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My list of what is good about Horizons
bill4747
Member Posts: 202
Hi! I wanted to make a post about what I consider to be the strong points of Horizons. I was motivated by the thread that said something like "Why play Horizons?"
I have played Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes/Villains, WoW, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, DND online, Dark and Light, Everquest 2,
Lord of the Rings online, some for years, some for months. Not claiming to be all wise, but I do have a very broad mmorpg experience.
Horizons has a superior crafting system. On top of this, player constructed towns.
Horizons has a superior class/multiclassing system.
You may play a Dragon, and they are different from the biped races.
Large and visually appealing world to explore.
I find all of these games to have many things I like, and many things I dislike. Horizons stacks up well, in my opinion, unless you seek a player vs player game.
Comments
Your first item on crafting I would definitely agree. I enjoyed assembling ingredients and compoents in order to make potions to sell even though it was time consuming. The construction of buildings provided many hours of enjoyment when the efforts were on my own plot and much coin when I chose to do work on other players' plots. Using construction skills in conjunction with events was another nice added feature of the crafting system.
The second item you mention of multiclassing is a double-edged sword for me, but I can see the attraction of it for many players. I am sort of a purist never multi-classing my biped; I was a level 100 pally with a 100 rating, and a ton of built up experience over level 100 that was waiting for the cap to be raised some day. However, I did multi-class the crafts pretty heavily in the construction trades, so I am not a total purist I guess. The dragon feature you mention is a definite plus although I only tinkered around with my dragon up to about level 50. I spent a lot of time with my biped adventuring and crafting.
The world is huge, but I only found it soso in appearance. However, graphics are not that big of a deal for me. Speaking of huge world, I ran the game using dialup and the load times were terrible for areas I had not been in or porting for the first time to a new location.
The one thing I enjoyed about the game that you did not mention was the music. The game did/does have some things going for it, but there were too many things going against it. Perhaps at least some of those can get fixed.
Yes, among the races, are playable dragons with their own "separate" game of advancement, crafting, and lair construction (Nov 2005). However, the race is still incomplete and too dependent on the bipeds. Also, the biped "races" lack their own racial advancement to really differentiate themselves (in statistics and lore).
Multiclassing is a strong plus for it, but until VI reviews the adventure classes, and revamps crafting, that side is still overpowering. VI still has to decide how to raise the level cap to 120 (tier VI), especially if they allow each school to be raisable the extra 20 levels.
Crafting, in general, is a strong feature of the game. It has a variety of schools to really expand the playing experience for inter-relationships between characters. Alas dragons, with all their lore, are far too dependent on bipeds (cargo discs, food and potion buffs, advancement to adult and Ancient, etc.). Personally, I'd like to see some time factor for crafting - making 10 or 100 or 200 bricks should take different amounts of time (rather be instant).
While the world is graphically appealing, it relies far too much on the CPU for the playing experience (vs. the video card). Sound wise, the music is great, but the ambient sounds seriously lacking.
True, the game engine is a weak point, and performance is a tad poor even on my new system :
Maxxed out Quad processor, 8800GTX, 4GB ram, 10k raptor raid drives.
All my other games run very smoothly, except horizons
The game is a bit old, but I still like the artistic flair of the graphics.
If I had to pick something to fix about the multiclassing it would be that you should not get much healing from secondary classes.
Thats what is overpowered in my opinion.
Of course, I have vista and horizons hates vista so I often can not run the game at all. works off and on when it feels like it.
I agree with everything. The game itself was never a big deal except for the Tazoon Lag, and the Loss of my just finished Plot,
I left Horizons during the Bankruptcy right after the shard consolidation. Billing problems, lack of Developer response, & general game disintergrations were too much.
Then they went back on a promise < you can craft and never have to fight> I had crafted my way to a high level in several trades, but as a Monk I was maybe still in single digits. So having to face iron golems and their cohorts solo was a quick trip to the bind point.
