Please be patient!

[cgacfox]

We would like to make clear that we're considering changes. No changes have been made and we're still carefully listening to everyone's feedback. Horizons will move forward with updates to content and bug fixes. There's a team behind it that cares. That team is personally motivated to see it succeed and very importantly, we're listening to the community. The subscription changes are about trying to lower the basic entry pricing and for plot owning subscriptions, a possibility to escalate how quickly we can roll out content updates and fixes. Regardless of what changes we make to billing, players of Horizons are going to see a change for the better as we work to improve and expand, update by update.

Horizons Development Team

I have been at the forums religiously since Virtrium took over and I have seen many of you already start to hound them with what they are going to do to improve this game. Please understand that there are only 3 of them and a LOT of clean up work to take care of. We don't really know how many hours they are putting in each day (with help from several pots of coffee or soda and lots of pizza and Chinese food probably) to get the current problems fixed as well as taking on new projects. They have thousands of lines of code, if not millions, to go through to find the errors and fix them. This can be a daunting task for 3 people that have to test their own code. (I write HTML and CSS code as a web designer and if something doesn't work, it is not always easy to find what went wrong). It would be ideal for them to have a team of developers and a team of testers, but they are not the BIG guys at this moment. We have a small game compared to the big ones out there that can afford teams. Even though this game has been called old and stale, they still have the best crafting out there from what many have said and no other game allows a player to BE a dragon. I know that many of you play the big games and expect more because you play the big games, but understand we are a small game with big ideas. Those ideas take time to write in code (whatever code is used to write this game). Not only code but working with applications that do everything else. I did some reading up on game developers and it is fairly complicated as to what they have to do to achieve a good playable game.

I have been playing for 3 years now (not as long as many of you) and I have had my ups and downs about this game as well. I was really not sure it would survive. My GM Delight would not give up. She said she would play until they pulled the plug! THAT is loyalty. Now we have a chance once again to see this game grow. Please don't except miracles overnight. I know we have been burned badly by past ownership but please give them a chance to prove themselves. I understand your skepticism because of past burning, but obviously you still care about this game or you would not be either playing and/or communicating on the forums.

As far as the Unity players, I do understand your pain. You cannot even play at the moment because there is no server for you to connect to. However, they did say they are working on getting this resolved. That takes time and money in order to find a server or servers that will house the game and get it paid for.

Speaking of equipment, I do not know exactly where this game is housed or how many servers are housing it..I think when the game went down a few weeks ago, it was because the hosting company had a power failure. It makes me wonder how many servers they have and what backup system they have in place. I host websites for some of my clients and have a battery backup system in place in case of a power failure. Larger hosting companies should have failsafe systems in place to prevent this from happening. At least I would think they would. Some may even have a bank of servers in another state for location or disaster recovery purposes.

Okay I am done with what I wanted to say...I know some of you will flame me or whatever, but I had to get this off my chest. The world of I.T., whatever form it may take, is not an easy world to be in. There are many things that can and will go wrong. All we can do as players is hope for the best and support the new owners the best we can and not give them grief. We need to give them time!

Thank you.

[Vahrokh]

As far as the Unity players, I do understand your pain. You cannot even play at the moment because there is no server for you to connect to. However, they did say they are working on getting this resolved. That takes time and money in order to find a server or servers that will house the game and get it paid for.

At this point I'd be happy to play on Chaos with an imported copy of my Unity characters.
The database is there, alive and running. Waiting for someone to squeeze its data out.

It makes me wonder how many servers they have and what backup system they have in place. I host websites for some of my clients and have a battery backup system in place in case of a power failure. Larger hosting companies should have failsafe systems in place to prevent this from happening.

I worked as consultant in a data center for a while. They had UPS but after about 20 minutes of power failure they'd have to shutdown the whole building, even with huge batteries you can't keep up dozens of computers forever.

[Pharcellus]

I have been at the forums religiously since Virtrium took over and I have seen many of you already start to hound them with what they are going to do to improve this game.

They've asked for feedback; it has been given. As far as I have seen, it has been constructive, or at least cordial and sincere.

