Impressions

phosphoros

Since the demise of SWG I've been in search of another game that captures at minimum 5% of what that game offered. Let me lsit some thing I've been looking for to give you an idea.

1. Skill-based system
2. Housing
3. Prefer Sci-Fi (but anyhting at this point would do)
4. Good Character customization
5. Good chance of RP happening
6. Interesting (Perhaps complex) crafting
7. Something I can recommend to my friends

In my search I found Horizons. Now I'd been in beta and I knew that the game had some.. erm... issues.
On these very forums I'd heard quite a bit from current players just looking through the forums here.
So I bit the bullet and went to the homepage and began reading.
Much to my surprise I found almost all of the things I wanted minus the Sci-Fi aspect (I'm very burnt out on Fantasy, it's done to death). So I take the leap and sign up for the 14-day trial and download the client (I have a fast connetion, but sadly Between me and Tulga I'm the only one that did. ), install and hop in. I'd heard about them really putting a lot into the tutorials and quests especially for the dragons so I elected to make a dragon. Perhaps a bad choice, but it was interesting to try.

So onto my impressions. Just a note my 14 day trial has expired as of last night. I played everyday and gave it a real try. I also understand that 14 days is not that long in the life of a character to properly evaluate a game entire content. With that, here's my thoughts.

Graphics: Impressive for being as old as it is. Generally I'd say the races in general need a revamp but all in all it's not to bad. Decent character customization and good selection of races.
Once logged into the game I immediately notice horrendous lag. I dismiss it as everything loading up as you finish loading the game.
The forest looks nice. Textures look pretty good (again considering how old the game is).
So general good impression. 3.5/5

Interface: The interface looks very good. Seems many of the options and place for things are somewhat counter intuitive but after realising that everything has either tabs galore or radial buttons I manage my way through the options and settings. One thing they really need to do is have in the tutorial is have either the new skills be selected and dropped into the quickbar for you or have the tutorial explain better where the heck all this stuff is.
I found the Interface easy to move around and customize the place I like having specific things.
So, good impressions overall with the Interface. 4/5

Combat & skills: Combat lag is horrendous (more on that later). The selection of "moves/abilites" seems ok.
But the problem I had is there is no real way to know what you should be doing putting points into so you just kind of guess. No real explainations ingame for each thing other than some small blurb about what it is. So you just shoot in the dark mostly and hope you don't suddenly need the Fliffinhopper skills for that whatchamadoodle skill later on down the road.
Also, it seemed like some of the time (I'm talking a very small percentage) that a combat skill just didn't fire. You'd hit the button and nothing. This happened with my newbie dragon heal skill. every once in a while it just wouldn't fire. I actually had that happen multiple times with the breath weapon. Perhaps I'm overlooking some hidden game mechanic that does that. I'm sure I'll get corrected if that is indeed the case.
So, not so impressed. 2/5

Crafting: I was fairly impressed with the crafting and it's interface. It was nice as a newbie Dragon to make my own Newbie armor during the tutorial. Sadly, it doesn't show up so you can be like an armoered Dragon. Perhaps it does later on in the game as you get more uber.
Unfortunately, items don't seem to decay so crafting is somewhat meaningless from a merchant standpoint. From what I saw there is no real player economy either so all that crafting seemed to go to waste.
So, Impressed with the crafting. Not so impressed with the pointlessness of it. 3/5

Lag! OH NOES!: This game has got some serious issues in terms of lag.
FPS lag
Server Lag
FPS lag can be trimmed down by adjusting your display options. Which I did and that did help. But I must admit it's amost as if the game jsut renders slow. My system is no slouch here and this game just murdered my system FPS-wise. I can only attribute this to an issue with the graphics engine. Many MMO companies like making thier own Game engines. No small feat. But when it's done poorly it sucks obviously. I can only assume that indeed this is the case with Horizons.
Server lag is intense. That the only word I can think of for it without swearing. I believe this was my trouble with combat. I would engage in combat and I could count the seconds until my first attack fired.
Several times during combat everything would just sort of stop. Like some sort of evil MMO pause button was pushed somewhere then bam, it worked again.
Now there are all sorts of issues that can happen with internet lag. Any spot between me and the server can change the rate at which I receive packets. This I understand but somehow I doubt Bob's router somewhere was eating Horizon packets.
So, not impressed with the lag issues. 1/5

Other General comments and impressions/Wrap up: One thing I thought was rather silly. The terrain modifier. The second you elave the road you lose speed because you're aren't on a path. This, alone seems rediculous especially on open flat terrain. If it was implmented in say a forested region I could understand. But everywhere?
The community is great. I had several questions and everyone was patiently answered and everyone was just the most helpful people around. Even after I asked some rather stupid quests and they asnwered they even bothered to just chat with me. Ask if I played before, if I had what game(s). I have to give the community a big round of applause. No MMO I've ever played had such a welcoming and helpful group of players hanging out in the newbie channel. Which reminds me.
They really need to have that channel auto-load for players. Right there, that would help with 90% of the crappy initial impressions. Heck, I even contemplated staying and extra month just because of them!
Alas, the game isn't for me.
I think I've dealt with my share of borked games and I don't really care to deal with them anymore.
Bugs in an MMO are expected. It's a complex system that takes a lot of work and knowledge and things are going to break or wig out. But to leave a game half-baked is a crime when it has such potential (READ: SWG).
In my final evaluation. Horizons is no where near the nightmare SWG was and it has many of the features just implemented differently that SWG did. I'd very much suggest if you are remotely interested. Give the 14 day trial a whirl. Make sure and join the New Player chat.
That said, I can't invest my time and money in something that is the condition that Horizons is in. I want something a wee bit more polished and completed. Perhaps Horizons will get there someday, perhaps not. If it does, it may be to little to late.

Final Score: 2.5/5

Thanks for reading.

Unknown

SO its good?