Best Community Game Ever

RavZterz

The one thing I always liked about this game and probably always will is the focus on community.  The entire game is focused on cooperation as opposed to competition.  Even though the game is showing its age is still has a strong community and I don't think its just cause the population is older; I think it has to with the game itself. 

Unlike most PvE games there is no drama between guilds.  The entire population comes together to do server wide events as a single alliance, and I must say the event are very well written.  The story itself is very well done and the game even had two dedicated events incorporating the server merge with the story.  I can't think of any other game that has gone through that much effort before merging servers and not only did the game have two different events, they also redid the entire world in ruins.  That is one memory I won't forget, seeing the ruins of the capital city and having bosses with over two million hp wiping dozens of players.  Good times.

Plus no one cheats in the game.  I know the game wasn't always like that and it does have something to do with the community being more mature but the fact that there is no competition means that there really isn't a reason to hack.  And the game really isn't that hard to "hack"  since a lot is handled server side, but people don't do it cause there is no purpose.  Also no purpose for balance, since people aren't competing against each other.  If you want to grind, you can do everything or if you just want to level one class you can still play perfectly fine.  Just look at games like Aion where people complain about balance between classes.  It's a RvR game where both sides have the same classes aside from a few skills yet people still complain about balance.  Better yet, being a RvR game you still have drama and hostility on your own faction...

Anyways, *raises shot of goldschlager*

Heres to Istaria and hoping you keep the best MMO community ever!

sulthar

Perhaps there are too much pink elephants in your dreamworld man, I dont beleive there is no hack no drama no competition... what is this game ? The heaven of MUs?

Aywren

Believe it or not, much of this is true. 

There is drama, but most of it is interpersonal drama in a role play sense (and there can be quite a bit of drama there at times). Where you have a group of people, you're going to have some drama -- that's a given. But competition when it comes to gameplay, I agree, does not exist. I've seen people of every guild, of any level offer to help others in public channels, within the towns -- sometimes complete strangers out of the blue. For no other reason or reward other than they simply can. 

Hacks. No. You don't see those. There may be some players left over from a time before who did hack (though developers quickly put a stop to these things long ago)... but those folks got a reputation for their misconduct. In a community like this, what you do does count. If you hack, people WILL know... and I'd hate to see the response from something like that! Members of the community are fiercely protective of their world. And if someone were to hack in this day an age, I'm sure reports would spring up instantly... not many people would abide by this in Istaria. 

Is it a perfect flowers and butterfly community? No... of course not. No such thing as a perfect MMO Utopia. But it's a helpful and mature community that I'm proud to be a part of. 

RavZterz

Originally posted by sulthar

Perhaps there are too much pink elephants in your dreamworld man, I dont beleive there is no hack no drama no competition... what is this game ? The heaven of MUs?

 Well, the game isn't perfect by any means but it definatly doesn't have the social issues of other games.  It could be that its easier to see the community as being perfect since it is small and close knit while other people would be against that sort of thing.  But I still feel the game promotes this kind of close knit cooperative community and beacuse of its age that is how the game will stay.  New players bringing that WoW attitude won't be able to participate with the veterans and simply won't enjoy the game.  It is so easy to noclip in the game and yet no one does it because of the community and if a new player would do it they couldn't accomplish anything worth while since the rest of the community would shun them. 

Wingclip

Quote -*raises shot of goldschlager*

 

So you can poop gold, thats cheating....j/k

 

I might have to give this game a go around again, I played it while back but was not to many players on at the times I played.

natuxatu

I've never heard of this game and didn't even know there was a forum for it.. but community is one of the most important thing to me in an MMO... you've at least convinced me to google it ^^

bosmer24

Yeah I currently reside in this game,I play casually,but my experience with the game and the community has been enjoyable.

I love the flexibility of the game as well.Until a game comes out with a hybrid leveling system like in AC i think i am staying in istaria.

 

 

dikazwei

I agree that the community on Horizons (also referred to as Istaria) is very tight and protective, with little drama, no competition, with a VERY strong desire of anyone who is going to enjoy staying in it to cooperate. I have mostly only played on the (Blight) test server, so this might not be as true on Chaos and Order Servers, but I have reason to believe that to some extent some of what I'm about to say is true on the other servers too. There are a number of reasons why things are the way they are, to me, on Blight.

One thing is that there are so few players on Blight (sometimes you are the only one showing on the server) that there is no economy. High level items are likely to be on the market for copper just to help out those who might want an item. Sure, when there is down time on Chaos or Order, some come to Blight on newbie toons and flood what they percieve as a market with low level items, but to advance in the game, you most likely will have to craft.

Crafting is a huge part of Istaria, and to get the most out of crafting, you will most likely need to cooperate with others that are crafting in order to get the most out of it. If you need something, you many times can ask in open chat, and someone will make it, teched, with no cost. But this is because you are seeking to be part of the community and/or will help others. Come onto the server needing help and you will have a good chance of getting it, but come on begging for every sort of item and you will likely be shunned, lose interest and leave.

I have focused mainly on jewelry, mining, weaponsmithing, and armorer. But my major interest is adventuring. The leader of my guild has almost no interest in adventuring and is a part of numerous and huge building projects. Those who mostly adventure are many times those that are dragons.

Once you get to lvl 100 and go through the ancient right of passage, the game looses a lot for a lot of people if their major toon is a dragon. Sometimes though, there are those that reach this high lvl and so love being a dragon that they log on almost daily mainly to wait to help new dragons. Dragons may not have to do as much crafting as bipeds, and may not have to go all the way to 100 in dragon crafting. Biped adventurers are likely to want to craft in more than one school. As a biped adventurer I rarely can help someone with making items, but more likely can help with gathering resources for building projects. Dragon crafting and adventuring are more different than they are similar to biped schools, but dragons can provide resources and techs. It is hard to overemphasize that if you are coming from another mmorpg, that in Horizons no matter what race your toon is, you will most likely have to craft, a lot.

I hope that I have adequately explained some of why the community is the way it is on Horizons, and how the existence of the community there is possible. I have encountered only one hacker in the game to my knowledge, and while he may have pursued certain interests that I am not clear about, he was interested in being a part of the community, helping others, and more knowledgeable than customer support on technical issues.

Unknown

I enjoy logging in to Istaria once in a while, there is always someone willing to talk, and help me out with whatever. The one thing I wish was if the controls was a bit modernized, no matter how much I play, I just can't get used to some of the controls. Oh how I wish I could go back a few years and play when the game was more crowded, its a damn shame that fine games like this don't get more attention. Its soooo good, but almost nobody is willing to give it a chance in this fast shallow consumer world.

Loktofeit

I think I might need to revisit Istaria.