In some ways it's a shame Horizons is still going, it may attract a few (as in you can count them with your hands) players from Ryzom, but at Ryzom's engine was advanced compared to Horizons.
This was my first MMO and I played it for almost a year, despite the bugs, the constant (and severe) lag, I battled on. I was one of a few on the Wind (EU) realm [which then became Unity] that could make a certain spell. I can't remember the name of it, Cyclone I think.
Then there were newer mobs introduced lvl 120 meatblights, super powerful skeletons, my most memorable were the alcoholic based mobs. Controversial at the time, to anyone that still cared.
Then there was the billing fiasco, I got stung, twice. The auto-renewal 'feature' is still being used. It's nothing more than a fairground con. Looking at it now in the cold light of day( okay it's night time now), Horizons looks like one of those odd cars from the 60's that eccentric people drive. Tell anyone you play(ed) Horizons and you'll get the same odd looks. One that has been restored from scratch after being abandoned in some scrapheap. Sadly there is no-one to restore Horizons. No-one to give it a new coat of paint (3D engine), a tune-up (the music now, whilst whimsical and fun then sounds painful and purely played for nostalgia now) and there is still plenty of rust (lag).
If there was an MOT test for MMORPGS's, Horizons would have been consigned to spend the rest of eternity in a landfill site in Nigeria, but it chugs along without a care polluting anyway it can. It's the benign tumour of the MMO world, one that's immune to any radiotherapy. No-one really wants it and those that do, suffer in an almost church-like silence.
Truth is the ground where Horizons is buried hasn't been consecrated yet.
It sounds as if it's been a while since you played Xenduli; I'm surprised about the payment problems, as I thought those were limited to the US players. As to the comments about no one working on the game, I'll let the current monthly "state of the game" email from Virtrium speak for itself.
From the Desk of the Developer: January 2008 Edition
The Year of the Phoenix comes to a close.
Greetings My Fellow Istarians,
I hope you've each enjoyed a memorable, fun, last few weeks of 2007 - both in real life and in Istarian life. I know I partied like it wasn't 1999, but still had a fun filled end of the year. For Istaria, 2007 will be known as the Year of the Phoenix, because just like the phoenix, Istaria rose from near ashes this past summer when the company behind the game became Virtrium, LLC. In this, my second edition of "From the Desk of the Developer", I'd like to take a sentimental look back at what the later parts of the year included. Then I'll take a sneak peak at some developer created new year resolutions.
The first order of business when Virtirum bought the game was to ensure that billing for game payment was both secure and accessible. To that end, one of the first things they did was set up a billing system through Paypal, and while this system was working for many, it didn't have all the features we wanted, and required our subscribers to have an active PayPal account. So, with a little more work, we added support for direct credit card billing through payment processor Auth.NET. High on the priority list was also getting the Blight test server back up and working. We knew we'd be needing this server to test future changes to the game, but it also allowed our dedicated testers who previously had made Blight their home access to their characters. With Blight back, we were able to finish testing delta 119 and then release that patch to live. We've since also tested and patched 11 other deltas (that's right - each and every week has us making progress), bringing us up to delta 130 that was released just before the Christmas holiday.
A few highlights from those deltas included two brand new events. Our first was the Hammer's Rest event. This event brought back some of the favorites of previous fall festivals such as costumes, special confectioner recipes, candy, and of course, Trick or treating. We also introduced special cargo disks that look like floating kegs as new artwork for the game, as well as new foods for the celebration. Hammer's Rest is now planned as an annual fall event.
Our second annual event was brought to us by the Gnomes of New Rachival. Gnomekindle is the celebration of when Istar gave the the First Spark of Ingenuity to the Gnomes. The gnomes created new clothing for the festival, brought back long awaited dragon masks, and even introduced their own special currency for the event in the form of Istarian Express Checks. Of course, no winter festival would be complete without quests, presents, and winter treants, so Darsenia was brought back to give out shoulder buddies to any who completed her quest, and many of the other residents of "Gnomekindle Town" had special quests for adventurers.
