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Horizons on its last leg...
brihtwulf
Member UncommonPosts: 975
I think we are all going to see the death of Horizons in the not-so-distant future. They will quickly be going the way of Earth & Beyond. With the ever-diminshing player base, recent "bankruptsy" issue, and a game with multiple bug and content issues, even Shadowbane looks like a better alternative. It really had potential to be a great game, but that was back when they FIRST started working on it. If they had come out with Horizons then (which was shortly after the release of the original EverQuest) it could have had more of an impact and time to work itself out.
The simple fact is that with all the MMORPG choices out there these days, you have to offer something that people really want if you expect to collect their subscription money.
Comments
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
I don't see any merge coming at any time. When they were in Chapter 11 the only company that wanted them was the one AE created called Tulga. All the same players all the same songs. This company hasn't made one dime in profit from the start.
I would love to see a bigger company take them over fire everyone involved from DB down to CT and bring in a better group of coders. But I just can't see this happening. It would be better if another company just created a new game with dragons.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
Im pretty sure CP Baker, the bank they are borrowing money from, is holding really tight with their money they are lending out. Bankers are not stupid, Im sure they know that Tulga Games was just a shell for AEs bail out from Chp 11. This time they will go into Chp 7, that is when their creditors liquidate their assets. Then the company is no more.
If Tulga Games file for Chp 11 again. They mostly likely wont get anyone to borrow from, if by chance they do there interest would be through the roof and it wouldnt be worth continuing any further.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
CP Baker seems to be approaching this more as a VC than as a bank. Fact is, even under the best scenario, Horizons is way short of subscriber base to break even any time soon. The recent advertising and the efforts to draw former customers back are working and subscriber numbers are going up, but there is a long way to go.
What we know is this: TG has hired at least two CSRs, an environment artist, a character artist, brought back Tango (their interface guru), is looking for a web master, and has committed to a ground-up rewrite of the game client. If they wanted to quit, declare a loss, and sell off the code for whatever they could get, they'd have done that in July of last year. Quitting is easy. Therefor, we have to assume that TG is committed to making Horizons a success. That will require time and headcount. The additional headcount we've seen; the fact that the client rewrite is in the works speaks to time. If coded perfecly by a hyperactive insomniac, a new client could be rolled out in six months. I think a year is much more likely. Assuming they wind up with the client the game needs to have, TG will finally be in a position to start really marketing the game hard & building the player base they need for the long-term. Figure another six months to build a really solid player base, then another six months to build up cash reserves, operating funds, and development capital.
All this would be obvious to any investor - and more so to their lawyer!
CP Baker is, no doubt, very aware that there will be no chance of any return for at least a year, more likely two. The company would need to have enough operating capital to keep the doors open while the required improvements are made - if they didn't have that assurance, they wouldn't know how long they'd be able to keep the doors open and would be unlikely to hire someone for a year-long project.
Nobody throws money away on a lost cause. CP Baker, in all likelihood, provided Tulga with enough funding to see them through to the point where they have a chance to become profitable - at least a year, probably two. Anything less is setting yourself up to lose your investment.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
I remember all the reviews about horizons when i first bought it, i was hyped when i bought the game and didn't even get to the end of the first month. I felt lied to and i just came into this forum to see if the game has been improved to find out their almost dead.
Heres a question to all thouse still playing, Whats the point in playing when in a few months all that hard work is going to be deleted?
I say play a hand in chopping off the head and try and get everyone to unsubscribe from the game, but then i guess i'm still bitter about the whole thing.
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It is a fact that the dragon is what keeping Horizons alive right now. Im sure at least 50% of the player base is a dragon right now, thats just one race.
Wish was suppose to bring the end to Horizons, because of the Dragoken race they had. Alot of people I knew when I was in Horizons wanted to go to Wish. Since Wish cancelled this wasnt meant to be. However, there is a game called Trial of Ascension and they do include playable dragon like Horizons. What would happen if ToA was released this christmas? We already know that the dragon was the reason people came to Horizons. The same thing will happen with ToA.
I know that alot of the player base have either went to WoW or EQ2, both are very proven successful games. If Tulga Games were to get something going tomorrow, I doubt very few would come back, I even doubt they would break 1,000 subscriber mark. EQ2 will have an expansion in October plus with continually adding new quests. WoW, i havent played, Im sure is keeping the pace with adding new content as well. Guild Wars probably doesnt help Tulga Games cause either.
There will be three new games that is coming out this fall, DnD online, Gods and Heroes, and Dark and Light. Im sure that there will be a small chance anyone will coming back to Horizons with three games that will have tons of content. Right at the time when Tulga Games is suppose to put in all the newly added details with Horizons that will hopefully make it better.
I think that AE had their shot with Horizons, they had 30,000 people playing Horizons around January and Feburary 2004. It probably would have peaked around 45,000 a few months later. The reason it didnt was there was no content. They had a beautiful story and they did nothing with it. It didnt help when the adult dragons werent out at time of release. There were serious problems with the game and it lack big time and people left.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
I wouldn't say 50% of the players ARE dragons, but I'd guess that 80% of the players have at least one dragon character they play at least some of the time. Players with dragon mains are fairly common, but still maybe 20-25% at most. Dragons are hard to level and you have to have a high tolorance for delayed gratification to be successful. You have to really want to be a dragon in order to be one, if you take my meaning.