Please understand that there are only 3 of them and a LOT of clean up work to take care of.

Actually, there are more than 3 people, and they have quite a few folks volunteering as well.

We have a small game compared to the big ones out there that can afford teams. Even though this game has been called old and stale, they still have the best crafting out there from what many have said and no other game allows a player to BE a dragon.

Well, "best" is subjective. The other "big" games out there have pretty extensive crafting systems as well now. Maybe not exactly like HZ, but I do know some ex-HZ players who have commented on them that have claimed the others have superior aspects in some areas.

I play a Dragon in Second Life; we have a fairly large and popular community there. Granted SL isn't technically a "game", but a lot of what I got out of Horizons as a Dragon, I get from SL.

I know that many of you play the big games and expect more because you play the big games, but understand we are a small game with big ideas.

As is well said elsewhere, ideas are a dime a dozen. Big ideas are meaningless until they are realized and stand the test of time and human interaction. Other games have big ideas, and some have executed well on them; others have not. HZ is still waiting to see its potential realized as well, but its going to have to realize it in its sunset years, rather than when it is young. That's going to be a lot harder, but it is still doable.

My GM Delight would not give up. She said she would play until they pulled the plug! THAT is loyalty.

I said that, too; even believed in it with all my heart. Unfortunately, my heart broke when my back did, after the last straw was heaped upon it and I left. I think it is great folks stuck it out, but the idea here is to make the game palatable for those who lost heart and left to come back and bring their friends. It's gonna take a little bit more effort to regain trust and respect. It's still quite possible and attainable, though.

Now we have a chance once again to see this game grow. Please don't except miracles overnight. I know we have been burned badly by past ownership but please give them a chance to prove themselves.

Oh, I don't have any expectations at all; I cannot be disappointed any further than I already have been. They have all the chance in the world to prove themselves; I merely illuminate the path I see them having to walk, as far as I am concerned.

Speaking of equipment, I do not know exactly where this game is housed or how many servers are housing it..I think when the game went down a few weeks ago, it was because the hosting company had a power failure. It makes me wonder how many servers they have and what backup system they have in place. I host websites for some of my clients and have a battery backup system in place in case of a power failure. Larger hosting companies should have failsafe systems in place to prevent this from happening. At least I would think they would. Some may even have a bank of servers in another state for location or disaster recovery purposes.

Few games have redundant colos with standby equipment because, usually, it is overkill. Most commercial-grade colo centers have battery backups, line conditioners, and generators. They have to because they are often hosts for telco equipment for which high-grade redundant backup is mandated. The situation a few weeks ago was that they had some kind of problem with their generator due to the dust storm which caused it to fail. It happens. Even ServerBeach, my server host, had an outage back in June which was generator-related that they have since fixed. It happens; even with multiple levels of backup, sometimes they all fail. You don't hear about the times that they work, so it just seems like bad juju when it fails totally.

The world of I.T., whatever form it may take, is not an easy world to be in. There are many things that can and will go wrong.

Oh, I know the IT world and its foibles intimately. Vigilance is the watchword of the day when it comes to surviving in it.

[Rayth]

I worked as consultant in a data center for a while. They had UPS but after about 20 minutes of power failure they'd have to shutdown the whole building, even with huge batteries you can't keep up dozens of computers forever.

Please... Ask govermental and emergency agencies how long they can stay up during a power outage. At one point the State of Ohio federal building how to be able to stay up for 30 days, from what I remember. It might have been longer, this was like 10 years ago. You just need enough battery power, until generators can kick in. Heck a local retailer I was working for kept it's corporate headquaters up for a 2 day power outage.

This is game, so of course there's not as much interest in keeping everything up and running during outages. I would also imagine there is very little thought into a DR stragegy, other then off-site backups. Who knows though, maybe there are DR servers, in place, in another location - hopefully in another state.

[Arietna]

Actually, there are more than 3 people, and they have quite a few folks volunteering as well.

How can we volunteer? I am a capable database administrator, happy to donate time (although I'm based in the UK, with family commitments so any help would have to be remotely given)..