Returning player take on Horizon's...

[Spellbound]

Well, it's been almost a year since I last played Horizon's.

I just returned yesterday hoping for the Horizon's that could have been. An enjoyable game with probably the greatest community of any MMO ever. And many of the addition's to the game that were promised so long ago.

I must say I am disappointed that in almosta year of absence. The only positive thing I see in the game is ARoP for dragons and thats about it.

The reworked crystals that so many were asking for still have not been re-introduced. The performance of the game is still very bad, considering hardly anyone plays this game now, you would think performance would be superb.

I logged into a dead guild. Still has all the members in it, it's just they left the game. Last one to log on was back in July.

Hope everyone hangin in the game will eventually get the game they hope for. For me, I will be deleting my characters, and have already once again cancelled the account.

Take Care,
Spellbound

[oluviel]

i'm here for dragons annd i stay for them. I can't say that it'l last forever for the very reasons listed here.


Now in all fairnessabout the reintroofthe new crystals, they are one of the more important issues ready to be released.However i think the devs are going to flop the whole issue. These are the one real loot resource that can be considered real loot and not destroy the economy and i've heard rumors from irc that none will even be equal to the wd crystals. The very same crystals the devs had selling on the vielo. YEESH sometimes i dono what to do with this game.

[Vizharan]

Spellbound--if you do read the replies here--what are you current system specs?

I have a socket 754 1.8 gig proc, 2 gigs of ram, and a 256 meg Nvidia Gforce 5700. View Distance on max, most settings on at least high-medium(no terrain clutter). No lag. I can walk around tazoon with these settings around 10 FPS, most towns I get about 15 FPS...wilderness goes as high as 35FPS. If your using an off-the-shelf Dell, yeah, your gonna lag.

A lot of guilds do merge, for the record. Sometimes titles, sometimes all active members of a guild will just join another. It happens...try finding your old guild mates, if you remember who they are. Theres a chance they still play.

The crystals.... I don't recall that subject.

[Jalwyn]

Not to be rude, but 10 and 15 fps in any area is not acceptable. Your system is way ahead of systems that were around when the game came out, and what this game was meant to run on. I'm playing on an AMD 64 4000+ with 2 gig of RAM and 2 Geforce 6800 GT/OC in SLI with a profile made up for Horizons and the performance is still below what is should be.

Combat lag is the one thing that dissapoints me most. Nothing like walking into an area and all the sudden get hit multiple times then see stuff start popping in around you, or trying to cast a heal and get hit so much before you can get it off that it doesn't even help. I read that they were going to update the game (from what I remember the game engine that's being used now was for console games?) with a new engine but it's been a while since I've seen anything else on it.

And please don't tell me there something wrong with my system. I've played EQ2 and WoW with the setting all the way up with AA on and had a lot better performance then in Horizons. The one saving feature in Horizon though is the crafting system. No other game comes close and that's why I came back, though I had hopes that the combat problems would have been fixed.

[oluviel]

umong my dissapointments peformance is not one of them. You cannot poopoo a game's performancebecause your computer sucks.

You know why eq's and wow's performance is that high? because they have an army of a dev power and endless pockets. Not comparable to horizons at all.

[BKBanzai]

umong my dissapointments peformance is not one of them. You cannot poopoo a game's performancebecause your computer sucks.

This is probably one of the responses that upsets me the most about people that post AGAINST players that complain about performance. You can have the best alienware system out there and have crappy performance. Why?! Because the game does not run consistently on everyone's systems. Some small difference in video, hard drive configuration, you name it and your 3.0 GHz system can run like "poopoo". Not because your computer sucks. I recall someone saying that their wife had better performance on a laptop with a slower processor, older video card than the husband. Stop blaming performance issues on "sucky" computers. The performance is inconsistent. Patches make performance better for some, worse for others. I'm glad you don't have performance issues Oluviel. But please keep in mind that there are individuals with MUCH better computers (faster processors, more RAM and top of the line video cards) that have performance worse than inidividuals with older hardware.

