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WARNING! Play this game at your own risk!
Sarnath
Member Posts: 74
I used to be active in Horizons (Hz). I stopped playing it actively and only jumped in once in awhile due to the lag (other games were fine... just bad with Hz). A few nights ago, I decided to patch Hz and see if the lag was still horrible. That was a HUGE mistake. Until I tried to patch Hz, my computer had been fine. I had played CoH and it was just fine. When Hz started to patch, I got TONS of messages from Windows (I use WinXP Pro) saying that several of the Hz files had minor corruption and that I needed to run CHKDSK to correct the problem. I did as Windows instructed and then tried to get into Hz again. Again, I got the same messages. When I ran CHKDSK a 2nd time, it rebooted my computer and that was the last time I would ever use that Hard Disk Drive (HDD) again.
I tried to run the WinXP recover... didn't work. I figured I had lost the entire HDD and would simply have to reformat the drive and re-install WinXP Pro. I tried to use /fdisk /mbr to reset the Master Boor Record (MBR) and that failed (Unable to read target hard drive or something to that effect). I tried to go into FDisk just to blow away the partitions and it still couldn't access the HDD (without using the /mbr switch). It was as if the entire HDD was right protected. At this point the only thing I haven't tried is a low level format but the bottom line is that the HDD is ruined.
What happened? Well.. it is possible that HDD failed at the exact moment that I tried to patch Hz but I doubt it. IMO, I think there was a virus loose in the patch server's memory and that it passed that virus onto my computer. Needless to say, I am cancelling BOTH of my Hz accounts. It cost me $100 to get a new HDD for the computer. I would highly recommend that NO ONE play Hz. Especially if you value your HDD.
No game is worth that kind of headache.
Comments
Yikes, I sympathize with your story. This samething happened to me and En1gma playing Battlefield 2 recently. Although we weren't patching at the time.
After reading your story I went and patched up Horizons (I had no fear of having the same thing happen as I knew it wouldn't happen) which I haven't played in almost a week and I received the latest patch with no problem. It's running right now as I write this. I'm not too tech savvy so I can't offer any explanation, but it patched fine for me.
Really sucks that happened I know how it is, but the patch server worked for me and I asked in Market and no one has heard of this problem. Wish you all the luck wherever you head next.
Huh? you blame the game it is NOT horizons fault the problem that you had is due to windows xp being fucked up.
I know i few people who have had this problem while patching different games, so in future don't tarnish a game because of a problem you know nothing of!
I asked a few more people tonight while I was playing and no one knew anything about this type of problem. Most likely it was an anomaly. I know how much it sucks though, BF2 crashed my hard drive bad and my poor comp. wouldn't reboot. But I was playing BF2 again tonight and I'm not scared.
These things happen, it sucks hard though and no one can make it not suck.
Don't blame a program for a hardware failure without having absolute proof.
AMD?
ATI?
If you say yes to either of those 2 questions, dont seek any deeper an explanation...AMD fry if the cooling system lack and I wont start explaining what I dont really understand about ATI, but something nasty on the tech side.
If you have a pentium and NVidia and this happen, then I would be surprised and *shrug* while I try to sympathize.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Harddrives crash under use sometimes thats nothing odd, check your guarantee to see if you can exchange it. Also check the manifacturers website, often they have a program for scanning/fixing broken harddrives.
Also I have no idea how a video card (overheating) would destroy/break a hardrive since there isnt any motherboard that has the vid card & harddrive near each other.
I wonder if it was one of those ol' IBM "Deathstar" drives?
Only way you'd get me to use one of those things is if there was a gun to my head.
mhh, i dont have any problems with any game during patching.
Iam playing Horizons for a loong period. (and iam still playing)..
I Have an AMD 64 Clawhammer, and a (nVidia) Gainward 1200 XP GS (5900 Ultra)
But i dont think you have an Hardware Problem, it is a Software Problem of Windows, of course ;-)
My wife and I both dual-box Horizons and none of our four systems have ever had any virus warnings or related issues while patching, playing, or in regular full system scans. It does indeed sound like your HDD failed. The disk activity that occured while your were installing and patching Horizons may well have been the proverbial final straw, but it takes a hell of a lot of straw to break a camel's back.
Sorry to hear about your troubles, but your accusations are based on perception, not fact.
Best of luck recovering from your drive failure.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Essentially he/she just needed something to blame. There is something i learned a long time ago in relation to computers. If all you know how to do is install a program, don't diagnose a problem.
Leave that job to the professionals because learning about computers through actual training literature and experience is the only way to do it. In the end it's like driving a car, and no matter how often you use it you'll never learn what's going on inside just by experiencing the machines functions.
Dont blame HZ for HDD failure. This could of happend with any other games or programs.
ANd there is no virus that could physicaly damage HDD.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
heheh. Horizons may be laggy and take ages to load up each area but I dont think your going to be able to get them to take the blame for your HD going down. lol!
Nice try though
LOL.... I love newbies who are ignorant of past practices and incidents.
Horizons in beta was frying numerious HD's.. I beta tested 16 games and own 3 systems... I thought it was a fluke when my systems HD fried beta testing HZ, but when my second puters HD failed I posted a thread about it on the beta forums... ALOT of people had the same problem and the thread was simply erased one day.
I don't think this bankrupt company has the resources to look deeper into the code... nor do they care.
How is it that any of you considering playing this game... they are cheats and liers. Their "shady" buisiness practices and the way they treated the HZ community was a joke. 30,000 people left Horizons after 2 months of playing because of the poor game code and lack of support. Not to mention being blatantly lied to by the CEO in several post just to slow down the mass exodus of players canceling their accounts. After just 7 months HZ was headed into bankruptcy and in a huge law suite, not to mention illegally billing many people who cancelled the game. They use to use on-line porn companies for billing credit cards... they said they would change, perhaps they did, but the speaks volumes of what this company is about...!!
Now HZ is prying on the ignorant newbies to the MMORPG genra' hoping to build a player base with people who don't know Tulga's (Artifact Entertainment) history...!
"WARNING! Play this game at your own risk!"
I agree - good warning! You may just find out you like the game and become addicted to it for awhile! ...or maybe not. SO please, remember to try it at your own risk.