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Horizon raises from the dead once again?
shadowmage
Member UncommonPosts: 196
First from the new CS posting on the boards: "An expedition to uncover a world long thought lost has met with success. It was not easy. Extreme cold, hard metal, and endless punishment of the screaming wind had to been endured. Even after finding the old path, all was thought lost - the world's spark was cold. Holding nothing back, the Great Blades of Power were invoked to relight the world's core and at first there was nothing. Coaxing of the spirits that inhabit the world brought rumblings but still there was no life. Each daemon within the world was contacted and firmly reminded of how it all once was. Careful patience prevailed - and the spark within cascaded out into the thousands of creatures that inhabit the world of Istaria. Blight lives again! Long Live Istaria!"
http://community.istaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16208
Then " Good news everyone! The new support site is up and running. The entire system is dedicated to making your lives easier. With a built-in Knowledgebase ( information added daily ), and the ability to check old tickets the new support site is very user friendly. If you are wondering what will happen to all of the tickets in the old system, fear not. We will make sure that all outstanding issues are resolved before bringing the site down.
Horizons customer support"
http://community.istaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16212
Now on the boards everyone is speculating who's been doing some vodoo to raise the game once again. Is it Ei EI OH or some one new or some one even older?
Emissary of Istaria
Comments
Looks liek some one that knows something about the game does own the company again. The people that own the engine now seems to own the game. When you sign up for the new support site you get the following.
" Hello!
To activate your Virtrium Support Center account, please follow the instructions below.
================================================== ====================
To automatically confirm your registration:
================================================== ====================
<link>
================================================== ====================
To confirm your registration manually:
================================================== ====================
<shorter link>
E-mail: <E-mail>
Confirmation Code: <number>
================================================== ====================
We look forward to serving you!
================================================== ====================
Virtrium
support@istaria.com
Registration IP: <ip number>"
So looks like Horizons will start to grow again. Heres wishing them luck.
Emissary of Istaria
Let me know if they launch a new server or wipe an older one. I would like to start on a new world where nothing has been rebuilt yet.
Here's some info on the new/old owners, finally some good news.
http://gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:1837
Komier Nainhammer
Vestige of Hope
Order Shard
Pass.
I do not like the man but have to admit that towards the end he got a clue or someone told him to keep his mouth shut, so all his promises that he made that the others could not fill, stopped.
Emissary of Istaria
Atleast the people who own it now are the ones that cared about the game to begin with. Blight coming back on and an update going on it right away does show promise. Live or die atleast Hz is in the proper hands now.
Komier Nainhammer
Vestige of Hope
Order Shard
Awsome .. now can we have E@B back to. going to Check the news.
I loved Horizons, I am glad it is back in the hands of someone who cares.
Public Relations - http://www.boardsmd.com
Are you high?Im not trying to flame its just bowman has bean like the anti-christ for horizons from birth to its current state of back alley life support"acctualy its the back of a run down strip mall from the early 80s".I only played from alpha-one to gold and what i remeber was a horrible laughable mess i wouldnt play now if i was paid too.God i respect anyone that finds a little peice a joy from any game but theres so many better things one could be doing with there time.
Words fail me.
Lets wait and see if they can fix up the damn game first. I suspect that the only way they'll get back the old customers (like myself) is to ditch that fracking IE only launcher. It's time they get use to the XML world they're in and let players access the game from multiple sources and ditch all that (in)activeX tripe.
-- Brede
Lot's of potential imo. Chances of success? Let's not think about it.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath
I was there from early test till gold also and we had alot of people trying to tell them what was wrong with the game engine and graphics engine and they would not listen. For one thing they could not understand the simple fact when you came on a map, they had the WHOLE area draw up even insides of buildings. Also, huge cities with NO populations, ok so did everyone of the inhabitants die or what. Alot of the problems with the game could have been solved if they had really listened to the players who cared instead of ignoring us. There were even posts from experienced programmers showing the problems with the graphics engine and how changing the way things were drawn would take care of it. This help from professionals was ignored also.
I would never go back to that game if it was the last game available to ever play again.
I have to agree with waiting - I am also happy to see that there's some movement.
I'll wait and see if there's some productive movement. I have to admit, the time I spend in the game, I enjoyed.
But there's still a lot of room for improvement.
Here's to hoping
I belive its to little to late. Everyone that played has moved on to bigger and better things. The whole billing issue has left a bad taste in many mouths and thats enough to keep most away. I dont see the point in trying to bring an old dated game back to life. This game needs to join E&B and Auto Assault in the graveyard of failure.
That's a little too harsh man lay off. This game had it rough from the beginning, a rushed release, shitty buyouts, and crooked development deals, and to top it all off it was pretty much thrown in the cellar by EI and left for dead. This game in my opinion still has a large potential. E&B and AA were made and they ran their course they haven't so much turmoil in their short lifespans compared to Hz. I'm rooting for this new company that bought this, Vizzium or something? I don't remember, I hope they bring a new population into this game, dated game or past bad billing issues or not I still think this game rocks, but I'm going to watch on the sidelines with anticipation till I feel safe enough to start the again.
That's a little too harsh man lay off. This game had it rough from the beginning, a rushed release, shitty buyouts, and crooked development deals, and to top it all off it was pretty much thrown in the cellar by EI and left for dead. This game in my opinion still has a large potential. E&B and AA were made and they ran their course they haven't so much turmoil in their short lifespans compared to Hz. I'm rooting for this new company that bought this, Vizzium or something? I don't remember, I hope they bring a new population into this game, dated game or past bad billing issues or not I still think this game rocks, but I'm going to watch on the sidelines with anticipation till I feel safe enough to start the again.
