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Does this game have any chance?
Blingbling2k
Member Posts: 157
I recently went on a Horizons info rampage to read up about the game, and from what I read I sounds phenominal. Do you think that if the game was where its at now at launch and advertised alot and such it would be a HUGE MMORPG? Like DAoC or WoW? Some of the features sound amazing and I heard they're planning on making some nice expansions and reintroducing the game basically. For some reason the smallness of the community really appeals to me, even though I hate it when theres no other people around. I think the fact that so many people overlooked this game makes me want to play it so I can enjoy the things others are missing. I really hope this game picks up (50 K subscribers would be nice)
Guild Wars - Rorick Aurlith E/Mo pumped up with the best armor and weapon, has all his skills, and runes. PvP King!
Dark Age of Camelot - Leaton 50 Vampiir - Lamorak - Guild: Magic and Mayhem!
Comments
I think this game has a chance, for two reasons: first, it's a unique and charming game that can really get into your soul and make you care about it; second, because it has a dedicated playerbase and a core development team that, together, that have proven their commitment to keeping the game alive through thick and thin.
Tulga has already made massive changes: the game originally was configured for a population of perhaps 100k or more and it was released before it was ready (as is unfortunately the norm in the industry). In order to stay alive, they needed to declare bankruptcy and to cut the size of the effort drastically. And because people owned the same parts of the world on different servers, the process of downsizing was much more complicated than you'd see in other games (like EQ: even without that the recent mergers there were pretty bloody). This also caused many to leave, especially since EQ2 and WoW were released soon thereafter.
The world of Istaria was almost entirely remade for the merger -- a massive undertaking. Not only did they need to come up with a system for redistributing property fairly, but they needed to rethink and redo much of istaria. The world was wiped clean except for newbie islands and cities. A new plot system was incorporated that built on player feedback: new guild towns were created, and hundred of player-ownable properties were introduced into the game near major cities and in smaller settlements too many for me to name. The mob distibution was made more rational.
Crafting for tiers 1-5 has been made less tedious (again, in response to player feedback) by introduction of an intricate portal system including a portal hub in Bristugo that is very like the nexus in EQ: 6 ot 7 portals surrounding a central landing pad. Nearby, on player-owned plots, players have built a vault and an attunement shrine.
The point is that the game has been made almost new since last October. It was brought out of bankruptcy in January by being purchased by Tulga Games. The great advantage here is that Tulga is not a big major game company likely to throw in the towel but rather a small local company in close personal contact with David Bowman.
Right now it seems as though Tulga is concentrating on "the right things": lairs and endgame content for dragons, reworking the client, adding content to the reorganized world slowly (most recently, the island of Lesser Aradoth was revamped). People are returning to the game. Through it all, the committed core of players have stayed and supported the game.
Will it grow to 50 k? Not overnight. But 20k seems within reach in the foreseeable future: a thousand here, a thousand there.
Maybe there is a place for small games in this new world of MMORPGs, just as there is room for both private schools and state schools in higher education. It's kind of a great big experiment, one that is fascinating to watch and be part of.
In a nutshell, I say yes, this game has every chance.
To be a little more expansive, the featureset of the game is comparable and in some cases excels what other games of the genre have available. The game had a rocky start, and the unfortunate reality is that there are some people who would like to do everything they can to encourage others to believe that this game was a failure before it even really got started.
In my opinion, if the Horizons that we've been playing so far this year (many changes were made in 2004, but it has only been this year that the game has truly started to shine) was packaged up as a whole new game, with a new name, it would be a major success. I do not believe it is the Horizons name that holds it back, but instead I believe it is a bitter camp of DA supporters that will always try and associate stigmata to the name.
Horizons has/had awesome potential.
Horizons had a faithful/long suffering client base that saw the potetntial
Horizons has developers that sqaundered that potential and the fan base.
Does the game have any chance? Most certainly!
Having played since launch, I've seen the ups and downs, and these days things have shown an overall improvement (dragon improvements, retooling of some of the environments, attuned items and sets, etc.). More content, less lag, more players, great interaction with the Devs on a daily basis. Crafting system is awesome, if you're into that. Adventuring is good, if you're into that. No forced grouping to advance to the higher levels.
If you're interested in playing HZ, best thing to do is to download the free trial and give it a spin!
by all means try it. ignore all warnings. Go see for yourself and find out why people abandoned Horizons by the 10s of thousands. Horizons has quite a few very vocal defenders(mostly devs/staff) but if the game really was that good it wouldnt need defending.If the game was so good and had made so much improvment it would be thriving and growing because of its own merit and it clearly is not.
Subscriptions are up, and the game is doing just fine these days.