These are just a few of the many things we accomplished in the final months of 2007. Soon we'll be announcing the winners of our first Chronicles of Istaria contest, the Hearth and Home contest.
But now it's time for me to give you a peek into what's coming in 2008. One of the biggest issues with the game itself has always been that in populated areas players experienced too much lag when loading graphics. Toward the end of the year our Art Director put together an art internship program. Those interns have been assigned the task of cleaning up graphic models in the hopes of reducing loading lag. We've also made improvements to the game client for both how and when it loads items, and will continue to make improvements through 2008 with the goal of addressing the lag issue.
Our new world builder is getting up to speed and has already been making minor fixes to terrain and world object layout. Throughout 2008 we're going to be releasing updates that fix or improve accessibility, improve aesthetics, and of course some new areas to explore. Part of world building is also to manage plots and lairs. We know a lot of the small plots are not very useful and we're looking at what we can do to revise their configuration.
As I mentioned in my last "From the Desk of the Developer" email, we also have set early 2008 as a goal for bringing characters from the Unity database to our live servers at the request of the account holder. In order to give these characters a home on our live servers, we will also be restarting plot reclaims from any character that is not tied to an account with at least one active subscription. Another lofty goal for 2008 is to make Horizons compatible with Windows Vista. We know that many players would like to join their friends in Istaria but cannot at this time because their new machine came pre-loaded with Vista.
On the content side of things, confectioners will be happy to hear that the revamp of their school is coming along well. Many resource areas were laid out in the final deltas of 2007 in preparation for releasing the revamp. A behind the scenes look has revealed that new quests specifically for confectioners are already written and being entered for testing in the first quarter of the year.
I want to leave some surprises for you to discover through the year, so I'm not sharing everything I've seen, but I will say that having seen the list of goals for 2008 has left me walking out of the office with a smile. The developers have some significant surprises for you in the coming year. If 2007 was The Year of the Phoenix, 2008 is truly looking like it will be The Year of the Dragon where Istaria soars to new heights.
Until next month, I bid you all happy times in Istaria.
maybe the game isnt for you - some ppl love it and others dont
why they love it? 1. community is very much a community - very freindly and like a village everyone knows everyone. no real pvp (can do it with mates for a laugh at spire) - so no real conflict between players. they are freindly to new players who are freindly and courteous, and once you are passed your 2-week trial and subscribe (there is a /command to see when you started) players are more willing to invest time, money and effort in helping you out (since you are now a member of the community, not just on a 2-week freebie) 2. dragons - who doesnt wanna be a dragon, and fly? totally different game to bipeds (non-dragons) so play both 3. uber-peds - multiclassing make bi-peds v. powerful for those with dedication. it would take a lifetime to max out all 29 (adventure) classes on one character 4. crafting - so many things to make, so many craft schools, so many ways to tech (improve) items. google "horizons craft calculator" a godsend for players just to keep track of what they need for that triple-teched T5 set of armour 5. plots - build houses, storage silos, crafting structures, hedges, trees, paths, patios, fountains, shops or whatever on your plots. dragons can also build lairs full of awe and wonder to store their stuff, and do their crafting 6. huge world - its big, games like WoW and EQ/EQII are tiny in comparison 7. community, community, community
the games not perfect - but none are
Yeah, none game is perfect. People love this game for this or that reason. It's personal choice~
You do know EI interactive are still the major shareholders, investers and producers of Horizons right? The people who put in an unsecure payment system amongst other things. Never going back aslong as they have anything to do with this game.
Their new front, New Game World, is currently in the process of scamming two other games' subscribers, they don't even follow US employment laws for their own staff, quite how anyone could expect them to think of the players when they screw over their own employees is beyond me.
