Horizons: A facsimile of one man's dream.

[Ericcrown]

Geetings!

This thread has no bearing on any 1 person or group of players, although, you may be affected by my post...


Let me tell you a story, of days long past... of a company created with the soul purpose of bringing the new ultimate MMO to life from the vision of one man.

Artifact Entertainment.

And this game they were to introduce to the world was to do to the industry, what EQ did to the industry. Totally revolutionize MMORPG gaming.

Horizons.

The basis behind this new world was to be one of complete randomness. No website, no crack, no walkthrough; none would ever be able to just spoon feed you through questing.

A staff of GM's working for Artifact were to assist the playerbase in EVOLVING Istaria, on a day to day basis. Artifact even boasted that in this game, you could one day be a king of a province, and set your own laws that the npc guards would follow out.

Wage wars, create alliances... build REAL kingdoms from scratch! I'm talkin about starting with a pick axe to get yer first stone all the way to mounting the flag on the tallest keep. Your actions, and veryone else who played, would directly impact the world.

The game was to have deep religious aspect to it as well. If you played an evil race and did something kind to someone in the game, supposedly, your god would find a way to punish you.

For the initial release, Horizons was to have 16 different playable races. From dragon to pixie. Including a completely amphibian race that was to have its entire civilivation within the ocean.

The magic system... to be just as random as the questing and tradeskill engines. spells were to be things explored and researched for. Artifact even stated that the magic system would develope on its own. New spell combinations and rituals could be learned and mastered, and experimented on, in so many possible combinations, the dev team itself would not know all the spells a person could learn.

The graphics... the entire world including all dungeons and towns, were to be 1 contiguous zone. So no zoneing ever. And the landscape was to be photo-realistic.


And then one day... their website vanished and was gone for 3 weeks. The forums closed. All public communication with Artifact Entertainment stopped.

When it finally came back up, the old Horizons was gone... the man and his dream got fired for wasting the companies money on a game that was unrealistic for the time. And in its place, they came out with this cheap, plastic immitation of EQ and DAOC.

No more dynamic world in the sense they initially wanted. Was toned down to monthly cycles.

No more religious aspect. The men in suits deemed religion in the game would cause real life cases of racism, and deemed not politically correct. There went the vampires, werewolves, angels, and demons. I soooo wanted to play an angel They were to be the only other race other than dragon, that could fly.


Horizons... and Artifact Entertainment... died that day.


All you Horizon's players have been living within the tainted shell of a dream long since past. By a man who should have tryed his ideas 15 years in the future.

I have no doubt that your experiances in Horizons had merit. Life played out, no matter how its played out, is worth the living as long as it makes you happy.

And I mourn your loss, as the world you called home gets hit by the bug zapper. As if a thousand voices cryed out in terror and then were all silenced...

But I mourned the death of Horizons long ago



Ericcrown Dragonhawk

[Ijs]

Sounds like Artifact Entertainment would have made a good game... in 2012. Too much ambition.

I feel sorry for people who didn't get what they were promised.

[Nightbird]

I remember this. I tried Horizons when it came out, it was no where near the original idea. What was left was absolute crap.I think it's still running, but it's merged down to 1 or 2 servers. Their total player population must be smaller than an EQ or EAOC test server population. There is simply nothing good to hold people there.

[thegameguru]

We almost invested in Artifact Ent. and Horizons.. close to going in on a $5 Million third round (or it may have been 4th) Honestly given the lack of direction there (which is the main reason we didnt invest) I was shocked it even went to market.

There was barely a shell of a game when I was looking at it during that round.. and they were still talking about a full release within 6 month or so.

Shame.. the original vision of the game wasnt all that bad.. just like many visions and aggresive designs.. the technology and reality of what could and couldnt be done in an MMOG got in the way.

[Duckforceone]

lovely story... i just hate it when stuff like that goes down the drain....

[Ericcrown]

Here is a gift for you all...