You know why eq's and wow's performance is that high? because they have an army of a dev power and endless pockets. Not comparable to horizons at all.

Yes, but the subscriptions to these games is a mere $2.00/month higher and the performance a lot more consistent.

One individual trying out the free trial made a comment along the lines of "you pay for this kind of performance? I could see you playing this if the game was free or in beta."

[Tar~Palantir]

Of course I have notice in comparison top last year, either the mobs were buffed or I was nerfed, although I beleive both.

My dragon and battlemage are rather subpar.
I went to lengths to amke sure they were well equipped....

Oh and BTW, I am a veteran button masher(in the correct sequence) from EQ2, so reflexes aren't why the grind feels hard...

[Fireclaw]

umong my dissapointments peformance is not one of them. You cannot poopoo a game's performancebecause your computer sucks.

You know why eq's and wow's performance is that high? because they have an army of a dev power and endless pockets. Not comparable to horizons at all.

The problem is that the game's performance sucks on the systems of the majority of players who play the game, in comparison to other MMOs. I play Hz at default graphics settings, which includes just 20% of view distance, except at 1280x1024 resolution. I probably average 40 fps in the countryside, and maybe 10-15 fps in towns. I feel like I am flying through pea soup fog because I can see so little distance in front of me. Even with these low detail settings active Hz still runs vastly slower than WoW and looks vastly worse graphically -- and I play WoW with all details at max and at the same resolution.

It is true that WoW has vast resources behind it that Hz doesn't have and that because of this WoW is the superior product. But the fact remains the client graphical performance of Hz rates an "F" while that of WoW rates closer to an "A". A gamer looking for a place to put limited gaming dollars is not going to pick the "F" product simply because it is created by a small development house when there are "A" games out there that will give a much more satisfying experience. Gamers want a good game. Who cares what's going on behind the game. A gamer's purpose in playing a game is to have fun, not to provide a livelihood for those who made it.

Right from the start, when I played WoW I was "wowed" by how fast, smooth and detailed the graphics looked. I could see much further than in Horizons and each zone had its own unique theme. When playing Horizons, the graphics never satisfy. They are always too slowand to get barely tolerable performance the view distance is set too low to see anything. Any enjoyment I get in Horizons is in spite of the client performance, not because of it. Horizons' below par framerates and graphics definitely detract from that enjoyment.

Horizons is an old game running an old graphics engine. It has a very small development staff behind it. I wouldn't expect it to have all the bells and whistles and cool graphical touches that WoW has, but it should at least run really fast. Its a disgrace that the slideshow Horizons was at release is still a slideshow today even on much faster systems.

I think the entire graphics engine should be replaced. Its awful. Almost anything would be better. Also the entire file management system needs to be replaced.

[Brassandyn]

Fireclaw --

I agree with most of the points you make, but you must not have been in WoW at launch. I did the beta and stress test and was there on Day 1, and there were constant problems logging in, staying logged in, and moving around. The auction house was, for the longest time, reminiscent of the worst lag in Horizons. I can't even count how many times I came back as a ghost because of lag or a disconnect.

WoW, however, fixed it's problems by adding servers and implementing code to get everything on track. They have the resources to do it, with more than two million subscriptions.

The HZ graphics are driving me crazy as well. I have a maxxed out system and get horrible framerates at low settings. I wouldn't care if they didn't add any content for six months if it meant this issue could be addressed and fixed.

[BKBanzai]

Fireclaw --

The HZ graphics are driving me crazy as well. I have a maxxed out system and get horrible framerates at low settings. I wouldn't care if they didn't add any content for six months if it meant this issue could be addressed and fixed.

I agree, I would more than happily forgo ANY changes/content until performance issues got fixed. This last large AROP patch (not patch of 10/11/05) seems to have made performance take a turn for the worse again, after the previous patch brought about such a drastic improvement. How and why does this keep happening?

