3 weeks in - Horizons Review

[Zhul]

I usually write a review of the games I play for friends of mine (if they aren't already playing it) so I figured I'd share my peek at Horizons with you guys.
There's a DK version at the end if you don't like lots of words.

Sound
The music is gorgeous. Combat music is exciting and intense (almost reminding me of Final Fantasy at times). Music in towns is usually themed in some way. The Sslik (lizard men) towns sound like jungle drums, human towns (like New Trismus) have a beautiful abstract vocal lyric. Some areas where you gather materials for crafting have a relaxing classical guitar theme that I really enjoy. The only bad thing is at some points it seems like the system can't decide what music should be playing, so it will start a tune, fade out (to change to a different area's tune) and restart the same piece.

Graphics
The night sky is spectacular with the stars, moon, and clouds roaming along. The geography is fairly pretty (I especially like the volcanic areas). Even the blighted areas look cool in a bleak land-desecrated-by-evil kind of way. Buildings have a fair amount of variety between the different racial areas and there are some cool looking player-made buildings to see as well. Character and equipment graphics are okay, and dragons are cool. Overall, the GFX are nice. Better than Shadowbane and EverQuest, but not as good as City of Heroes/Villains and World of Warcraft. Combat, casting, and crafting animations are fine, though sometimes combat animations will not run if you're jamming powers too quickly (though the same has happened to me in CoX, SB, EQ, and even WoW). I believe a revamp of the graphics engine is planned for the upcoming expansion (yes, they are actually putting out an expansion!).

Combat
Coming from CoX probably wasn't the best transition to have. After being able to handle large groups of foes, it took a few days to get used to the "one mob at a time" mentality again. Combat is also relatively dangerous. An even-leveled mob can be a challenging fight, and if you get an add you either pull out all the stops (with the distinct possibility that you will lose) or run like hell. Higher level mobs will sometimes ignore you (if you're low enough and don't stick around) but that isn't always the case. I had a level 68 critter smish me when I was out exploring and stayed in one place too long.

Movement is also the key. In some areas there are a lot of mobs wandering around and their respawn rate is fast enough that you just can't clear the area. I was teamed with another dragon for a quest where we were to journey down the road from one town to another, find a marauding skeleton, and recover the weapons of a lost patrol. The road was absolutely thick with skeletons, and after a few minutes in one spot trying to fend them all off we decided to retreat and took off running. Those darned skellies followed us a long way - and we picked up even more as we ran down the road! It was a glorious train we had going before the buggers finally got the better of us. I think we had at least 15 mobs chasing us down.

The penalties for death are reasonable. You accumulate death points each time you die (10th level and up). These wear off after a period of time or if you eat food created by a confectioner (cooking crafter). Depending on the number of death points you have you may receive a debuff to your stats for a period of time. I haven't done much to test out how this works. If I get a death debuff that lasts a while (longer than 20 minutes) I usually decide to go crafting until it wears off.

Quests
This isn't WoW or CoX. You will not be lead by the nose to your objective. This has its good and bad points. The bad point is this can be frustrating at times when you're trying to find a particular spot to trigger the next line in the chain of events, if you're looking for a particular person to talk to, or if you're looking for a particular mob to spawn. The good point is once you finish a quest you have a better sense of accomplishment. You may have struggled to kill the mob(s), wandered around lost for an hour or two, or dodged high-level mobs to get the objective, but once it's done you can take some pride in knowing that you finally beat it.

You also have to actively go looking for quests. Yes, a few characters will have a bubble over their heads indicating that they have a quest for you (which is a recent addition I believe) but for the most part you have to walk up and greet NPCs to see if they have anything for you to do.

Crafting
Every MMO has one point that makes it shine, and crafting is it for Horizons. The HZ system is both deep and complex.

Let's say I wanted to make a spell. I first gather sandstone slabs with my quarrying ability, then cut the slabs into bricks with my chisel at a stonecutting table, then I fashion them into spell stones with my spellcrafting tool at the stoneworking bench, then (using the same tool) I create the spell itself from the spell stones at a spellcrafting table. The spell can then be sold to someone else or you can scribe it (learn it) yourself. You can also use things called "techniques" to further customize items created (more armor, a dex bonus, socketing for special gems, etc). You need extra materials to add a technique to an item of course.

The cool thing is, you get crafter XP each step of the way (more on that in a moment). However, if you just wanted to create spells without doing all the other steps you can always have someone else make the spell stones for you or buy them from the consigner (auction house).

