If you have not played HZ lately

Zebra · August 2004

If you have not played HZ lately you would be surprised.

I have always loved this game, don't know why it is getting such a bad rap!

There are still plenty people playing it and there will be a server consolidation so then servers will be packed again (with currently thirteen servers I guess that was just too many servers, spreads things too thin)

But this game is really great!

hercules · August 2004

I am back on a 10day return back thing.

Now i have not played up to 1 hour yet so can not judge on it .Has it improved on my return i will know in 10 days.

Why does the game have such a bad rep?In truth it is not a horrible game at all.

The story arc is great and releasing races and new lands as the players make it ,is a great idea.Also the graphics is not too bad .The crafting is great and the fact you build a house slowly is much better then buy deed find plot of land and drop it and you got a house.This is much more original.

However,you have to understand that this game is basically a cult game.People followed and willed it from 1999.It became a sort of a legend and it had a much different concept which people associated with the game .

When it went live it was quite twisted from the original story arc and that dissapointed many including me.

Overall i would say its basically ok.Nothing fantastic no big leap for sure as EQ,DAoC or UO did.But thats as far as i can give it an average mmorpg.More review to come in 10 days!

Onnidrah · August 2004

it isnt Horible it's Horizons!!!

and it is great nice grapich etc

and their new system is great they did mant improvments

JUST PLAY!

Onnidrah- Horizons
Onnidrah- Neocron
Onnidrah- Shatterd Galaxy
Onnidrah- Ryzom
Onnidrah- SWG (trail)
Onnidrah- Runescape
Onnireg- Earth & Beyond
Regnerus2- Anarchy Online
Onnidrah- Anarchy Online

hercules · August 2004

Well here is my view on the graphics.

The inital design started in 1999 along with shadowbane.

Shadowbane did not even bother to upgrade their engine in all that time giving us a horrible pnc outdated graphics while horizons at least gave something descent .

I like the fact that new races were added as a result of player action.

More to come.

maccer01 · August 2004

I played and thoroughly enjoyed Horizons for a couple of months, but since I also play EVE online I have really begun to enjoy the levelling system in EVE and loath any form of levelling that requires actually killing/quests/tasks that reward experience.

To be honest I would now find it quite difficult to play a game that is based upon levelling in this way. BUT, if anyone enjoys fantasy based MMORPG's then I can highly recommenr Horizons, but read up beforehand and choose your server carefully. The server I chose was predominantly English as a second language so I often felt a liitle bit left out as English is my only language.

________

EVE online - Kees
Horizons - Elouise Stormchaser
Myth of Soma - Animac

conanowns · August 2004

This game is horrible really truly horrible. It's original vision was actually going to break the mold of standard fantasy mmo's. But instead it turned into a mediocre one.

Ryker · August 2004

This game had the best archers I had ever played in any game. I started as an scout and went elar. Everyone said it was broke and unplayable. Then they said it was overpowered and nerfed it 3 times the first month. I quess thats what got me. I think they should have focused on other problems in that first month instead of elars, it seemed like they gave us all the attention and didnt worry about the other problems.

There was an interview someplace back then with David Bowman where he pretty much said screw the subscribers that this was his game and he would do what he wanted. Im sure that had something to do with people getting mad and quiting and wanting him to fail.

Ericc · August 2004

Hi,

I've been playing since release and have seen plenty of ups and downs with Horizons. If you've never tried it or haven't played in some time. The next two weeks will be bringing some exciting changes that I think all will enjoy.

Ericc(Energy)

Mage/Spellcrafter

hercules · August 2004

I played ELAR myself and watched the nerf really kill it off.

Now first i rarely play archers,so i was so looking forward to an archer in horizons and made him a elf too.

But,first it was very boring.Imagine the EQ way of a druid kiting and remove the spells and give bow.You got the archer.Unlike a caster in EQ kiting with different mix of spells(dots,snares,roots,DD) which can be boring this is double boring doing it as an archer since there is not much to think about and no effects.

Anyhow i found this the only way to solo so accepted it.But then the nerf bat hit the archers and kiting was a nightmare.It can be done but much harder and since its boring as it is levelling was very slow.

I tried grouping since i like grouping at heart but here was the popular response

1)we are logging soon.1 minute after saying that they would invite a zerker or a healer./hmm

Seems the archer is not much use in a group which makes it double stupid to nerf them since archers have to rely on soloing.

Well after the 10 days return deal i have decided not to go back to horizons as a paying customers and will instead go play CoH and planetside till EQ2 and WoW arrives.

