Hmm, see, you'd consider that bad. I'd take it as good...the good things he lists are the things I want. Sure, the Ugly part is kind of something no one would want...but still, those will be fixed in due time.
The "no content" issues raised are of concern to me somewhat, but only in the beginning. Anarchy Online had a lot of the same type of release...there was basically no static content at all. It comes in time, if for no greater reason than it takes time to make quality content.
I'd rather the game system be solid at the beginning and the content come later than the other way around. But I don't want to presume the game system is solid. We'll have to see how it survives release.
They have stated in interviews that they intentionally left the content out of the beta. They are testing the content on a server in house. It they are true to their word, then there should be alot of content in the game from the start. We will have to wait and see some reviews from people who have bought the game and are playing it after the servers go live. Only time will tell if this game is going to be fun or not.
Originally posted by rathma Blizzard has gave us alot of info on WoW, so i'm not just assuming on what people think. From reading everything, on the game already has alot more to offer than horizons.
________________________________ Peter : "Why did all the dinosaurs become extinct?" Teacher: "Because you touch yourself at night."
All the mmorpg look great on paper.Yet to read about one and say oh it sucks bad.
Until EQ2 or WoW comes out you can't say they are great.
I agree to an extent. Reading about a game is different. Reading it is good and all, because you'll find out about everything has been implemented, but it's the finalization of it all. How well was it put in place, is it too easy, too hard to reach that goal/level?
I am about as big of a World of Warcraft fanatic, or EQ2 fanatic as everyone else out there. I just try not to let my self get too psyched... if it was a let down at least I was let down easy
- MMORPG.COM STAFF -
KillerTwinkie - That one guy who used to mod mmorpg.com's forums.
How was Horizons beta testing, you ask..... rough, pretty rough... and I can't wait for opening day, the 9th. The rough part was the lag and the memleaks. fixed at the end of beta.
David Bowman made it clear to all of us that they were not putting in all the content of the game. Why, we don't know. I think that fact alone mad alot of people angry. Another big problem was the lag and the memory leaks. When they went down last Wed. it was 100% better. They even added a few more mobs. They also revamped the whole way of "doing" the dragon 2 days before beta ended! Weird! I had a level 33 dragon and lost everything I'd learned in the four schools I had attended. Twas strange. Dragons will not go to schools like bipeds any more. But, that's not a bad thing, just different! When you change schools, you loose about half of what you've learned from the old school and you actually powerlevel yourself up in your new school, you don't loose your hitpoints, just spells, etc. When you go back to that school, it all comes back to you, plus about half of the next school you went to.... are ya all confused yet? 'Can't say I'm not trying...very trying!
I am very ready to go back to Horizons and I think I'll be there a long time. We will be working together as a community to fight the bad guys and take back our land and rebuild and build anew.
There is no pvp and never was. lots are angry about that..guess what~ it's AE's game and if you want pvp make sure you play a game that's pvp!
I learned that lots of people just love to gripe! I'm not saying some wasn't deserved..certainly not all! I loved it and hope you'll join me in winning the battle!
Glad to hear that someone is being optimistic. A good deal of the posts I've been reading, here and elsewhere, have been somewhat negative....and thats a bit disappointing because (as I always say)....no game is ever released perfectly.
I didn't beta test, but a close friend did and she strongly recommended it to me afterward. I know there will improvements on the small gliches (ie lag, memleaks) in due time and HZs will end up being awesome.
I though somewhere Hz was going to have a reactive mob system, say if your cleaning house in a certain section, the game may send a pack of meaner mobs to come get you.
Was this true or implemented?
-=-=-=-=- "EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%
Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here
-=-=-=-=- Achievers realise that killers as a concept are necessary in order to make achievement meaningful and worthwhile (there being no way to "lose" the game if any fool can "win" just by plodding slowly unchallenged). -bartle
Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% The Test. Learn what it means here.
hate to break it to you, but your not really crafting anyting, your right index finger is clicking on your mouse. same figermovement for chopping trees, mining, harvestiing. you dont ahve an axe or sword..
By the same token, you aren't really slaying orcs and dropping dragons. Being able to craft powerful items of your own that you can introduce to the adventuring environment either by selling them or wielding them is rewarding for many players, myself included. An awful lot of fantasy literature centers around powerful items crafted in some time of legend...The One Ring, Narsil, Excalibur...some people enjoy playing the role of the person to bring these artifacts into being in the alternate reality of their game world.
Play your game the way you enjoy it, but don't knock others for wanting to play it differently.
I posted this elsewhere but since your asking for it...
Here is my short version opinion, as I have really gotten tired of typing the same thing over and over and over again on the beta boards. I'll give the bad first since thats how I like doing things in general.