Still, there is no denying that dragons were and are one of the strongest hooks Horizons has. Not having lairs or RoP at launch was a huge mistake. Unfortunatly, it was only one of several that damaged the game badly and lost huge numbers of subscribers.
I'm not an apologist for AE or Tulga; I'm a fan of the game who wants it to succeed. I do think that Chris T. - the owner of Tulga Games - has had a significant impact on the direction of the game and that the increased subscriber levels the game has had over the past two months is a result of those changes. I do think David Bowman made a number of bad decisions (removing the finishing machines from crafting stations may have been the worst), but he is also responsible for actually getting the game out the door and into stores.
So what does all that mean? That anyone who was disappointed or upset when they found out that some the features listed on the box were not in the game has an absolute right to feel that way. It also means that the company is under new leadership and is making a sincere effort to turn things around. Since the sale to Tulga, the players have seen better loot (both in quantity and quality), housing storage & vault space increases, reduction in resource requirements for decorative structures, ability increases for dragons & several biped classes, increases in spellbook and formula capacity, the introduction of usable item drops, the return of WM-run attacks, significant increases in client performance, and the long requested ability to portal with cargo disks. In all honesty, the game is a lot more fun than it was six months ago.
The things in the development pipeline are also pretty exciting. Yes, the Ancient Rite of Passage and lairs are still being worked on and no, there is no ETA for them. Once lairs do come in, though, the technology that makes them possible will allow underground Dwarven housing, actual dungeons, and will even allow the long-promised castle structures to come in. The floating-island lairs could have been available at release, but the decision was made to scrap them in favor of a lair system that offered the game more than just dragon housing. Horizons is the only game that offers the chance to play a dragon, and these features will add tremendous value to an already unique game experience. I hope ToA does dragons very, very well; the competition will only benefit the subscribers who want to play dragons.
Another unique offering that is close to going live is a utility that will allow players to create and submit quests in a ready-to-implement format. The quests will be reviewed and, if accepted, will be added to the game. Players with the skill and desire to create art assets for their quests will be welcome to do so as well. At this time, there is one player-created quest live in the game - which I happen to have written. I'm a die-hard advocate of player-created content and truly believe that it is going to enhance the game tremendously.
I hope this has at least partially answered the question of why people still play Horizons. There have been a lot of dire predictions that the game was about to fold, but it's still here and is on the road to recovery. I don't expect to convice the naysayers, but that's OK; every time D0Zer says something negative, a hatchling dragon gets their wings.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
Wow, that's six adult dragons from one paragaph! Way to go!
Just a few of the more glaring errors...
Chris T. is Tulga's sole owner. Tulga bought out AE and then hired the remaining AE staff. The guy who has the money and does the hiring is, in fact, the boss. If you seriously believe otherwise, I have to wonder if you're also a member of the Flat Earth Society.
Any compensation issue related to a player submitting a quest and it getting into the game is between that player and TG. It's nobody else's business. Also, new quests are and have been introduced, more are being developed, and old quests are being updated, all be the dev team. You wouldn't know that, though, since you haven't played for over a year.
At release, dungeons did not work. The system used for lairs makes them possible. Time passes. Things change. Saying "this new technology won't work because it wasn't possible a year and a half ago" makes no sense.
Care to try again?
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Sure, they again have admitted it would not work with dungeons and this engine. Which is why they said they were going with a new engine. But then they stated they had to put that on hold. I love how you try and distort the facts, are you sure you are not related to DB.
Also you do know that Tulga was made just before Chapter 11, DB couldn't list himself as owner because it would have showed a conflict. You can believe CT is the boss but majority of us know he is just DB's puppet.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
Honestly, I with all the improvements Tulga Games have put into Horizons and trying to bring back customers, I think its really good. I do hope for the best for Horizons I hope it will last for years and be a landmark game for all MMOGs to follow. Horizons was my very first MMOG game, and I feel a sense of heritage coming from the game. At the time I thought it was the greatest thing since slice bread. The graphics were pretty impressive when I first saw it.
Klaus, you said that DB was the one who made Horizons release too early. It was in fact Atari who was responible for that. They pressured DB in releasing it before Christmas so they could get people to buy it. I actually blame one person for Horizons failure and that is NCsoft. NCsoft was the orignal distributor and funded some of Horizons development. They should have put in more money maybe another $2 million to hire more people and put more effort in creating a good solid game.
Tho this didnt happen and we are faced with the reality of today's world. Still the question remains, How could Horizons going to compete with games such as EQ2 and WoW plus with three other games that will go live this fall? Its going to be pretty tough bring people back to their game.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Actually, I said that DB was responsible for getting the game into stores. By that I mean that he turned it from a concept into a product. Personally, I tend to agree with you that it was released too early, most likely at Atari's insistance. As for NCSoft, who can say? Seeing how NCSoft is handling Auto Assault, CoH/CoV, and L2, I wouldn't be surprised if the drama around David Allen's departure gave them some cause for concern as to the ability of AE to meet a release deadline. Regardless of how each of us feels about DA/DB and the whole takeover issue, it would be foolish to think that NCSoft didn't have an opinion on it.