Jodokai · August 2004

Wow you call Hz levling boring but like CoH?? I've never made it past the tutorial in Hz (couldn't craft the damn thing when I had all the parts in my inventory so I got pissed and never played it agian) but leveling must be awful if CoH is better.

Deihlanos · August 2004

Originally posted by Jodokai
Wow you call Hz levling boring but like CoH?? I've never made it past the tutorial in Hz (couldn't craft the damn thing when I had all the parts in my inventory so I got pissed and never played it agian) but leveling must be awful if CoH is better.

The big thing that makes CoH so good in comparison to most MMOs is its wonderous COMBAT. MOST MMOs do combat rather dully... hit auto, and sit back and WATCH, fire off specific spells during the fight, usually the SAME ones for each fight. CoH changes that. Combat is continuously exciting and challenging.... which it SHOULD be, since it's COMBAT. No auto-attack... I praise Cryptic for their intelligence. Finally, someone does combat WELL... and considering that most mmo's have SO MUCH combat, it is nice to see combat that ISNT BORING.

And if you are one of those who dislikes it because "OMG THERES NOTHING ELSE TO DO!!!11!!11!!!one!!", note that CoV, the expansion will change that. And PVP will be in before, supposedly.

Sorry for interrupting the topic here... its a habit of mine, that if someone brings up a game Im currently playing, even in a board for a different game, somehow I always end up commenting.

You may now go back to your regularly scheduled arguing

hercules · August 2004

Thats quite true.

To me CoH levelling was much easier simply because the combat is fast pace and exciting.

morkai2004 · August 2004

great idea, new way of making people interact with each other fighting against the server and the blight.

bad execution. world isnt dynamic as it was intended, since every event is GM controlled. as an individual player you cannot make much progress or any difference.

it would had been great if a group of players by consistently cleaning out a blighted area could temporary force the blight back, se the grass start to sprout and sky clear up... and when they left the blight would reclaim the area again.

let the blight grow constantly if noone fights it back.. let it take over towns and area, change the mobs from normal wolves and doggies to undead version, foul creatures and baddies in the blighted areas...

and if noone stops it ... lets the starting towns become infested, let the server 'die'.

that could have been truely awesome to play.

Clutch586 · August 2004

I tried to get the free trial, unfortunately the key they sent me didnt work.

Jodokai · August 2004

Well I have to say so far I'm having a blast with this game. I'm a level 8 Druid, Satyr and it's been pretty fun so far. I have to say in the begining I hated it, but I switched servers and that has made all the difference.

The graphics are cool, it doesn't take long to get the hang of the interface combat is cool. So far it's been a really neat game. I'm trying to figure out where it got all the crappy reviews from.

sschrupp · August 2004

It probably got a lot of the crappy reviews from the large amount of beta testers like me that were excited to help a bunch of huge and great ideas come to be, only to watch the powers that be release the game without coming near many of the promises. Like stated above things were supposed to be dynamic. Blight was supposed to spread and retreat depending on the actions of players. Mobs were supposed band together, forming small armies that would march across the land and attack towns. Wonderful idea, and the devs swore up and down that they would accomplish this and not release the game until it was ready. Then BAM they announce they're going gold in a few days. Some business suit pulled the plug on their money and all the great ideas were crushed instantly. Such a shame. My friends and I who were testing were looking forward to the game, but not the game that they released. The announcement of going gold was a huge surprise to the testers.

Jodokai · September 2004

I guess I look at it from a different angle. I never knew what it was supposed to be, and just play the game for what it is. Kind of like a movie that gets tons of hype and you go see it and it's not all you expect and feel let down so you say it was a bad movie, when someone who never heard of the movie goes and sees it and thinks it's great.

thardin · September 2004

Horizons was the worst game that I have ever had the misfortune to buy or play.

Lets see, after I patched the game and went to create my character I found that about half of their servers were down. I went through the character creation process and tried to log into the game. My first try took 45 minutes before I got an error message. The next try took another hour and thirty-seven minutes. Finally I'm in... YaY........ not the game had the worst lage I have ever encountered in a game..... which is saying a lot since I've played EQ, DaOC,SB, UO (OSI/EA), AC, and UO on several free servers some w/ 150 users on a server hosted on a cable connection. I did a search to see if anyone was around (keep in mind the server I picked said it had the highest amount of players) guess what a grand total of 41 players...... pathetic. Over the 2 days that I tried playing this game, I never managed to log in in under half an hour, and the wait times for areas to load is just crazy.

Now onto the interface.... It looks like a botched copy of Shadowbane. The menus are a pain in the ass and aren't at all apealing to look at.

Spawns... this really got me laughing, I was out hunting a bit and what do you know.... all the monsters are in groups of one thing in an area.