The Bad:
The races need to be more distinctive, as it stands there are 2 main races. Bipeds and Dragons. Although AE would have you believe there are many more. The differences at the beginning LOOK significant, but since you gain stats as you level in a predetermined manner, the higher level you get, the less and less of a difference this makes, and it doesnt make that much a difference to begin with. However you can make your biped LOOK like a Fiend, Half-Giant, Elf, Gnome, Dwarf, Human, Saris, or Sslik. It really makes no difference which one you choose, unless you choose dragon.
The classes should be more geared toward specific races, as it stands now, there is little if no difference between a gnome beserker and a half-giant beserker. or a elf wizard and a half giant wizard. IMHO that latter should not even be able to exist, but thats a matter of preference I suppose. (All those years of reading good fantasy fiction must have currupted me)
Combat is too easy, plain and simple. You need to make the challenges for yourself by creative fighting and pulling, Horizons does not provide the challenges for you. (Maybe thats a good part... not sure. It wasnt for me though)
There is no item degradation, in 5 months, no item in Istaria will cost more than 50 coppers because of this. 50 copper btw is next to nothing.
FPS with tons of players on the screen VS the undead = slideshow, or complete stop. Similar to the levels of lag/fps like in the opening weeks of AO when they would have events like the giant worm attacking a city. This particular one can be fixed however and isnt one of my top "bads". (Its more the ones that will probably never change that I see causing the most damage here)
Saying that the fact that there are no doors is because it is against Istarian culture, almost made me ROFLMAO, not responding to the question of why there were no doors would have been better than this sad, sad, sad reason.
There is no "Life" in Istaria. The players and their trainers are nearly the only people on this world. As such, it was very hard to "believe" in this world.
No reason to go adventuring. There is no dropped equipment in Horizons... none, whatsoever. All you get is more money to make the crafters rich. There is nothing a crafter would want from an adventurer, the drops of crafting supplies doesnt cut it, as no crafter will even bother paying for 10 cedar logs, when he can go out and chop them with his own hands from a tree in 60 seconds. And I dont know where the crafting formulas were dropping but since the last player wipe, my fiance and I leveled up to 27 together and didnt see ONE SINGLE formula drop. Thats changable however... and I am getting off topic on this one... No reason to go adventuring. If you werent in beta, let me tell you there were countless posts about what could be done about this, different ways that drops could be added without impacting crafters. Every single one of them was ignored, or perhaps never read.
The Good:
This is the best crafting system I have seen yet in a Fantasy MMORPG. I really was impressed. Ultima Online quality in 3D... unfortunately no item degredation will make this pointless in short order.
The storyline really is fitting to the whole respawn 20 million times thing, and I enjoy the way they worked with it.
The number of Classes (or schools as they are reffered to in Horizons). Very nice list. And in time they could become even more unique to each other, making this an even better "good" point.
House and Community building was done very nicely. No wide open plains littered with hundred of houses (ala UO), nice and orianized plot system for purchasing land plots.
Thats all I can think of at the moment, If I come up with more, I'll add on.
Also, with a title like "horizons NDA lifted so tell us why it sucks", would you expect many good reviews?
In all honesty, up until about 3 days before EURO release, my fiance and I were planning on playing this game after beta and we had 4 copies on pre-order. It was good enough IF nothing else would be on the "horizon". After discussing for a bit, and knowing how much effort we put into these games, we figured it would be a waste of time and money to put all that effort into an MMORPG, that we would only play for a few weeks or months. Also what we both realize is that, unless Sony screws up majorly, our home will be in EQ2. There are just some things "missing" from Horizons that were in a game that was released 5 or 6 years ago.
rcosner, good information. For the most part, many of your list of "The Bad" are elements we often see in release., which suggests many of them can and will be fixed in the immediate future (and the quality of the game and company can be well measured in how this happens).
It seems to me the main questions about this game are going to come down to how compelling they can make the gameworld. If there is no reason to adventure then that will cause the crafting system to be a complete dead-end. Compelling reasons to adventure could include, but are not exclusive to unique drops, static dungeons, and epic quests (and no doubt more that I can't think of). Right now it sounds like the game is lacking these in any measurable quality. Guess we'll have to see.
The item-degradation issue is one that I think can be ameliorated somewhat. It really depends on how they expect items to hold up over time. In Anarchy Online you don't need item degradation...you simply outgrow your item and thus continue to employ tradeskillers to provide your goods (sadly, AO has extremely poor player-reliant tradeskilling...alltogether too few items are valuable to make it worth it). On the other extreme, EverQuest matured toward the end into a decent linear tradeskill path that provides valuable items for players...unfortunately that system requires maddening quantities of hours of farming in order to obtain the raw materials needed to advance the skill. Personally, I'd like to not see item-degradation...I'd rather see something closer to a merge between AO and EQ.
Comments
Another bad review of Horizons
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=60571310
Well, you asked for it
Hmm, see, you'd consider that bad. I'd take it as good...the good things he lists are the things I want. Sure, the Ugly part is kind of something no one would want...but still, those will be fixed in due time.
The "no content" issues raised are of concern to me somewhat, but only in the beginning. Anarchy Online had a lot of the same type of release...there was basically no static content at all. It comes in time, if for no greater reason than it takes time to make quality content.
I'd rather the game system be solid at the beginning and the content come later than the other way around. But I don't want to presume the game system is solid. We'll have to see how it survives release.
They have stated in interviews that they intentionally left the content out of the beta. They are testing the content on a server in house. It they are true to their word, then there should be alot of content in the game from the start. We will have to wait and see some reviews from people who have bought the game and are playing it after the servers go live. Only time will tell if this game is going to be fun or not.
All the mmorpg look great on paper.Yet to read about one and say oh it sucks bad.
Until EQ2 or WoW comes out you can't say they are great.
I agree to an extent. Reading about a game is different. Reading it is good and all, because you'll find out about everything has been implemented, but it's the finalization of it all. How well was it put in place, is it too easy, too hard to reach that goal/level?
I am about as big of a World of Warcraft fanatic, or EQ2 fanatic as everyone else out there. I just try not to let my self get too psyched... if it was a let down at least I was let down easy
- MMORPG.COM STAFF -
KillerTwinkie - That one guy who used to mod mmorpg.com's forums.
----------------------------------------------
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." -- Batman
How was Horizons beta testing, you ask..... rough, pretty rough... and I can't wait for opening day, the 9th. The rough part was the lag and the memleaks. fixed at the end of beta.
David Bowman made it clear to all of us that they were not putting in all the content of the game. Why, we don't know. I think that fact alone mad alot of people angry. Another big problem was the lag and the memory leaks. When they went down last Wed. it was 100% better. They even added a few more mobs. They also revamped the whole way of "doing" the dragon 2 days before beta ended! Weird! I had a level 33 dragon and lost everything I'd learned in the four schools I had attended. Twas strange. Dragons will not go to schools like bipeds any more. But, that's not a bad thing, just different! When you change schools, you loose about half of what you've learned from the old school and you actually powerlevel yourself up in your new school, you don't loose your hitpoints, just spells, etc. When you go back to that school, it all comes back to you, plus about half of the next school you went to.... are ya all confused yet? 'Can't say I'm not trying...very trying!
I am very ready to go back to Horizons and I think I'll be there a long time. We will be working together as a community to fight the bad guys and take back our land and rebuild and build anew.
There is no pvp and never was. lots are angry about that..guess what~ it's AE's game and if you want pvp make sure you play a game that's pvp!
I learned that lots of people just love to gripe! I'm not saying some wasn't deserved..certainly not all! I loved it and hope you'll join me in winning the battle!
Thanks for listening
Glad to hear that someone is being optimistic. A good deal of the posts I've been reading, here and elsewhere, have been somewhat negative....and thats a bit disappointing because (as I always say)....no game is ever released perfectly.
I didn't beta test, but a close friend did and she strongly recommended it to me afterward. I know there will improvements on the small gliches (ie lag, memleaks) in due time and HZs will end up being awesome.
Hope to see the rest of you there....
I though somewhere Hz was going to have a reactive mob system, say if your cleaning house in a certain section, the game may send a pack of meaner mobs to come get you.
Was this true or implemented?
-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%
Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here
-=-=-=-=-
Achievers realise that killers as a concept are necessary in order to make achievement meaningful and worthwhile (there being no way to "lose" the game if any fool can "win" just by plodding slowly unchallenged). -bartle
Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% The Test. Learn what it means here.
By the same token, you aren't really slaying orcs and dropping dragons. Being able to craft powerful items of your own that you can introduce to the adventuring environment either by selling them or wielding them is rewarding for many players, myself included. An awful lot of fantasy literature centers around powerful items crafted in some time of legend...The One Ring, Narsil, Excalibur...some people enjoy playing the role of the person to bring these artifacts into being in the alternate reality of their game world.
Play your game the way you enjoy it, but don't knock others for wanting to play it differently.
I posted this elsewhere but since your asking for it...
Here is my short version opinion, as I have really gotten tired of typing the same thing over and over and over again on the beta boards. I'll give the bad first since thats how I like doing things in general.