Well, so much for the past.
Simple answer to the question of the "next big thing": Horizons can't compete against D&DOL, MEO, D&L, or whatever other games come out. Their competition is WoW/EQ/EQ2. Horizons is a niche market game. That isn't a bad thing; let the 800lb gorillas slug it out for the bulk of the MMO market and focus on attracting & retaining the players who want something different. AO proved it is possible to have a really bad launch, go through bankruptcy, and retool yourself into a successful product. AO is a successful niche game now, and I see Horizons heading the same way.
Just to be clear, when I said HZ can't compete against the likes of WoW & EQ2, I'm not speaking to the quality of each game or saying "WoW pwns j00!" or anything like that. I'm speaking in terms of the type of subscriber most likely to be drawn to any given game. Horizons has a totally different target audiance than WoW or EQ2 does. The survey TG did a few months back indicated that the average age of the HZ playerbase is 33-35 and that a lot of married couples play. Something tells me that WoW has a somewhat younger demographic. Horizons cannot market to the PvP players, WoW can. WoW, in turn, cannot market to the players who like crafting & building, hate PvP, or love dragons the way Horizons can. The big games coming up may or may not be competing for the same customers as Horizons, but we won't know that until they're released.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Actually, I said that DB was responsible for getting the game into stores. By that I mean that he turned it from a concept into a product. Personally, I tend to agree with you that it was released too early, most likely at Atari's insistance. As for NCSoft, who can say? Seeing how NCSoft is handling Auto Assault, CoH/CoV, and L2, I wouldn't be surprised if the drama around David Allen's departure gave them some cause for concern as to the ability of AE to meet a release deadline. Regardless of how each of us feels about DA/DB and the whole takeover issue, it would be foolish to think that NCSoft didn't have an opinion on it.
Well, so much for the past.
Simple answer to the question of the "next big thing": Horizons can't compete against D&DOL, MEO, D&L, or whatever other games come out. Their competition is WoW/EQ/EQ2. Horizons is a niche market game. That isn't a bad thing; let the 800lb gorillas slug it out for the bulk of the MMO market and focus on attracting & retaining the players who want something different. AO proved it is possible to have a really bad launch, go through bankruptcy, and retool yourself into a successful product. AO is a successful niche game now, and I see Horizons heading the same way.
Just to be clear, when I said HZ can't compete against the likes of WoW & EQ2, I'm not speaking to the quality of each game or saying "WoW pwns j00!" or anything like that. I'm speaking in terms of the type of subscriber most likely to be drawn to any given game. Horizons has a totally different target audiance than WoW or EQ2 does. The survey TG did a few months back indicated that the average age of the HZ playerbase is 33-35 and that a lot of married couples play. Something tells me that WoW has a somewhat younger demographic. Horizons cannot market to the PvP players, WoW can. WoW, in turn, cannot market to the players who like crafting & building, hate PvP, or love dragons the way Horizons can. The big games coming up may or may not be competing for the same customers as Horizons, but we won't know that until they're released.
With such low pops in HZ I really can't see how any survey could be compared to any other game out there including AO. Also AO had server problems at release that caused the problems for them. Not a bad engine and bad coders. Again, there has been no other game like HZ under the leadership of such a person like DB in the history of gaming. They can't even hold on to the new players they do get. They leave as fast as they sign up. But you keep thinking HZ is a niche game, if it is true 33 to 35 play this game then I feel sorry for them that they can't tell a good game next to a bad game.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
>>in turn, cannot market to the players who like crafting & building, hate PvP, or love dragons the way Horizons can.<<
The dragon was the best thing to ever happen to MMOGs. It was totally revolutionary to have a playable dragon and people flocked to it. AE could have had at least 45,000 customers playing on their game. They didnt they screwed up, they had an opporunity and they screwed up, they figured people would play a game that had no detail. There was just the dragon and nothing more sure there was lunus and helian but it didnt amount to anything. Another thing is they held back the adult dragon until march 2004, that was a mistake. That is where people left because their hatchling dragon couldnt even take on a mob ten levels under him. The adult ROP didnt help them either. Sure its content but it gives little reward, it makes dragons barely stronger.
Lets not forget about the biped races, they themselves were deeply shallow in content. There was really no storyline or some sort of background. The only content is the hunt all day to level 100 then go to the next class and level that to 100.
What AE should have done is use the northern continent they put in after the merge as the dragons home continent and use the orignal continent as the home for all the bipeds. The continents would have allowed more depth in play with more land they could have made more depth in each race.
Im really sure Turbine is laughing their heads off with DB being the CEO of AE. It really shows that hes really an idiot and not qualified to run an MMOG. I bet NCsoft look at DBs background and found this guy doesnt know what he is doing, since he tried cheating up the ladder while he was in Turbine. I bet if David Allen was in charge the horizons would be very successful.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee