Questions before plunging

[Parker]

Looking over the game, and it looks wonderful, the community seems great, but my biggest concern right now is that with a 4 month old son, how much is this game for the casual gamer? I have played a lot of MMOs, but most of them just don't allow me to be dad and hero at the same time. Any parents out there vouch for the world of Istaria?
Thanks,
Parker

[Nosdracir]

Easy for the casual gamer. Easy to solo many schools. Possible to solo all schools. Possible to be every school in one character, eventually. No long raids. You can recall to a town from the middle of combat in a pinch. Once you get to know an area you know where you can go stand safe from the spawning mobs while you go AFK for any length of time for Dad stuff.

I've been playing since nearly the beginning and I often have to drop everything and run off to deal with RL things. The only time that's been a problem was when I was healer for a small group and forgot to warn them that I might have to pause playing with little warning.

This game also has a lot of great people and a great community. No griefers. Almost no documentation, but plenty of people willing to answer questions in the various chat channels.

Since you can play for 7 (or is it 10?) days with the free trial, you can jump right in and see what it's like. If you decide to stay, you keep the free trial character, so there's nothing to lose. (Just remember to cancel before the trial is up if you decide not to stay.) Order shard is for role playing, and Chaos shard is for non-roleplaying and has a larger population.

[C`gan]

This game is easy on RL. I've talked to many people on Order Shard (go figure) and quite a number of them have expressed how well it's a stress reliever for them (and Plink hopefully will agree, too, now that he's stepping down as meeting moderator). As for the "leaveability" for emergencies and such, it's there. Even near spawn areas, there are places you can go that are safe where all the beasties will quit following you. If it's still a problem, a single key binding on recall, so press a button, walk away, when you get back, you're at the last shrine you bound to. This may or may not be the best of things since I've found I sometimes think I'm bound at one town (Bristugo) and I end up elsewhere (Mahagra, Dralk, Parsinia) because I forgot to make sure of where I was going with my bindings.

For example, when crafting, I've had times when out in the field I've had to be gone as much as a few hours when I thought it would only be a few minutes. Still alive, no problems, waiting on going to the next node to harvest.

[Velat]

Hello there Parker!

Hope you find everybodies advice to your liking! And we hope to see you around!

If you are on Order, send me a tell, I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. And if I dont know the answer I will find someone that does! [:P]



[li]

[Gordok]

If you want to log in for 4 hours or 30 minutes you can still acomplish alot and have a ton of fun in the process. I knwo what you mean with alot of other games if I could'nt play for 2 hours straight I would'nt even bother but HZ is not like that at all. Both shard have a new player assistance channel for any help you might need. Order is roleplaying and Chaos is a little looser in that regard.