No question EI are crumbums of the first order. When they ran into trouble, they hired ex-Tulga employees to get the game back on the air... then apparently they stiffed the rescuers. The second time, I understand it was cash up front . They were incompetent, disagreeable, and they apparently failed to reimburse some players who were overcharged. Dark days.
It was posted on another forum, is second hand, and take it for what it's worth: when EI failed to make payments to the VC who had owned Hz's rights, the rights reverted back to the VC, who then sold them to Virtrium. EI has no interest whatsoever.
Virtrium is totally different from EI in every way. They have emphasized player communications, request, listen to, and use player input, make a point of not overpromising, and have made substantial improvements by getting the test server back up, fixing billing, etc. etc. (See above posts for some of it. ) Above all, these are people who knew and loved Hz when they worked on it, who play now, and who are very competent technically. Their focus and sense of priorities are outstanding.
New subs are up, and players are returning. (Dev post, elsewhere.) The forums are alive again. Better days indeed.
No, the man behind EI is the same person behind the game now, the guy with the money, it's just new front men. This comes from his current employees in New Game World.
Quote for those who do not want to follow the link:
I just called Rick and here's what he had to say:
"Ridiculous - that doesn't make any sense. Even if I was not the new owner, and I really am the owner, it doesn't jive with what happened over the year. Some of the highlights of EI's stewardship of Horizons: bridges burned with the previous development staff, one year of minimal game development, significant billing problems, legal issues with vendors, and I've even heard of state legal issues. And what happened? A very troubled player base and a game in jeopardy of collapsing. The only way for Horizons to recover was for me to step in and fix the billing system, re-build a development team, start releasing updates, re-establish an honest and sincere relationship with players and move forward separate from EI. We got the ball rolling on all these things in a 6 week period - I barely even remember doing it because it was so intense - 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. If EI was capable of doing these things, they would have done them at some point during their tenure - but they didn't. The players and the business suffered for it.
Fact is, the people involved with Horizons - the people developing the game, the people working on the technology, the people handling business, the people taking care of marketing, the people doing legal and accounting - all these people, every one of them, care about the game and its players. Some are previous Horizons developers, some are new - but nobody from EI, New Game World, Pixel Magic, or any of those other companies is involved in any way, shape or form."
Well - there you have it. And let me just say that as I was madly typing his response, there was more than a little inflection in his voice.
You do know EI interactive are still the major shareholders, investers and producers of Horizons right? The people who put in an unsecure payment system amongst other things. Never going back aslong as they have anything to do with this game. Their new front, New Game World, is currently in the process of scamming two other games' subscribers, they don't even follow US employment laws for their own staff, quite how anyone could expect them to think of the players when they screw over their own employees is beyond me.
Hi Guys,
Justa quick point of note. Ei isn't running the game anymore, it's a company called Virtrium LLC, a company made up of former Tulga Employees.
In December, when players of one of his new games, Immortals, found out about the EI thing, he told his staff after it had calmed down that he was still heavily involved Horizons and things were fine there now, and it wasn't his fault in the first place, but one of the other investors in his company who he now doesn't let have that much control over things.
Bobfish, are you a member of his staff? Is that how you know this? Because thus far what I'm seeing are unsubstantiated claims made by you. You can't back up what you're saying with a link that shows where he's saying this, nor do I see any other proof.
Compare that to the current owner of the company very clearly posting on the Horizons forums that this is not the case. Compare this to interviews done with the current owner on this site, and others, stating not only who he is in connection to the game, but why and how he invested in it.
Until I see some real proof, my feeling is "nothing to see here".
Originally posted by bobfish So why does Edward Andercheck still claim to be a major investor in Horizons?
That's a good question, but you should ask it of Ed Andercheck himself. As Orlena notes, you have not provided any proof that Ed actually made those claims. The claims themselves have been shown to be false, regardless of who originated them, and that's all that matters as far as Horizons is concerned.
I just signed up on the horizons forum a little while ago and am glad to see it's still alive. This game definitely had the best community out of any mmo.