The increase in subscriptions are mostly new players who have seen ads, or heard about it from various forums and decided to try it (and stayed). Of course, there's also returning players who have left other games for whatever reason.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
I've got proof for you. Take a look how busy the towns are. Take a look how many items are on the consigners. Take a look how many people are in the chat channels. Numbers that have all been steadily rising for the last 4 months.
I've got proof for you. Take a look how busy the towns are. Take a look how many items are on the consigners. Take a look how many people are in the chat channels. Numbers that have all been steadily rising for the last 4 months.
You are kidding right? That is not proof, give me numbers at primetime we can work with. Also a lot of them could just be free trials not paying subs. Also the 4 month comment is totally wrong 3 and 4 months ago there was a good 250 to 350 on either share and that does not count up to 10k or more. Remember the rulle is and does work 10% to 30% of online players at primetime will get you close to what the current subs are.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
Aye Dozer, whatever you say
If you're unwilling to accept reality, there's not much I can do about it. You seem to be after hard numbers, and let's face it, we don't have them. Do SOE offer a bonus for discovering subscription figures for other games?
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
First off, not to sound like I'm flaming but saying the vocal defenders are even "mostly" devs or staff is B.S. You don't know that lol The game still has its fans. Also saying if the game was so good it wouldn't need defending is also B.S. because if it was so bad it wouldn't need trolls either, which it has. Games always have fans and trolls. But a fanboi isn't someone who just pumps up his own game, its someone who bashes every other game at the same time.
Shadrak you had said you were gonna try Horizons again but real life got in the way and then I never heard back from you. Did you try it again? I took a week off for BF2 but I'm back playing both again and loving Horizons. I got lucky and won a Roma Victor beta though so I'll be playing that hopefully soon too
And you attempt to put a bad one. You both seem intelligent, one likes Horizons one doesn't. Both have good points. Hope your both playing something you enjoy
The reality is that it is you who is scared, that a game you have crusaded against for 18 months for no obvious reason is managing to not only bring in plenty of new customers, but also make many old ones return. What I say, what I do, is no different to what you say and do in your attempts to put a bad face on a good game.
This game has every chance, the people who download the trial and then convert their accounts to full subscriptions are a testament to this. The people who have returned to the game after 6, 12, 18 months away are a testament to this.
Good day to you Dozer. You have a crusade to continue with, I on the other hand do not have entire free days to spend on the forums, have to get on with work now my lunch break is over.
Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.
Bruce Lee
Chapter 11 occurred last fall because HZ was originally configured with a staff and enough servers to support (in theory) 100k+ players. It is clear that originally, AE thought they'd be competitive in size with perhaps DAoC and grow from there. When that did not happen, and when the game had problems that drove players away, HZ got a bad name and that exacerbated the problems.
There was no way HZ could survive with the original, overly ambitious configuration. The only way it could survive was to declare bankruptcy and downsize to something it could both afford and build on. It was not an easy thing to do, and much effort has gone into remaking the world of Istaria; it has been nearly completely revamped since bankruptcy and merger.
David Bowman and a core of committed Tulga people have shown that they will do whatever is necessary to keep it going.
As for the "paid beta" argument: I am sure that many game developers wish that they could get rid of the beta system altogether, and would like to shoot (sometimes) the people who invented it. Every single game I've played has been called "paid beta" by disgruntled players, on a pretty frequent basis. Tulga obviously needs some income to keep going, and also needs to promote the game in order to draw new subscriptions and grow a playerbase of sufficient size for the game to thrive rather than just survive.
Horizons will never be a game for the masses. Lots of people feel safer in a hugely popular game like WoW or EQ, just as lots of people feel safer in national mega-companies like Walmart. But there are lots of people, too, who can't stand huge efforts like that, and will support the small ones. And such folks may be found playing Horizons and becoming part of the Horizons effort.
I think this has much potential. As far as I am concerned, the smallness of the community is a good thing! As people get bored witht he cookie-cutter games and get tired of all the children runing about, they will flock to this game.
The community is phenominal, the graphics a great and the storyline is good (could be better). They are constanly fixing and updating to ensure that the community that they have right now is satisfied.
Just my 2 cents.
Played it for a few months at release, dont see anyppoint playing it when theres soo many other better games out!
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Don't click here...no2
The world you knew at release is not the Istaria of today
That is one of the things about the game, so much change means that there is always something new. It is fair to say that if you were to play the game today, you would spend your first few months learning an entirely new world, and would find many more things to entertain you than were there at release 
you people must be easily impressed and very easy to please. Oh i love the new bandwagon theme...
" Horizons, the small game for the discerning player "