. As such, in order to have a rare or epic item, all of the items stats need to be really good. This makes it so that it is possible to have an item with an epic stat roll, with the overall item quality being only uncommon.

For an item to be rare, it requires at least 2 stats (meaning bags cannot be rare). For epic, it requires 3 stats (no rings and some offhand items that only have two rolls).

Selling items

When you want to sell items, find a base/spawn area that matches your faction. You will also find a purple NPC called “Trader” located there. Get very close to the Trader and then click on it to open the sell menu. You can right-click items to sell them or you can drag them into the sell window that popped up; however, be sure to be close enough to the Trader or it will not work!

Item tips

Some items are very common while others are quite rare. It is wise to keep items that you can use in the future if they are better than what you have currently equipped, if you have the room. Some items are incredibly rare for their stat variety since stats will vary from item to item (even if they are of the same type). If your inventory is full, a wise move would be to sell what you do not need just in the event that a super-rare item can be obtained; you don't want to make a panicked decision about what to delete just to pick up the new item. Be sure to keep at least some space in your inventory for new items that just happen to appear.

Character

To open up your character profile window, press C and the window will appear.

Character panel

Your character panel shows the gear you have currently equipped as well as various total stats such as defense and health points. When you have your inventory window and character panel open simultaneously, you can right-click gear to switch and equip it or you can click-and-drag gear to your character panel to equip it. It is not recommended to do this task near a Trader since a right-click will sell an item rather than equip it.

Equipment

Gear that is picked up from the ground will have different stats, even if it is of the same type. Check the stats of your gear to see what is the best! To equip gear, see the section “Inventory window” for details above.

Level up

Aside from having certain ability upgrades available about every four levels, a small change in your stats will occur. These small stat additions can sometimes mean the difference between survival and someone else stealing your fame!

Death

You will lose a percentage of your experience if you die to a monster. If you die by another player, then you will lose a percentage of your fame.

Classes

There are four classes in Hordes.io. Each class plays a specific role in combat. Not all classes are meant to be invincible - think of it like rock, paper, scissors. Some classes are focused on Dealing damage (DD or Damage Dealer), Resisting a lot of damage to keep monsters under control (Tank), or healing other players to stay alive (Healer).

Warrior

Warriors are the main tank class of the game. They are built to survive more monsters than any other class by having more defense through equipment (Shields) and a very strong self healing ability. Warriors can deal good damage and farm by themselves, but require a healer and other DDs to really shine. A good warrior can evaluate situations correctly, interrupt enemy players casts at the right time, and correctly predict his self healing.

• • Deep Cut: Slash your enemies arteries, causing them to bleed over a period of time. Heals you for a percentage of your missing health.

  • Whirlwind: Spin your sword, dealing damage to enemies in a circle around you. Decreases movement speed while active.

  • Charge: Charge at your enemy, interrupting their current cast and stopping their movements.

  • Taunt: Intimidate your enemies with a loud roar, generating high levels of threat and regenerating a portion of your missing health. Removes debuffs.

Mage

Mages are one of the two Damage Dealers in the game. They deal very heavy large scale AOE (Area of Effect) damage while also providing utility through slowing targets with their ice based magic. They are weak in survivability once you get to them. A good mage always manages to stay away from attackers by properly timing slows and movement spells.

• • Ice Bolt: Fire a magic ice bolt at the enemy, dealing damage to all targets in the area and slowing them for a brief moment.

  • Frostcall: You call down a blizzard on an enemies position, dealing damage over time. Channeled.

  • Teleport: Teleports you forward in an instant.

  • Iceblock: Freezes you in an iceblock, rendering you invincible for a moment and recovering a portion of your health.

Archer

Archers are the other Damage Dealers, next to Mages. Their purpose is to deal high sustained single target damage with a side dish of medium AOE damage. They have good survivability through movement and self healing, but fall quickly when getting jumped on. A good archer will always keep their distance and snipe enemies from afar. Learning to side-strafe is one of the main things to master when playing Archers.

• • Piercing Shot: Fires an arrow at your target. Pierces their armor up to 5 times, increasing your next Piercing Shot damage by 18%.

  • Volley: Shoot all targets infront of you over a duration.

  • Leeching Arrow: Fires a condemned arrow at your enemy, reducing their healing and stealing some of their health.

  • Sprint: You sprint at a very high speed for a short moment.

Shaman

Shamans are the main Healers in the game. Their primary focus is to heal team mates in combat while providing utility such as movement speed and debuffs on the enemy players. Shamans are crucial for PVP survival and large-scale AOE farming with a Tank. Good shamans will know when to cast without being interrupted, and how to manage their mana properly.

• • Healing ritual: Heals your target upon cast and for a short while afterwards.