Horizons, even with its prehistoric graphics and load times, is a pretty decent game. I'd be playing it right now if not for a disagreement I had with one of their customer support people.
Dragons are obviously a draw card, as is the housing. I loved playing my dragon and building my lair. And the bipeds were pretty cool too. Generally good community, too.
Where the game is really weak, imo, is the current biped multiclassing arrangement. While it's kinda cool for solo'ing, it makes teaming up complicated and effectively kills what in other mmos is a big part of the 'social' element of gameplay.
Funny thing is, Cabal Online has worse graphics than Horizons - almost as bad as Anarchy Online's - and it's relatively new.
Horizons gets something right with its graphics that many MMOs fail to: SHARP, HIGH-DETAIL TEXTURES (on most things). ^_^
No amount of bumpmapping, shine, fancy particle effects, high polygon counts, or high budget *glances at WoW* will compensate for rampant blurrily low-res textures.
----------- In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I've never tried Cabal, but I think Horizons graphics is something that might turn away eg. players of newer mmos.
It's a lot better now than it was a few years ago - but still.... I have a fairly good computer and most of the time had to play with the graphics settings right down, or I had to restart my computer every hour, as opposed to every four. And I have never had to do that running any other program on my machine.
And the load times take a bit of adjusting to. I used to use the time to go get a drink or something, but zoning in most mmos takes a matter of seconds, not minutes.
I think it's fair to say Horizons is an old game running on an old graphics engine that's performing below par compared to the competition - and that's definitely a hurdle when it comes to attracting and keeping new players.
I played horizons for a week when it first hit gold. Maybe two weeks. Even back then it couldn't hold up against the competition. It was one of the first MMOs to horribly undeliver on promises. Shadowbane was sort of an underperformer, and it got a lot of flack for it back then, but Shadowbane was a shining bar of gold compared to the way Horizons was released. Every system in the game was horribly unfinished, right down to the empty world.
To bad though cause back then I was really looking forward to the sub-component style crafting system promised on the box. You know. Pommel, hilt, blade, tassle, runes on hilt. All those and more were supposed to go into the creation of a sword.
Oh well.
nethervoid - Est. '97 [UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1 20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
I really want everybody to know that the player base fell and continued to fall until some major changes were made. Dragons were originally frustrating to play, due to errors and bad design decisions, and the new player experience was not good.
Comments
In some ways it's a shame Horizons is still going, it may attract a few (as in you can count them with your hands) players from Ryzom, but at Ryzom's engine was advanced compared to Horizons.
This was my first MMO and I played it for almost a year, despite the bugs, the constant (and severe) lag, I battled on. I was one of a few on the Wind (EU) realm [which then became Unity] that could make a certain spell. I can't remember the name of it, Cyclone I think.
Then there were newer mobs introduced lvl 120 meatblights, super powerful skeletons, my most memorable were the alcoholic based mobs. Controversial at the time, to anyone that still cared.
Then there was the billing fiasco, I got stung, twice. The auto-renewal 'feature' is still being used. It's nothing more than a fairground con. Looking at it now in the cold light of day( okay it's night time now), Horizons looks like one of those odd cars from the 60's that eccentric people drive. Tell anyone you play(ed) Horizons and you'll get the same odd looks. One that has been restored from scratch after being abandoned in some scrapheap. Sadly there is no-one to restore Horizons. No-one to give it a new coat of paint (3D engine), a tune-up (the music now, whilst whimsical and fun then sounds painful and purely played for nostalgia now) and there is still plenty of rust (lag).
If there was an MOT test for MMORPGS's, Horizons would have been consigned to spend the rest of eternity in a landfill site in Nigeria, but it chugs along without a care polluting anyway it can. It's the benign tumour of the MMO world, one that's immune to any radiotherapy. No-one really wants it and those that do, suffer in an almost church-like silence.
Truth is the ground where Horizons is buried hasn't been consecrated yet.