So why dont you give them your credit card number?
Glad to see HZ might make a come back! I miss the game left when it sold out Will go back once they get their feet on the ground for sure.
No it's not. o_O
Horizons is one of few games that has been truly alluring to me. I subscribed to it for three months a couple years ago, and enjoyed it but at the time could not really afford to continue the subscription in addition to two other MMORPG subscriptions. Then a while back I won a contest here for a free 60-day account or somesuch, and again enjoyed the game, but did not want to entrust my billing info to EI Interactive.
Although Horizons has an aging graphics engine, and like many other MMORPGs, has bugs and technical issues, and at the moment has a population even lower than that of my main game Ryzom...there is something about Horizons that makes it worth it, to me. It has soul, for lack of a better word - an intangible atmospheric quality resulting from its unique weave of community, features, graphics, sound design, and lore.
Thus, I'm quite happy about this news and intend to subscribe as soon as the billing system is straightened out.
-----------
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Has anyone even heard of the company that bought the game? How do we know the game wont just be put on a server in someones basement and forgotten about. I cant belive im saying this but atleast if SOE bought the game it would run forever like all of the other games they have that have very low populations. Better the devil you know then the devil you dont.
Let the game die in peace will you
Hmm, where to begin. Horizons is one of those games that from its initial conception, and announcement I WANTED to see it succeed. Looking past the unlikely promises, and professions of grandeur, it had a lot of true potential in the fantasy MMO world. I played the early stages of Beta, endured and even suffered through changes in ownership and the back stabbing and in-fighting amongst its staff which coupled with the lack of listening to true reason from some of what I believe to be the most intellectual and honest of player bases, without all of the excess drama that accompanies most games. What brought this game down was certainly not the short comings in some of the hardware, or graphics and UI that tend to push people away from most games. What brought this game down was the people running it. No matter which side of the fence you find yourself on, (If any, or if you find yourself just trying to enjoy the game and let the staff be ignorant and bring about their own demise) the game itself had beuatiful potential, and I honestly do believe that it could be salvaged... after a major makeover. I know nothing of the new company that now holds the reins so can not foresee what may come, whether it be positive or negative. Ultimately however, the game does offer something that no other MMO really does. I can not put my finger on what that is, whether tangible or non, it does have a certain allure which a poster a few posts back mentioned. I do not know if any company, new or old will be able to do what needs done to breathe life back into this game... no matter how much I wish for it to happen. Possible, yes. Probable, not so much. If the games does somehow manage to undergo an MMO make over (Can you say new Reality series?) and come back to some semblance of palpable life, I would play it again, and even recommend it to friends. So I wish them the best. I hope they have the sense to let it die, if they are not willing to go that extra mile though.
It seems that THIS is the one board that has the most mis-informed people on it..
Okay, for those people who are ranting about Bowman.. the whole "Bowman is involved.. PASS"
Bowman is employed by a company in TEXAS.. doing other things. He is not a part of Virtrium in any official level. He is NOT EMPLOYEED BY VIRTRIUM..
GOT IT? Good.
How is Bowman a part of this? Let me explain.
Bowman pretty much put together the terrain creation tools himself, and he knows how to make the terrain in Horizons better than anyone did at Tulga. The majority of the world rework was handled by him, and the whole Lessor Aradoth remake, which was done in a couple of weeks (which improved the small island a thousand fold) was done by him.)
The terrain is created in Alias MAYA, which is not the easiest modeling program to begin with.. but what really is the problem is the setting up of monster and resource nodes, addition of individual world models, and the creation of plots and linking them to the database. Bowman knows the ins and outs of this specific setup, and helped teach those at Tulga.
Just as EI purchased Horizons, not many people at Tulga were "experts" at terrain creation, when compared to Bowman. Bowman is only being associated with the project to help those at Virtrium and answer any questions they might have on how to hack through the terrain creation toolsets.
Both Amon Gwareth and Smeglor, EX-Tulga devs, are frequent posters over at Rants Refugees (a forum that became a haven for people who wanted to voice their opinions freely about Horizons without fear of censorship). After the sale, they both posted very helpful and insightful posts regarding the inner-workings of Horizons and Tulga, as well as what they called "mismanagement". From their posts, it became the consensus of the members there that, while Bowman is a good artists, he is not a good manager, and his greatest mistake was trying to do both things. As it was said, Bowman should have done one thing, and left the other stuff to others that could have done it (like work on art and let others who were better at management run the company)
The people who make up Virtrium are Rick Simmons (Original coder of the server-end software, and one of the lead coders), Reyem (Customer Support lead for Tulga), and Amon Gwareth... who as I said earlier, is VERY FAMILIAR with Tulga's mistakes and shortcomings.
These guys are the main core of Virtrium, and have learned valuable lessons over the past several years since Horizons was first released.
The very least that can be done is wait and see if they are willing to put those lessons into practice, rather than just immediately write them off without a second glance just cause an article mentioned The Evil Mister Bowman. *rolls eyes*
-Menkure
Are you high?Im not trying to flame its just bowman has bean like the anti-christ for horizons from birth to its current state of back alley life support"acctualy its the back of a run down strip mall from the early 80s".I only played from alpha-one to gold and what i remeber was a horrible laughable mess i wouldnt play now if i was paid too.God i respect anyone that finds a little peice a joy from any game but theres so many better things one could be doing with there time.
I'm not high at the moment... Hmmm...
Bowman isn't involved, one of the original coders however is and a couple of ex tulga employees. Already since they took over they have updated the client and are working on a new billing system.
If you played in Alpha, I do not imagine that anything in alpha is a good representation of what a final game is like.
Public Relations - http://www.boardsmd.com