Ok Now I have snuck back for 2 weeks , I find I missed that song, I missed crafting I want to travel to see spots I had a hand in constructing ( on Life shard ) like the Rainbow Bridge << all day making essence blocks>>
Will I leave WoW? - No Will I sunsub ToonTown? - No Can I afford to resub Horizons? not at this time and I waiting to see if the dream of all Horizon expiats that finally the powers than be, ie, the last horizon founder can turn this baby around to his original Idea. THEN I will come back for the Crafting
just not as my old old charaters.
===========================
If you woke up breathing,
congratulations! You have another
chance.
===========================
For me the crafting in HZ was an odd love, intense hate relationship. I loved that I could be anything, build anything, be completely independent if I wanted to. But OMG it was the biggest grind I have ever, no game has ever come close since HZ. Grabbing hundreds of thousands of loads of ore to level blacksmith then grabbing hundreds of thousands more loads of the exact same ore to level mining and on and on... Just to much repetition, too much grind. The animations and music for it weren't bad though. OMG just shoot me and put me out of my misery.
Venge Sunsoar
The Music haunts me in my sleep, I get up in the mornings because I think about Horizons. it is hard to logout so I can goto bed at night. I have found a game that is more addictive than WoW!
And I know I cannot continue playing after the Trial ends because most of what sent me packing in '05 is still there. The lag, the crashes, and fear of the billing process. Plus the overwhelming emptiness. I cannot find the consigner that everyone is using.. Its not Kion anymore.
I can see that if this Power that Be can finally Take charge and get this project back to the pathway it was intended to be on, then I will be back. After all, I recognise parts of Horizons that were "borrowed" by some of the top games
Please lord don't have this be a business loss attempt
===========================
If you woke up breathing,
congratulations! You have another
chance.
===========================
All consigners need to be linked.
The game isn't populated enough to have it any other way.
The new billing process is extremely secure; I've used Paypal for years, and it is excellent. For connie, I'd try Aughundell first; there is a push to have the connies linked and it may happen someday.
And the music is still the best of any MMO I've seen; the dragon themes, and the bittersweet, tragic new player isle theme are real music.
It's a great game. But i personally enjoy Eq 1 much more for crafting and Pve. Wow is ok pvp. But overall EQ 1 than horizons.
www.myspace.com/solidwhitetuna
The fact that you have Vista explains why your performance sucks in this game. I'm running this game on XP with a pentium D 3ghz , 2x sli 6800 xfx vid cards and 2 gigs of ram. I have this game on 1680x1050 with everything maxed and it runs smooth as butter.
Ive heard a lot about the Horizens crafting being one of the best. However, is that really such a big perk that it makes you want to play the game. Ive never been much of a crafter, but I always considered it more of a side game than anything else
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
It's hard to say; likes and dislikes are so individual that the only way to really tell is to try it. Some like the unique Hz approach to crafting, others find it tedious. Some really only craft, some won't lay a paw on it... I'd suggest giving the trial or low cost sub a go to see if it floats your cup of tea.
Note that Vista is not supported yet, although it's being worked on of course.
There is now an alternative to Paypal for subscription processing.
Sounds like it has move forward somewhat since Beta (as you would expect).
I might give it a go (again) when I have time.
I used to visit this site a lot however in recent years it has become the home of negative forum posts, illogical opinions and tantrums so I visit less often.
Played or Beta'd: UO / DAOC / Horizons / EQ2 / DDO / EVE / Archlord / PirateKingsOnline / Tabula Rasa / LOTRO / AOC / Champions / Darkfall / Mortal Online / DCUO / Rift / STO / SWTOR / TSW
I've often considered coming back (been gone since dragons could grow up) as I miss flying my dragon but sadly there wasn't much of a game to go with it. From what I read it seems dead but I will keep checking back.
Since you left, the Northern continent was added, other areas were added, the Withered Aegis evolved and got a bit stronger and tiers IV, V and some VI were added. (Depending on when you left.)
The tutorial/beginning experience was completely revised.
Most importantly, the Ancient Rite was added for dragons of about 100 level, and dragons were made much stronger and less frustrating to play. (Inherent armor and scale armor ratings were increased, hoard leak is long gone. )
There has been steady client improvement over time, which coupled with modern computers has made the game much more playable.
Finally, Horizons is in the best hands yet, with the new owners, Virtrium.
Whether this would float your cup of tea or not, only you can say.