No annoying animated GIF here!
It sounds as if it's been a while since you played Xenduli; I'm surprised about the payment problems, as I thought those were limited to the US players. As to the comments about no one working on the game, I'll let the current monthly "state of the game" email from Virtrium speak for itself.
From the Desk of the Developer: January 2008 Edition
The Year of the Phoenix comes to a close.
Greetings My Fellow Istarians,
I hope you've each enjoyed a memorable, fun, last few weeks of 2007 - both in real life and in Istarian life. I know I partied like it wasn't 1999, but still had a fun filled end of the year. For Istaria, 2007 will be known as the Year of the Phoenix, because just like the phoenix, Istaria rose from near ashes this past summer when the company behind the game became Virtrium, LLC. In this, my second edition of "From the Desk of the Developer", I'd like to take a sentimental look back at what the later parts of the year included. Then I'll take a sneak peak at some developer created new year resolutions.
The first order of business when Virtirum bought the game was to ensure that billing for game payment was both secure and accessible. To that end, one of the first things they did was set up a billing system through Paypal, and while this system was working for many, it didn't have all the features we wanted, and required our subscribers to have an active PayPal account. So, with a little more work, we added support for direct credit card billing through payment processor Auth.NET. High on the priority list was also getting the Blight test server back up and working. We knew we'd be needing this server to test future changes to the game, but it also allowed our dedicated testers who previously had made Blight their home access to their characters. With Blight back, we were able to finish testing delta 119 and then release that patch to live. We've since also tested and patched 11 other deltas (that's right - each and every week has us making progress), bringing us up to delta 130 that was released just before the Christmas holiday.
A few highlights from those deltas included two brand new events. Our first was the Hammer's Rest event. This event brought back some of the favorites of previous fall festivals such as costumes, special confectioner recipes, candy, and of course, Trick or treating. We also introduced special cargo disks that look like floating kegs as new artwork for the game, as well as new foods for the celebration. Hammer's Rest is now planned as an annual fall event.
Our second annual event was brought to us by the Gnomes of New Rachival. Gnomekindle is the celebration of when Istar gave the the First Spark of Ingenuity to the Gnomes. The gnomes created new clothing for the festival, brought back long awaited dragon masks, and even introduced their own special currency for the event in the form of Istarian Express Checks. Of course, no winter festival would be complete without quests, presents, and winter treants, so Darsenia was brought back to give out shoulder buddies to any who completed her quest, and many of the other residents of "Gnomekindle Town" had special quests for adventurers.
These are just a few of the many things we accomplished in the final months of 2007. Soon we'll be announcing the winners of our first Chronicles of Istaria contest, the Hearth and Home contest.
But now it's time for me to give you a peek into what's coming in 2008. One of the biggest issues with the game itself has always been that in populated areas players experienced too much lag when loading graphics. Toward the end of the year our Art Director put together an art internship program. Those interns have been assigned the task of cleaning up graphic models in the hopes of reducing loading lag. We've also made improvements to the game client for both how and when it loads items, and will continue to make improvements through 2008 with the goal of addressing the lag issue.
Our new world builder is getting up to speed and has already been making minor fixes to terrain and world object layout. Throughout 2008 we're going to be releasing updates that fix or improve accessibility, improve aesthetics, and of course some new areas to explore. Part of world building is also to manage plots and lairs. We know a lot of the small plots are not very useful and we're looking at what we can do to revise their configuration.
As I mentioned in my last "From the Desk of the Developer" email, we also have set early 2008 as a goal for bringing characters from the Unity database to our live servers at the request of the account holder. In order to give these characters a home on our live servers, we will also be restarting plot reclaims from any character that is not tied to an account with at least one active subscription. Another lofty goal for 2008 is to make Horizons compatible with Windows Vista. We know that many players would like to join their friends in Istaria but cannot at this time because their new machine came pre-loaded with Vista.