  • Equilibrate: Summons a spirit upon a friendly target that heals allys and damages enemies.

  • Decay: Cast a spell of decay upon your enemy, slowing their movement and dealing damage over time.

  • Wind rush: Temporarily boost the movement speed of you and your allies.

Spawns

Each faction has a base with a king/leader as well as a base without a king/leader. In other words, each server will have two bases where you can trade, seek protection, or sit and wait for other players that you wish to meet.

Server names and location

The game currently has four servers: Alpheos, Balius, Charon, and Deimos. To find your server location, look in the upper-right corner of your screen to see one of the server names. Each server has two bases for your faction and two bases for the enemy faction.

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Advanced

Combat, PVE and PVP

PVE means “player vs. environment” where you can attack monsters but can not attack other players. These servers are designed for farming without being interrupted by other Players, but as a tradeoff they tend to be more crowded.

PVP means “player vs. player” where you can attack monsters as well as players. This is how Hordes is meant to be played - its a more risky but also rewarding play style. Since there are more PVP servers, they tend to be less crowded, which makes it easier to find monsters, but more dangerous to farm.

Fame

Fame represents a number signifying your pvp wins. A higher fame count will provide you automatically with helmets, crowns, and (if your fame number is high enough) a lot of wanted or unwanted attention from other players. Fame is sometimes used as a requirement to join particular clans since clans are listed by their total collected fame on the website.

Crowns and helmets

Crowns and helmets are automatically added to your character when your fame number reaches a certain point. Your crowns and helmets are also automatically removed when your character's fame is reduced below these number requirements.

Metal Helmet 1000 Fame

Silver Helmet 2500 Fame

Golden Helmet 5,000 Fame

Metal Crown 10,000 Fame

Silver Crown 15,000 Fame

Golden Crown 25,000 Fame

Leaderboard

The fame board (leaderboard) is located on the top-right corner of your screen and lists the people that have the most fame that are online at that time. The leaderboard will display your current fame number. You can click on the little arrows to minimize sub sections of the leaderboard, or click the leaderboard icon in the system bar to hide the leaderboard.

The leaderboard also displays the total number of players from each faction that are online and the sum total of their gold.

In the lower part of the leaderboard you can also see your EXP/h (experience per hour). This number represents the amount of experience you are currently gaining per hour on average. You can reset this counter by pressing the little X icon. The counter resets with every session of play automatically. You should reset this counter whenever you have been out of combat for a while to see accurate numbers.

Clans

Hordes.io has clans that can be created and joined to have friends, plan events, and even get assistance with your character development. Joining or creating a clan is not a necessity.

Joining a clan

To join a clan, you must have a “unique” permanent name, be level 10 or greater, and receive an invitation from another player of the same faction. This is usually accomplished by stating in the global chat box that you want to be in a clan, your level, your faction, and (sometimes) your fame number. Some clans have requirements, so it's a good idea to mention all of that info to look like a pro. If an officer or owner of a clan is online and they are interested, they will try to communicate and meet up to send an invitation when they are nearby. When they send you an invitation, a window will pop up showing you that you have been invited to a clan and gives you the option of accepting or declining the invitation. Sometimes a bit of patience is needed since clan officers aren't online all the time. If you are tired of waiting on someone else and you still want to be in a clan, try making your own clan!

Creating a clan

To create a clan, you must be at least level 15, have a “unique” permanent name, and have a spare 15,000 coins available to pay for creating it.

Click on the banner/shield icon in the upper-right corner of your screen. Click on the “Create Clan” button to begin the process. Fill out the alphanumeric 4-digit tag that you want everyone to see when they see a clan member and also give a brief title/description that will show up on the Clan page on the website.

Inviting someone to your clan

If you are a clan owner or an officer in a clan, you can send players of the same faction an invitation to join your clan. Click on the person you wish to add to your clan, then click the target plate and a menu will pop up. Click on that button to send an invitation.

Managing a clan

When owning a clan or being an officer in a clan, you must manage the clan from time to time. Some clan members might need to be promoted to “officer” and some members...just don't seem to fit the clan's ideals and need to find another clan.

To promote someone to “officer”, open the clan manager by clicking on the "clan manager" button in the clan window. In the clan manager, select which members you wish to promote to officer by selecting a desired role next to their name. Only clan owners can perform this function; officers cannot make other clan members new officers.

To remove someone from your clan, open the clan manager by clicking on the "clan manager" button in the clan window. In the clan manager, press the "kick" button next to their name to kick a member. Clan owners and officers can both use this function, so choose your officers wisely!

Chat

A Global Chat box exists in the lower-left corner of your screen while in-game. Click here for chatting rules.

