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Why is horizons still alive?
Jd1680a
Member Posts: 398
I havent been with horizons for over a year now. With it having very low population on all three of their servers. havent yet profited from this game due to the low subscription. why does this game still exist?
i know that horizons is now being funded by CP Baker in boston. probably 95% tulga games revenue come from this one source. how much longer will CP baker will fund this game, before deciding they need to pull the plug?
is there really still hope for this game? what exactly have this game have improved on in one year? is the subscription numbers increasing now?
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Comments
I gave up trying to work that out a while ago. Horizons is immortal, like Dracula or something.
The answer is easy:
Because of the very good community and the best crafting part ever!!
Horizons:
EU Server EARTH
Pala lvl 83
Nuclear attack may be the only thing that can "kill" Horizons.
even that.....I have my doubts
Look at the history, the dev team ripped itself apart before the game was even finished. It had a horrible release, lay-offs...twice, bankruptcy, a buyout by another company, and just about any other set back you could possibly imagine.
I give these guys alot of credit, I think most sane people would have given up by now.
Yep, still here, more people coming in and becoming subscribers. Some nice improvements in the client in the last patch, with several more to come yet.
As for why, I think of two great quotes:
"That which does not kill me makes me stronger"
and
"Gladly we feast on those who would subdue us."
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Horizons is so on its last leg lol.. Im actually really suprised its still going myself they must be working for free or somthing. Anyway thats good they still have a "vision" for the future of horizons but I doubt it will make it another year
Thanks to FilePlanet it look like you Horizons folks will be seeing even more people logging in.
I'm downloading it now, I'm all about some free trials...
30% off subscription deals is a nice incentive.
Second run with that promotion.
No free trial should ask you for credit card trials, it should be a law or something.
You're way too late to be jumping on the "Horizons is DOOMED!!!" bandwagon. It ran its course and died of neglect and apathy about a year ago. I hear SWG and MxO are looking for some slambois & forum trolls, though.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
You're way too late to be jumping on the "Horizons is DOOMED!!!" bandwagon. It ran its course and died of neglect and apathy about a year ago. I hear SWG and MxO are looking for some slambois & forum trolls, though.
Klaus your arguments for the defense get weaker every time you post in threads like this. Your blind faith in Tulga and hopeless optimism is really amusing.
You can claim several reasons for the continuing running of HZ, such as increased subs, players, improved game, but you lack perspective and objective judgement. You want the game to succeed so badly that you refuse to face reality.
What is reality?
To you Horizons is a game, a hobby into which you have poured hours of your life. But the reality is, Tulga is a business, Horizons is the product they produce. Ultimately they must recoupe more income than they spend in making the product. During development, right through to the first 6 months of release, Horizons cost far more money to make than the amount it garnered in sales and subs.
That is why the financial backers, then, pulled out and refused to keep bankrolling a failing game. AE had to slash costs, massively, file for bankcrupty to escape paying the full amount of the debt and secure NEW funding for the long term. They cut loose GN in the process, hence the current issues with the Unity server.
The improvements to the game WILL go towards making HZ profitable IF it results in attracting and keeping new players, re-acttracting older players, and keeping existing ones. The increased player numbers MAY be a new source of revenue for the game, or they may be just playing the free trial. The most important thing is how many new players are PAYING to play, and how close to being in the black Tulga is.
Can you offer ANY evidence that HZ is finally profitable, over 2 years after it's launch? Has Tulga made ANY announcement to this effect?
The reality is this: Horizons will ONLY succeed if it begins to make a profit. Horizons WILL fail if it does not eventually starting making a profit, because even the most patient of investors will not continue to pour money down a drain forever.
You know full well that neither of us can PROVE anything with regards to TG's finances. Proof requires hard facts and Tulga doesn't make those numbers public. They are not required too, either, since they are privatly held. A few days ago, David posted that total subscription numbers - not free trial users, but actual paid subscriptions - were up 10% since January. That doesn't say anything one way or another about profitability, just total number of paid subscriptions, but it supports my position a lot more than it supports yours.
"During development, right through to the first 6 months of release, Horizons cost far more money to make than the amount it garnered in sales and subs" - Damn, did even WoW break even in six months? Has any MMO done that, ever? 'HZ sucks because it didn't do something no other game but maybe one has ever done..'- yeah, that has merit.
Of course I know HZ is a business. Duh. So is every MMO, if you had not noticed. Every one does what it needs to in order to survive. MxO and EQ2 consolidated servers, SWG drove away a huge portion of its long-term players in the hopes that the NGE would pull many more players in over the long run. AO dumped its creditors and emerged from bankruptcy just like Tulga/AE did. For everyone working at TG, Horizons isn't a hobby. It's what pays for their homes and puts food on their tables. They want to eat and they want a place to live. Tulga would be hard-pressed to secure enough investment funding to scrap HZ and make a new game, so their only real option is to keep making the game better so they can attract more subscribers. They must be doing what's right for the business, because the subscriber numbers are, as David said, going up nicely.
Yeah, I believe that the game can succeed, that the really annoying, long-standing client issues can be resolved, and that it can attract enough players to maintain a solid live team, continue to roll out new content, and be profitable. Past history and current reality would seem to support my position somewhat more than they support yours.
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
No one here on these boards knows the "facts" of what is going on in this game. Subscribers or backers, it really doesn't make a difference. If you like the game, play it. If not move onto something else.
Horizons may never be a large subscriber base game but they are still improving the game, they have hired a guy to write quest (I don't know the details, but that all cost money) That says to me the company is still alive and well. Horizons offers much that most games do not. A very good selection of character races and classes with very good customization, a very good crafting system, lots of buildings and tons of stuff to make and the ability to play dragons. Its a game for a mature calmer crowd. Sure it has some problems but its a small title game and what game doesn't?