The Bad:
The races need to be more distinctive, as it stands there are 2 main races. Bipeds and Dragons. Although AE would have you believe there are many more. The differences at the beginning LOOK significant, but since you gain stats as you level in a predetermined manner, the higher level you get, the less and less of a difference this makes, and it doesnt make that much a difference to begin with. However you can make your biped LOOK like a Fiend, Half-Giant, Elf, Gnome, Dwarf, Human, Saris, or Sslik. It really makes no difference which one you choose, unless you choose dragon.
The classes should be more geared toward specific races, as it stands now, there is little if no difference between a gnome beserker and a half-giant beserker. or a elf wizard and a half giant wizard. IMHO that latter should not even be able to exist, but thats a matter of preference I suppose. (All those years of reading good fantasy fiction must have currupted me)
Combat is too easy, plain and simple. You need to make the challenges for yourself by creative fighting and pulling, Horizons does not provide the challenges for you. (Maybe thats a good part... not sure. It wasnt for me though)
There is no item degradation, in 5 months, no item in Istaria will cost more than 50 coppers because of this. 50 copper btw is next to nothing.
FPS with tons of players on the screen VS the undead = slideshow, or complete stop. Similar to the levels of lag/fps like in the opening weeks of AO when they would have events like the giant worm attacking a city. This particular one can be fixed however and isnt one of my top "bads". (Its more the ones that will probably never change that I see causing the most damage here)
Saying that the fact that there are no doors is because it is against Istarian culture, almost made me ROFLMAO, not responding to the question of why there were no doors would have been better than this sad, sad, sad reason.
There is no "Life" in Istaria. The players and their trainers are nearly the only people on this world. As such, it was very hard to "believe" in this world.
No reason to go adventuring. There is no dropped equipment in Horizons... none, whatsoever. All you get is more money to make the crafters rich. There is nothing a crafter would want from an adventurer, the drops of crafting supplies doesnt cut it, as no crafter will even bother paying for 10 cedar logs, when he can go out and chop them with his own hands from a tree in 60 seconds. And I dont know where the crafting formulas were dropping but since the last player wipe, my fiance and I leveled up to 27 together and didnt see ONE SINGLE formula drop. Thats changable however... and I am getting off topic on this one... No reason to go adventuring. If you werent in beta, let me tell you there were countless posts about what could be done about this, different ways that drops could be added without impacting crafters. Every single one of them was ignored, or perhaps never read.
The Good:
This is the best crafting system I have seen yet in a Fantasy MMORPG. I really was impressed. Ultima Online quality in 3D... unfortunately no item degredation will make this pointless in short order.
The storyline really is fitting to the whole respawn 20 million times thing, and I enjoy the way they worked with it.
The number of Classes (or schools as they are reffered to in Horizons). Very nice list. And in time they could become even more unique to each other, making this an even better "good" point.
House and Community building was done very nicely. No wide open plains littered with hundred of houses (ala UO), nice and orianized plot system for purchasing land plots.
Thats all I can think of at the moment, If I come up with more, I'll add on.
Also, with a title like "horizons NDA lifted so tell us why it sucks", would you expect many good reviews?
In all honesty, up until about 3 days before EURO release, my fiance and I were planning on playing this game after beta and we had 4 copies on pre-order. It was good enough IF nothing else would be on the "horizon". After discussing for a bit, and knowing how much effort we put into these games, we figured it would be a waste of time and money to put all that effort into an MMORPG, that we would only play for a few weeks or months. Also what we both realize is that, unless Sony screws up majorly, our home will be in EQ2. There are just some things "missing" from Horizons that were in a game that was released 5 or 6 years ago.
Farulosonoth
The Dark Wizard
rcosner, good information. For the most part, many of your list of "The Bad" are elements we often see in release., which suggests many of them can and will be fixed in the immediate future (and the quality of the game and company can be well measured in how this happens).
It seems to me the main questions about this game are going to come down to how compelling they can make the gameworld. If there is no reason to adventure then that will cause the crafting system to be a complete dead-end. Compelling reasons to adventure could include, but are not exclusive to unique drops, static dungeons, and epic quests (and no doubt more that I can't think of). Right now it sounds like the game is lacking these in any measurable quality. Guess we'll have to see.
The item-degradation issue is one that I think can be ameliorated somewhat. It really depends on how they expect items to hold up over time. In Anarchy Online you don't need item degradation...you simply outgrow your item and thus continue to employ tradeskillers to provide your goods (sadly, AO has extremely poor player-reliant tradeskilling...alltogether too few items are valuable to make it worth it). On the other extreme, EverQuest matured toward the end into a decent linear tradeskill path that provides valuable items for players...unfortunately that system requires maddening quantities of hours of farming in order to obtain the raw materials needed to advance the skill. Personally, I'd like to not see item-degradation...I'd rather see something closer to a merge between AO and EQ.