If you're on these forums to see if the game is worth buying.... save your money it's not worth the plastic they wasted burning the cds. As for the monthly cost...... they couldn't pay me to play this game again. No woner they had to file chapter 11

PS... wtf were they thinking with thier web based character login?

RemyVorender · September 2004

u couldnt have picked a worse time to come into Horizons....the game in its current state is pretty much unplayable. it was awesome for a few months though...

Morax · September 2004

I do not think the majority of ex-horizons players will be coming back. We stuck with the game as long as we could take the lies from DB. Horizons had the chance to make a good game and blew it. I hope the have to file chapter 7 and close shop. The MMORPG market needs a clear indicator that you release an incomplete and broken game and dont work on patching for added content or bugs and work on icons instead that you will go out of business.

hercules · September 2004

This is a delimma that faces all mmorpg.

The time in which a mmorpg could release a buggy or lacking product then buff it up as it goes is gone.

Horizons was not buggy but it was content lacking

You have to release something that is playable and does not get boring for a couple of months at launch.

Then add stuff as you go.

This is nothing new AO learnt that back in 2001 even.It is just more visible now.

With mmorpg coming out like a leaking tap you can't expect people to stay .Folks will just say "my $50 is gone ah well" and move to another.

Even back in 2001 when there were few choices AO released a very buggy game many left.It sold over 100,000 copies in less then 3 weeks.Many just went back to old games like UO or EQ.Some like me migrated to DAoC which had a smooth release and was intresting.

Ok i get an email few months later from funcom to say come see what has improved.I log n and itwas NOT laggy and much fewer bugs.

But you know what i was already happy in DAoC with a level 35 char.I saw no reason to leave DAoC to come to AO and restart my lowbie character.

And clearly many did not.AO has an estimated 50k customers after 3 years .Poor for a game that sold 100k copies in 3 weeks.

Once you miss the first train you can gain a little back but never get much more.That has been the story of AO,AC2 and many other mmorpg.So will it be with horizons.

orion2355 · September 2004

I would have to agree on the whole subject of missing the train. Nowadays in an increasingly climbing cash cow known as mmorpgs people do not waste time jumping ship if a game is released under the "bar" of so many of our favorites of the past. Many players will simply cancel the account and move on to greener pastures or resubscribe to an older game they found better off and more enjoyable.

The only problem with this is that many players feel burned slightly after paying $50 bucks to play a game they've been drooing over only to simply find it buggy, crash-happy and barren of content. I can see how that would bother many players in the wide market but to some of us, we call it a waste and return to our old games slightly bruised continuously scanning the forums and sites to find the next game we pray and hope doesn't make an enormous thud as it goes gold.

I think now that more and more games are being released on a monthly basis companies are beginning to realize that "hey, if it doesn't shine to the masses we're screwed" and are trying to solve this but alas some game companies have never figured it out until it was too late.....RIP AC2!

---I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm simply saving you from that hideous costume you're wearing.

markbarton · September 2004

I'm going to agree with you, i played it for about 5 months, and overall i had a great time with the game. It's better than a lot of the stuff out there, like lineage II, so i would most definately suggest people to try out the 10 day trial thing. Unfortunately i quit because i can't have it bothing my 'edjumication' ::::14::

jimmyman99 · September 2004

Horizons not buggy???
What about unminable resources? what about getting stuck ? There were several more bugs that i personally found, there are probably a lot more that I dont know about. My favourite bug was to get an animated marrow follow me. It didnt attack me, it just followed me around like a pet. It would attack anyone, guards would attack it when i dragged it all the way to Aughundel. Then I got disconnected right before i was able to get a screenshot (happens a lot). So there are some bugs in the game, but it wasnt the prime reason i left it. Main reason was FPS lag - even though ive got a good PC, i got usually 15fps.

Roin · September 2004

Originally posted by Morax
I do not think the majority of ex-horizons players will be coming back. We stuck with the game as long as we could take the lies from DB. Horizons had the chance to make a good game and blew it. I hope the have to file chapter 7 and close shop. The MMORPG market needs a clear indicator that you release an incomplete and broken game and dont work on patching for added content or bugs and work on icons instead that you will go out of business.

The running joke we had about Mr David Bowman during Beta. Was how could you tell if DB was lying? Just check to see if his lips were moving.

They promised so much stuff during beta. Then bam... HZ is going gold. HZ would have been a stellar game if DB hadn't taken it from David Allen hands.

David Allen =

David Bowmen =

nubs · September 2004

No pvp. Played for a month and quit. The game offered nothing to me.

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