I have only 1 origional Horizons concept sketch. The Angel

And I would spend hours in photoshop with it.



And heres the finished product after hours of photoshop tweeking.



Hope you all like them.

[kaellan]

The angel picture is great! It makes you wonder what Horizons could have been like.

[Ijs]

That's some incredible artwork Eric!

[Flintwick]

That is an interesting story, I remember some of the initial marketing of the game, and played it myself for a very short period. While is was oozing potential, while I was playing it all felt very incomplete, with only really the community crafting efforts, and scurge invasions, bringing something new.

On a side note, seeing the original vision laid out like that put me in mind of another new game due to come out soon, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (the horizons visionary didnt go to sigil did he? ). That game boasts a dynamic, player shaped world, free travel across vast lands, air, on and under water, many character races, player towns and buildings, a revolutionary crafting system... and so on.

Now, Dont think im trying to sell vanguard, as it probably isnt a game I would play being without PvP, but it does seem to offer a similar feature set, but in a slightly more achievable way. Granted, theres no angels or dragons, but ya cant have it all


That is a cool angel picture mod btw.

[Ericcrown]

Aye I have been hearing the buz of Vangard as well. I will most definately be taking a look at it.

No, the visionary from Horizons was David Allen.

If you goto pc.ign.com, select the pc game horizons, and click the news link, it will take you back as far as when David gets "fired", pretty much.


The visionary for Vangard would be Brad McQuade =)

Brad McQuade was EverQuest 1!

Back in the day, a man named Brad, runing a company called Verrant, was designing a new kind of game. It was to be a mud/mush, but it would do so much more. It was going to have graphics in it.

It would be a 3D representation of a MUD (Multi User Dungeon; all text based and no pictures). To finally see inside the world rather than just imagining it.

Supprisingly enough, when EQ1 was coming out, it was frowned down upon by those MUD communities because they believed constraining a MUD to just 1 man's vision went against the grain...

...how unbeknowing to them all that it would come upon the earth as a plague would; an addiction far worse than crack.

Ok, back to the story...

I believe Brad contacted Sony for assistance in getting the game out the door, on the shelves, and supported on the servers.

Sony, not really taking it seriously, but not wanting to completey disregard a new concept like this, brought Verrant in under their sports title, 989Studios... yeah... cause when I think EQ... I think John Maddan football :P

And then EQ came out... and it was BIG! It was the new wheel, telephone, lightbulb... it was the new "big thing"

Now the rest of the stories a bit fuzzy...

I think, since Sony pretty much owned all the servers, and the internet connetion lines, and support staff; that after the first year, Verrant was flat out purchased by Sony (honestly, I dont think Verrant even had a choice, lol).

But! It was made clear within the contract, that Brad woud hold custody of all developement rights... was Brad's "vision" after all.

However, it only took Sony 5 years before they even muscled him out of that role.

Brad quit from Sony Online Entertainment in good standing. Matter of fact, thats what they were pushing on the media more than anything... "no hard feelings".

It is my opinion that Brad quit Sony because they kept messing with how he wanted the world ran and undermining all his projects with crappy ideas.

Well, now Brad's back again... whole new company... whole new bag of tricks... 8 years under his belt to get this new company's foundation bolted down, get the game designed and coded. Get the ingame content all written out...

what? I never said he quit Sony and was a poor broke beggar I am sure they payed him off well.

And your question still stands, Flint... will he be able to pull off another great visionary success? Or will our bloated MMO market just kick it to the curb like so many games lately.

I think Brads feeling pretty lucky, now that EverQuest2 has been considered a disapointment to the gaming community as a whole. I am glad Brad got to see Sony eat Crow, as it were.

Oh, another note... and this ones important in my opinion...

Brad went to Sony for help again... They are to help dristribute the game, and to provide billing and account management. Sony will also be managing all the hardware. But Sigil will be providing all ingame and out of game support. - THANK GOD!!