On the content side of things, confectioners will be happy to hear that the revamp of their school is coming along well. Many resource areas were laid out in the final deltas of 2007 in preparation for releasing the revamp. A behind the scenes look has revealed that new quests specifically for confectioners are already written and being entered for testing in the first quarter of the year.
I want to leave some surprises for you to discover through the year, so I'm not sharing everything I've seen, but I will say that having seen the list of goals for 2008 has left me walking out of the office with a smile. The developers have some significant surprises for you in the coming year. If 2007 was The Year of the Phoenix, 2008 is truly looking like it will be The Year of the Dragon where Istaria soars to new heights.
Until next month, I bid you all happy times in Istaria.
Your faithful behind the scenes gal,
- Amarië Ancalímon
Horizons Development Team
Yeah, none game is perfect. People love this game for this or that reason. It's personal choice~
And my choice is occasionally playing it. Community is the main reason. I enjoy the friendly and harmonous atomsphere there.
Uhhh Horizon's does't have a 10th, the size, scape and content as EQ1
Hum, time to get back to Istaria for me... I'll give it another try, although my main char wont be transferred from Unity by now.
horizions was the first game that got me into crafting. I think I will go back as well and try it for a while. Til Spellborn comes out that is.
You do know EI interactive are still the major shareholders, investers and producers of Horizons right? The people who put in an unsecure payment system amongst other things. Never going back aslong as they have anything to do with this game.
Their new front, New Game World, is currently in the process of scamming two other games' subscribers, they don't even follow US employment laws for their own staff, quite how anyone could expect them to think of the players when they screw over their own employees is beyond me.
No question EI are crumbums of the first order. When they ran into trouble, they hired ex-Tulga employees to get the game back on the air... then apparently they stiffed the rescuers.
The second time, I understand it was cash up front 
. They were incompetent, disagreeable, and they apparently failed to reimburse some players who were overcharged. Dark days.
It was posted on another forum, is second hand, and take it for what it's worth: when EI failed to make payments to the VC who had owned Hz's rights, the rights reverted back to the VC, who then sold them to Virtrium. EI has no interest whatsoever.
Virtrium is totally different from EI in every way. They have emphasized player communications, request, listen to, and use player input, make a point of not overpromising, and have made substantial improvements by getting the test server back up, fixing billing, etc. etc. (See above posts for some of it. ) Above all, these are people who knew and loved Hz when they worked on it, who play now, and who are very competent technically. Their focus and sense of priorities are outstanding.
New subs are up, and players are returning. (Dev post, elsewhere.) The forums are alive again. Better days indeed.
No, the man behind EI is the same person behind the game now, the guy with the money, it's just new front men. This comes from his current employees in New Game World.
The current Community Manager posted a response from the owner himself on the Istaria forums.
community.istaria.com/forum/showpost.php
Quote for those who do not want to follow the link:
I just called Rick and here's what he had to say:
"Ridiculous - that doesn't make any sense. Even if I was not the new owner, and I really am the owner, it doesn't jive with what happened over the year. Some of the highlights of EI's stewardship of Horizons: bridges burned with the previous development staff, one year of minimal game development, significant billing problems, legal issues with vendors, and I've even heard of state legal issues. And what happened? A very troubled player base and a game in jeopardy of collapsing. The only way for Horizons to recover was for me to step in and fix the billing system, re-build a development team, start releasing updates, re-establish an honest and sincere relationship with players and move forward separate from EI. We got the ball rolling on all these things in a 6 week period - I barely even remember doing it because it was so intense - 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. If EI was capable of doing these things, they would have done them at some point during their tenure - but they didn't. The players and the business suffered for it.
Fact is, the people involved with Horizons - the people developing the game, the people working on the technology, the people handling business, the people taking care of marketing, the people doing legal and accounting - all these people, every one of them, care about the game and its players. Some are previous Horizons developers, some are new - but nobody from EI, New Game World, Pixel Magic, or any of those other companies is involved in any way, shape or form."
