Taking a look

Torak

Well, here I am 1 year later and find myself looking at Horizons ....again. I did the free trail.

Fresh start. The first thing you need to do when you try Horizons is understand that it is and "older" game now. The graphics - they ain't so hot in this day accept that. Some of the games strong points (graphics) the races are very original especially when you take into account how long ago this game was made. It has a very bright "high fantasy" style. Some of the artwork isn't to good however. Humans Dwarves and elves being the most bland of the races. ( other races like the dragons, the catguys the Dryads and lizard guys are very very good)The artwork for the the armor is not very good at all. There is little variation. No mage looking gear at all. Mages where a cloth suit that looks just like the chain suit but without the links. If anything the art variation in the wearables is where this game has a real weakness.

Performance. I didn't notice any big problems. No crashes, no real lag to speak of. I have a pretty good PC though so I'm sure others may have some problems. I am in no way saying the game does not have problems, it just takes a lot to slow me down. There isn't a game out there I can't run on "high" settings. Load times are very long when first logging in. I was literaly able to go make a sandwich and come back while the games first logs in. Also, the memory leak is still in there. After several ports you are going to need to relog.

The new tutorial is excellent. Other game companies need to take note of this. Althought the task are basic and simple kill task, you have no questions really about how anything works once you are finished. Right down to how levels and multiclassing works. Although it is a lot of information you never "feel" like you are blabbed to for to long as the tutorial happens in a series of pop ups while you do things the NPC's tell you to do. Several games do this already but none are as detailed as this one.

Once you get ingame there appears to be plenty to do. Most of the content is again simple kill task and fedx type stuff but it moves you along. Most of it is rather unimpressive.

The interface is still one of the best ones out there. (EQII knew what they where doing when they stole most of it) The chat system is still my favorite. You can literally have 10 conversations going on at once and be able to easily keep track of them all with no problems sorting them out.

The true strength of this game is the community. Yes the population is small but its the quality that counts. These people are excellent. I will not go into specific details but if you are looking for a game with a dedicated mature following. Look no further. The players also put together "their own" quest. They appear to have no real need or desire for "canned, scripted" material. The amount of small scale events appear to keep this community happy.  

So what are the weaknesses? If you are picky about graphics, you are not going to like this game. Some of the quest are bugged (yeah, sorry but I only came across one so far and I reported it, customer service got back with me right away)

The next thing I see as a weakness is any compelling content to keep you fixed on play. However the game looks like it has a focus on the monthly events rather then scripted quest.

Memory leak - gets kinda bad after awhile.

The monthly event right now has the community building defences to keep the Aegis from advancing into the player world. Crafters are building walls and towners while adventurers are fighting off the attacks. I haven't seen it myself (remember I started with a fresh toon) but the community described it.

Combat, well if you are an adventurer you might not like this game either. The combat is pretty dry. (archers are truely archers though!, you can fire at things at just about clip range! ) The spell effects are very basic also. Nothing to fancy here. This game will keep a natural born WoW player interested for about 2 minutes....which is a good thing, trust me.

I hope the new expansion brings in some new blood for the game. Its not a bad little game. It has a solid friendly mature community that very few games can match. Its an oldy but a goody.   

Svayvti

Pretty good review, I have to second just about everything said.

Never had any memory leaks during my trial though, but the login and character creation was very very slow for me.

I think you were a little hard on combat. True its nothing special, but how many MMOs these days are? Combat IMO is about the same as WoW or EQ2, except you go into town and change your class whenever you get tired of one playstyle.

Still a nicely written and from my perspective very accurate and honest review.

Torak

Yes, the basic style of the combat is very standard. Auto attack like WoW, EQII, DAoC and then manage specials. What gets me is the lack of any combat animations and the bland effects.

But yeah, the combat is very very similar to the listed games mechanically speaking. You will not feel like you are in unfamiliar territory there. Its very easy to learn and use. So sure, its not that bad, just not very fancy looking.

Svayvti

have to disagree about the blandness of combat specials. I thought spell animations were very nice, just the graphics are obviously dated. Still despite the dated appearance I thought the animations were better than WoW or EQ2.

Didn't play a melee class during my trial period yet though. I tried a mage and a druid, what adventure class did you try on your trial?

Torak

cool,

at least we are both are looking at it fairly

Patriarch

I played this game when it came out, when I was alot younger and more naiive. I thought it was satans gift to horrible gaming. I thought I had unexcuseable server lag, but I didn't put 56k + barely low tech computer + mmorpg = ? together. I am really, really tempted to go back and play this now. This was a great review btw, and after playing EvE this might be the kind of game i'm looking for until something more flashy and not WoW related comes out. Definatly Sitting on the fence atm :

Svayvti

Wanted to follow up that I've seen the memory leak now, and an odd one.

Staying in one or a few places I never see it. I can play the game a whole day with no problems. The leak occurs if I've been doing a lot of gate hoping (teleporting to different game world places) then it shows up after 6 or more hops around.

As a roleplayer and someone who wants more out of a game than the level grind or pvp I've decided that I'll be sticking with horizons for a while now.