Player housing is something you create for yourself. Each account can own one plot of land. On that land you can build whatever you like depending on the plot's zoning (commercial, industrial, residential). Most plots are zoned for all three, so you could build yourself a house, a gemcutter, and a personal consigner if you liked. Dragons are able to buy lairs and use the lairshaping craft class to fashion the rooms and halls that go inside them.

It takes a lot of work to create buildings and lairs, but once again you have the satisfaction aspect to consider once it is done.

Overall Gameplay
Classes are divided into two categories, Adventurer and Crafter. In my opinion, this is truly a "next generation" idea for MMOs. This allows people that don't wish to go adventuring and just craft items to do so. Granted some of the materials are gathered from monsters, but you can either buy them or ask an adventurer to go get some for you. This also allows people uninterested in crafting to ignore it completely (well... not like they wouldn't ignore it anyway ).

Gaining experience in Adventurer classes is the old standard: do quests and kill monsters. Gaining experience in Crafting classes is similar: do crafting quests and make items. Multiclassing (on both sides) is easy and often recommended. Any character can multiclass, so you often have people playing a Fighter/Mage/Cleric or Miner/Blacksmith/Armorer or some such combo.

There are several character races to choose from. They all have certain advantages which are listed at character creation. The list of races is as follows: Sslik (lizard men), Saris (cat people), humans, half-giants, gnomes, dwarves, elves, fiends (blue-skinned humanoids with tails and horns), satyrs, dryads, and dragons.

The ability to play a dragon character is also unique to HZ and is a big draw. Dragons are different from the other biped races in that they only have one adventurer class (dragon adventurer) and two crafter classes (dragon crafter and lairshaper). Dragons start out as hatchlings that are unable to fly. Once they do the Rite of Passage quest, a dragon becomes an adult and gains the ability to fly. After that, they can attempt the Ancient Rite of Passage and become an ancient. Each form is larger than the previous one. I have to admit, seeing an ancient dragon for the first time is pretty impressive. Heck, it's impressive several times in a row. Being a hatchling next to a group of ancients can be downright claustrophobic. I have heard from other dragons that the RoP and ARoP quests are absolute HELL to go through.

The game world is interesting. There seem to be several different area types: NPC towns, player-created towns (or areas with lots of vacant plots that players could create a town in), uninhabited resource areas, resource areas inhabited by mobs, blight (always inhabited by mobs), wilderness inhabited by mobs, and empty wilderness. Depending on where you are you can seriously run for 15 minutes and not see a single mob. This is kinda nice in that it seems more realistic and encourages people interested in exploring to wander around. However, it can also make for a long run if you're hunting/gathering in a remote place.

Speaking of travel, a nice thing in HZ are roads and portals. Traveling on a road will actually give you a boost to your movement speed, but if you need to go a great distance you can take the portal in a town and teleport directly to another town. You also have a sprint ability that boosts your running speed for a short period of time (with a moderate reftesh rate).

Community
The game feels more laid back than others. Most people aren't in a hurry to get to level 100 - they're trying to enjoy the journey. The people I've talked to have been friendly and outgoing. I play on the Order server (the RP server) and have already been invited to a guild, just for taking the time to sit and chat in-character with some folks a while. People have offered to give me items and spells on several occasions for no other reason than being friendly.

That being said, this game has had its problems in the past and it has paid the price. There are now only two US servers, a test server, and one UK server left. I would guess that the HZ community might be about the same size as SB. However, these folks are a lot nicer and there is a definite lack of asshats.

Synopsis

• Sound: Nice enough overall, some is really beautiful.
• Graphics: Not uber, but not bad either. A revamp is coming in the expansion.
• Combat: Same as most MMOs. Pull one mob, smack it down, hope you don't get adds.
• Quests: Easier to find then EQ, but nowhere near as easy as WoW.
• Crafting: A complex and deep system. The highlight of this game.
• Overall Gameplay: Entertaining enough to go from a 14 day trial to a full subscription. I have to play more to gauge its longevity. Being a dragon is cool!
• Community: Friendly and laid back, though small (especially compared to a monster like WoW).

If any of you guys want to try it out, there's a 14-day free trial (check it out at www.istaria.com). Make a character on the Order server and look for Zhul.

Open the menu by clicking the blue gem. Go to People. Click the folder to create a new group and name it Friends. Click on the person icon and add the name Zhul. The name will light up with a green dot when I'm logged in.

[Ijs]

Thanks Zhul, great review. Anyone else from ToG playing?