I would like to see a few things and I would go back (again) A streamlined class system - meaning not having to start at lvl 1 each time I choose a new class. A class tree progression system would be better. A more developed "Adventure" experience. I'm not a big crafter. An improvement to some of the artwork. The armor doesn't look to hot for the Humaniods, looks like chainmail PJ's. SOme of the Humaniod races look very dull, its hard to tell the difference between an Elf and a Human. Possibly a PvP arena.
Its a better game then D&DO, argue if like......
subscription numbers might be on the rise, but it will never be back at its peak of 37,000. AE have caused the lose of thousands of people who will never go back to horizons. that is a problem to tulga games that it does have a sigma of horizons over their heads. even if horizons did massively improved to the point i can compete against WoW or eq2, the same people that left the first six months it was started will never come back to it.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
If Horizons peaked at 37,000 and lost, say, 30,000 of them, then improved enough to compete against WoW's four MILLION subscribers, would the 30,000 that left in the first six months even be missed?
Guildleader, Mithril Council, Chaos
Anyways, one of your "wish-list" items is in.
LOL, to a point thats true. I like DDO but the fact it's all about forced grouping I dislike it. Log in and risk waiting and waiting for a group. Of course you get a group and you never know the type of people you'll get stuck with. Those that you say "WAIT! Don't go just yet!!" And yet they run off and get the whole group killed, etc.
As for why Horizons is still around..... not sure. Haven't played it in a good while, but last I played it was fun. I say as long as people want to play it I hope they keep Horizons running.
Some lead and some follow I prefer to stand beside!
If Horizons peaked at 37,000 and lost, say, 30,000 of them, then improved enough to compete against WoW's four MILLION subscribers, would the 30,000 that left in the first six months even be missed?
True. However, only TWO games can currently, even remotely compete with WoW, and BOTH are Korean based. WoW has SIX million players, 4 million of those in the far east, and even if ALL NA and EU players quit the game the far east contingent will keep playing for years to come.
Horizons biggest NEW threat is Vanguard:SOH. It will have a detailed crafting system, no grinding to level up, complex recipes, trade routes, body guards and wagon trains, non instanced player housing, guild houisng, functional player built objects, and SHIPS, built by players, sailed by them. Not to mention castles and sieges proposed.
In regards to evidence. DB is quick to announce a subscription increase, would he be slow to declare to all and sundry that HZ was IN PROFIT? No, ofcourse not. He announces the subs rise to boost player morale and sales, to present a positive impression. His lack of statement about HZs profits leads me to believe they are still making a loss.
I only make the statement about HZ being a business when people claim HZ will survive for gaming reasons: "it's improved", "subs are up", "the devs are whole heartedly commited to making it work", "they've added new content", "the community is great". I'm sure all those statements could be applied to AC2, Shadowbane, Earth and Beyond, and even WISH. DB was being positive in 2004 right up to announcing the bankcrupty, the game was improving all the time, but STILL it was not enough to stop the financial backers from pulling out.
DB has managed to streamline Tulga to operate at much lower costs than any other mmorpg, but their business plan STILL requires a minimum income to break even and keep the project running. Until, and unless, they DO break even HZ is on borrowed time, and the good will of whoever is fronting the cash to fund the game. The ONLY true answer to the original question, (why is horizons still alive) is that the financial backer has not pulled out yet.
In regards to the game itself, I have made no statement at all. My feelings about it's content have been clearly shared before. HZ will NEVER be the game for me, because I like detailed, varied adventure content. (did they add the racial quests yet, promised before I quit in dec 05?) Tulga has taken HZ down a completely different road, one that appeals to a certain group of people. Whether there are enough of that type of player remains to be seen.
I miss the year 2000 when i started following Horizons.
I miss the feeling we all had when we thought Horizons would become the god of all games.
I miss all the missing races,the ideas of an open PvP world,the bountyhunters that would hunt down evil players,the awesome graphicsscreenshots from Alpha,The famous Death penalty,The gods etc etc etc.
I miss the joy i had when i received my email that i got into Horizons Beta.
I hate to see what Horizons turned into when i think about the 4 years i followed it closely--had my own webiste about Horizons and was ready to send Artifact Entertainment a few thousand $ when they were about to go bankrupt.
Sniff.
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sorry if im a bit late on quoting from this paragraph. i just saw this so im going to make a quick comment.
i could tell you why mmos are more successful in asia then it is here in the west. people in asia generally dont have a computer. they instead go to cyber cafes where they could sit and play there for hours on their account. this is a benefit for mmos because of this. you have a place that have lots and lots of computers where people in a region cant afford a computer. but a small cyber cafe could easily afford 20 computers and sell food to the people there to generate money to support their cafe.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
I have to agree totally with this poster!
Was truly ashame they wrote the code is such a way as to create so much lag time waiting for NPC quest characters to spawn, just to get or turn in a quest! I mean how can one truly enjoy standing around waiting for NPC's to poof out of thin air.. Better yet, someone looking for the first time for such an NPC could spend hours running around in one town unless someone showed them where to stand and wait..
Mostly I miss my Dragon, but the loss of the true vision was the downfall..
So it has the best crafting system in the world there's next to nobody to sell it too..
Where is the Dragon hording it's ilgotten treasure, while the knight is hunting my abode?
The only thing that will really bring Horizons back from the dead is an AO style expansion. Of the Shadowlands variety.
Huge new map, tons of new monsters, quests, and items. Shadowlands is the only reason AO is as strong as it is today.
Horizons needs something similar. Something that triples the amount of land availabe.
The house of peace is built on the foundation of war.
You must conquer the land before you build you house and live in peace.