How the chat box works

When you press Enter, you can start typing into the chat box. Press the button again to send your message. Your messages sent will be visible to players on all servers. Additional messages about chat from other people, loot that has been sold at the Trader, experience that was gained after killing a monster, or fame that was gained from killing a player will also be generated for you. To turn any of those notifications off, select one of the buttons at the top of the chat box.

Chat channels

There are several channels to which you can send your messages. "All" (Global), is visible to all players. "Clan" will only be visible to your clan members. To switch channels, press the button next to your chat input field and click on the desired channel.

Pros and cons of the chat box

Some players chat with other players while some remain silent. Those that do converse with other players can form clans, friendships, or agreements about different things in the game. Other players click the “Chat” button at the top of the chat box to turn chat notifications off. This is a useful feature for parents that wish to allow their young kids to play.

Clan colors

Your clan's faction (and therefore your faction) will be shown by the red or blue clan tag that appears next to your name in global and clan chat.

Foreign countries and languages

Hordes.io is diverse and supports people from around the world. As such, it is sometimes advisable to keep a translator open in another window or to ask one of the gamers to translate certain messages for you.

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Rules

Hordes is striving to provide an environment enjoyable for everyone. We reserve the right to use moderation tools to mute or ban people from the game whenever we feel that these values are endangered. Please make sure that you read these rules in order to understand our actions. We try our best to treat each case according to the text book rules, but sometimes we resolve cases depending on the circumstances.

If you find another player to be violating the rules below, you can report them in our Discord channel under #reports.

Communication

Using the chat is a fundamental part of Hordes. Our general rule is to moderate players that violate other players. We understand that some language is part of gamer-lingo, and we will tolerate general swearing language as long as it is used to express ones own emotion, rather than attacking other people.

We do not aim to moderate language, nor are we responsible for making sure that Hordes is a swearing-free zone. We rather aim to moderate offensive statements. Strong language and being offensive to others are often exclusive concepts. You can be mean to others using very nice language, just as much as you can simply express frustration while not offending anyone using very strong language.

Hence, we look at what players are actually expressing. In general, we will act on:

• • Statements that are unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, hateful, sexually explicit, homophobic, transphobic, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable

  • Misspelling or alternative spellings in order to circumvent restrictions listed above

  • Continued harassment or provocation in any shape or form of other players or staff

  • Spam: Disrupting normal chat flow by intentionally causing the chat to scroll faster or sending big messages with useless content

  • Advertisements: Messages that advertise any kind of service outside of the Hordes.io universe, as well as sharing botting / hacking tools

  • Doxing: Posting any other users personal information in the game (Name, address, email, phone numbers, social links, etc)

  • Impersonating any other person in the game, including other clans

Multiboxing

Multiboxing is the technique of playing several characters at the same time and is generally tolerated. The game will limit you to having a maximum of 3 characters in the game at any given time. However, you must be present on ALL characters at all times while doing so or you will be considered to be botting, see below.

Circumventing the 3 character online limitation is considered to be exploiting and will result in a ban.

Botting

Botting in Hordes.io is not allowed. We reserve the right to ban people for botting and macroing whenever we see fit. In general, we consider you to be botting when you show bot-like behavior, regardless of whether or not you are using specifically written programs, physical machines pressing your buttons, or you enslaving your 3 year old brother to press a button for 10 hours straight.

What matters is that you will be considered to be botting if your character is being played without a person being actively present and responsive. If you are standing in the same spot for prolonged periods of time, pressing the same skill buttons in the same order, not reacting to player messages, not reacting to people luring you with monsters, then you will be reported by other players and likely be considered a botter.

Disabling your chat is not an excuse for being permanently unresponsive to a GM.

Cheating and exploiting

Using any kind of cheat, exploit or other client modifications that give you any kind of unfair advantage over other players is not allowed and will result in a ban.

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Other

Social Media

You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Hordes also has a Discord channel where you can find the community managers & developers.

Hordes Development

Hordes.io is a one-man project largely developed by Dek. All coding, artworks, animations, game design and web design are created by Dek.

The Hordes icon, logotype and UI concepts were custom made by Comet.

Special Thanks

Hordes.io is backed up by a wonderful team of CM (community managers), working hard to create a diverse environment enjoyable by everyone. A big thank you to the following people, this game would not be possible without you!

• • Julia - player support, insights, class balance testing

  • Legus - player support, discord bot coding, UI modding

  • Dhwty - player support, insights, game guide authoring, game design research, class balance testing

  • Blazing - player support, discord bot coding

  • Comet - for designing the wonderful UI & Hordes Logo

  • Korvnisse, Sküllhead, ZenChi, Cantor, Clown, Livithium - player support

  • mel - world editor development (currently in progress)

  • Zanzlanz - all around awesome dude!