[BKBanzai]

duplicate post...due to forum lag [:(]

[Fireclaw]

Fireclaw --

...but you must not have been in WoW at launch.

Yeah I missed WoW's launch. I only started playing WoW in February after I finally got too bored of having nothing to do as a maxed dragon in Hz.

[Vizharan]

Not to be rude, but 10 and 15 fps in any area is not acceptable.

/endquote

It is for me. Nothing intensly fast paced happens in town. Yeah, sometimes I run into walls or something on accident. Big deal. Besides, you missed the big feature there. MAX view distance. If I toned it down to even 50%, I'd probably run at least 30 FPS in town. I just like to see mountains in the distance....

[Jalwyn]

Ah yes, that would make a big differance in fps, especially in Tazoon. How do you turn on the screen to see your fps? I use to know how but it's been too long since I used it. Again, wasn't meaing to be rude, and if 10-15 is good for you then that's all that should matter for you. [:D]

[Vizharan]

Ah yes, that would make a big differance in fps, especially in Tazoon. How do you turn on the screen to see your fps? I use to know how but it's been too long since I used it. Again, wasn't meaing to be rude, and if 10-15 is good for you then that's all that should matter for you. [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-2.gif[/img]

No worries. I was just pointing out that View Distance is the biggest factor in FPS IMO. I think its either /window lagwindow or /window fpswindow

[Spellbound]

Guess I should have foregone posting on this. Wasn't trying to start any flame wars.

For all of us that started off with this game when it first hit retail, I think they know exactly what I am talking about in my post.

As far as the guild, they did not go to other guilds, there characters are still in my guild, they just all moved onto other games as I did. The website we had for our guild is gone to boot.

All I can say is for two days I tryed the game again, and for myself, I still do not see the game so many of us waited for. My own opinion is the game is still no different then it was 1 year ago.

Oluviel, just imagine if there were still the amount of players there were at retail release, the WA town invasions, the huge lag, the racking up 5-10 DP's before you even knew what was going on because of the lag, I'm sure some of you vets can remember them days. All that would still be present with the game if there were still that many players. Sure the game runs a little better then it did back then, but your not talking tens of thousands of players playin the game anymore, just a few hundred if that. So don't talk crap computers, mine is very up to date, and runs other games extremely well!!!!

[Tarran of Chaos]

Thats only you and your machineman. I run through buildings left and right, or get inside them and then have to go find the door to continue on my way. The graphics and speed are way better in comparative games. Only reason I still play HZ (well i havent been able to bring myself to login much for a week) is because I like the armor techs and weapons techs. When someone else gets smart and incorporates that kind of a system I will switch with glee. Im ready for a perma break from playable dragons. They are meant to be slain.

[Fireclaw]

Thats only you and your machineman.

The problem is almost all players who play Hz get awful performance in comparison to similar games even though they have very good systems that run all other games great. And none of the performance suggestions in the tech forum make any significant difference to correct this except cranking your view distance to minimum which looks downright awful.

Frankly it doesn't matter to the typical gamer if one other player gets fantastic performance if there is no way to replicate that performance. I've had Horizons for 2 years. Gone through multiple system upgrades and harddrive reformats and windows installs. Tried tons of suggested tweaks. Nothing makes a difference. This game will never run even 1/3 as fast as WoW or look a third as good. Its just the way it is.

Nobody who has seen WoW in action plays Horizons for the graphics. Horizons has other attractions besides graphics to attract players: dragons and crafting. Abysmal client graphics performance in my opinion is Horizon's biggest problem that has cost more subscriptions than any other and has been from day one. Horizon's second biggest problem is the lack of adventurer loot good enough to get adventurer's interested in hunting. Horizons would be a vastly better game if both these problems were fixed.

[Kulamata]

Yes, although I'd put the loot issue first. Frequent positive feedback is the sustainer, and the loot is just too consistently bland to fulfill that function.

[Crazyfingers]

Try again in 4 years.

NimKhazad