Oops, I should have read the other thread.

[Zhul]

Originally Posted by Ijs

Thanks Zhul, great review. Anyone else from ToG playing?

Oops, I should have read the other thread.

Yeah, from the other thread I think the only folks from TOG playing (or admitting that they are playing) are Nosdracir and Kiwiitis. I believe they are both playing on the Chaos server. I didn't know this when I originally signed up and since I am naturally drawn to RP servers I chose Order.

[Mortlmike]

Sounds Like a pretty good game. I've been looking for something new since I gave up on the disaster of DnL. I just downlaoded Horizons and I will check out the trial. Thanks for the info.

Jarrius

[Zhul]

I do my best to be honest about the game I'm reviewing and try not to fall into the trap of writing a "this is the best game since EZCheese" review (though I am ashamed to admit it sometimes happens - which is why some of my friends have labeled me an "MMO Pimp"). I'm finding HZ entertaining, but it does have it's flaws and others may not enjoy it. The best part though is there's a free trial, so nobody should be out any cash for giving it a go.

HOWEVER, there have been a few billing problems that I have heard about. So if you try the free trial, be certain to go under your account management link and cancel the subscription renewal (to avoid being accidentally billed). Even then, you should check it the day before your trial is up, the day that your trial is up, and the day after your trial is up. If you do find that you have been charged, submit a problem ticket at http://support.istaria.com/ and they'll get it fixed as soon as possible.

[kaellan]

I still have an open account in Horizons. The first thing that attracted me to the game oddly enough was the chance to play a cat person (I hadn't heard of Everquest at the time-blasphemy I know). The things I like about the game are the revamped "newbie zone". The tutorials are great at showing you how to do things in game..the learning curve isn't steep as in some MMOs. They also have Peter S Beagle on board to write quests, there is currently one in game (he is the author of the Last Unicorn and other things). I have yet to try the quest out. I like being a dragon too..it the most unique thing about the game.

The only thing that really keeps it from being a great game is what has already been stated by Zhul is the questing system. I think I've been spoiled by WOW. It does take some work to find the quests.

[Ingo]

Originally Posted by Mortlmike

Sounds Like a pretty good game. I've been looking for something new since I gave up on the disaster of DnL. I just downlaoded Horizons and I will check out the trial. Thanks for the info.

Jarrius

Hey Jarrius, which server? If you're on Chaos and see an Ingo, it's the same Ingo as DDO. Human Pally no less.

[Karmajay]

What interested me aboutt he game, initially, was that the "Blight" would overtake cities and areas if players did not go out and combat the evil stuff. Also that players would be able to open up new areas by doing community quest and stuff.

At launch it was not implemented to well (my opinion) so I could not really get into it. Hope it is better for you all now.

[Mortlmike]

Made a cleric on chaos named Jarrius, andd I just started trying a half giant warrior named Jarriuss. I'll look you up Ingo.

Jarrius

[Ijs]

Sold? Apparently there's a big announcement tomorrow. EI Communications.

I wonder what this means for the game?

EDIT: I guess this was posted on the EI site.


SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
E I Interactive Acquires “Horizons: Empire of Istaria”

BUTTE, MT - (July 20, 2006)

EI Interactive (EI) has acquired the game Horizons: Empire of Istaria from Tulga Games effective July 21, 2006. Horizons is an online role-playing game originally published in 2003 by Atari, Inc. and winner of multiple game show awards. Horizons has gone through a genesis, emerging today as a world class MMORPG providing a very stable and intrinsically interactive persistent universe for play.

The quality of the Horizons community and the potential of the Istaria world defines this game as a flagship property. EI is committed to maintaining the integrity of the Horizons way of gaming and will continue the Horizons support in a new Phoenix, Arizona office.

“The magic of Horizons is not only in its uniquely supportive community, but also in the deep potential this game has for a player’s participation in building the environment and growing the storyline”, said EI Chairman Edward C. Andercheck, “the success EI has had in building the Savage Eden community is a great testimony to our in-game event team’s efforts, we look forward to the same experience in Horizons”

EI Interactive is a Butte, Montana division of EI Communications Corp., an established publisher of online content, including MMORPGames, casual games, web based game portals and information sites. EI Interactive combines an intense customer service culture, broad gaming experience and in-depth technology skills to provide a uniquely strong platform for a superior customer experience.

For more information, visit: www.eiinteractive.com - www.mygamehaven.com or contact us today at info@eiinteractive.com