Well - there you have it. And let me just say that as I was madly typing his response, there was more than a little inflection in his voice.
___________
So there's your answer for any who wondered.
Justa quick point of note. Ei isn't running the game anymore, it's a company called Virtrium LLC, a company made up of former Tulga Employees.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/17/setView/features/loadFeature/1448
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
So why does Edward Andercheck still claim to be a major investor in Horizons?
Realizing that curiousity killed the cat, and my little Saris hide is probably in danger for just asking this....
Where did you see him say that? How recently?
In December, when players of one of his new games, Immortals, found out about the EI thing, he told his staff after it had calmed down that he was still heavily involved Horizons and things were fine there now, and it wasn't his fault in the first place, but one of the other investors in his company who he now doesn't let have that much control over things.
Bobfish, are you a member of his staff? Is that how you know this? Because thus far what I'm seeing are unsubstantiated claims made by you. You can't back up what you're saying with a link that shows where he's saying this, nor do I see any other proof.
Compare that to the current owner of the company very clearly posting on the Horizons forums that this is not the case. Compare this to interviews done with the current owner on this site, and others, stating not only who he is in connection to the game, but why and how he invested in it.
Until I see some real proof, my feeling is "nothing to see here".
That's a good question, but you should ask it of Ed Andercheck himself. As Orlena notes, you have not provided any proof that Ed actually made those claims. The claims themselves have been shown to be false, regardless of who originated them, and that's all that matters as far as Horizons is concerned.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
I just signed up on the horizons forum a little while ago and am glad to see it's still alive. This game definitely had the best community out of any mmo.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
Horizons, even with its prehistoric graphics and load times, is a pretty decent game. I'd be playing it right now if not for a disagreement I had with one of their customer support people.
Dragons are obviously a draw card, as is the housing. I loved playing my dragon and building my lair. And the bipeds were pretty cool too. Generally good community, too.
Where the game is really weak, imo, is the current biped multiclassing arrangement. While it's kinda cool for solo'ing, it makes teaming up complicated and effectively kills what in other mmos is a big part of the 'social' element of gameplay.
Funny thing is, Cabal Online has worse graphics than Horizons - almost as bad as Anarchy Online's - and it's relatively new.
Horizons gets something right with its graphics that many MMOs fail to:
SHARP, HIGH-DETAIL TEXTURES (on most things). ^_^
No amount of bumpmapping, shine, fancy particle effects, high polygon counts, or high budget *glances at WoW* will compensate for rampant blurrily low-res textures.
-----------
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
I've never tried Cabal, but I think Horizons graphics is something that might turn away eg. players of newer mmos.
It's a lot better now than it was a few years ago - but still.... I have a fairly good computer and most of the time had to play with the graphics settings right down, or I had to restart my computer every hour, as opposed to every four. And I have never had to do that running any other program on my machine.
And the load times take a bit of adjusting to. I used to use the time to go get a drink or something, but zoning in most mmos takes a matter of seconds, not minutes.
I think it's fair to say Horizons is an old game running on an old graphics engine that's performing below par compared to the competition - and that's definitely a hurdle when it comes to attracting and keeping new players.
I played horizons for a week when it first hit gold. Maybe two weeks. Even back then it couldn't hold up against the competition. It was one of the first MMOs to horribly undeliver on promises. Shadowbane was sort of an underperformer, and it got a lot of flack for it back then, but Shadowbane was a shining bar of gold compared to the way Horizons was released. Every system in the game was horribly unfinished, right down to the empty world.
To bad though cause back then I was really looking forward to the sub-component style crafting system promised on the box. You know. Pommel, hilt, blade, tassle, runes on hilt. All those and more were supposed to go into the creation of a sword.
Oh well.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
I really want everybody to know that the player base fell and continued to fall until some major changes were made. Dragons were originally frustrating to play, due to errors and bad design decisions, and the new player experience was not good.