So...why not just overhaul?

[LaughingOtter]

I have plenty of specific suggestions for things that need to be tweaked, shall I start with the fact that the game is almost unplayable unless you partition your drives and spend a couple hundred bucks to downgrade your OS because it doesn't run on the OS that comes standard with 95% of newer PCs, and once you do get it to work, you have to run it on the lowest possible graphics settings to get a semi playable framerate? From there I suppose I could go into detailed suggestions about actual gameplay, NPCs, and what not, but it seems like a waste of time right now.

Wyrsza, this isn't a flame, and I understand what you're saying. However, the simple truth about the technical issues you mentioned is that everyone on the Virtrium team is well aware of them. "Make it work with Vista" isn't a suggestion; it's an operational milestone.

I'll accept that you have the knowledge of MMOs that you've asserted you do; based on that background, it should be obvious that the overhaul you are talking about is already in progress, in sections and stages, and will be an ongoing 'to-do' list for the technical team.

On the other hand, good suggestions on gameplay, NPCs, quests, lore, etc. may be things which will significantly improve the game and which can be implemented with the team's current resources. That's also part of the game reaching its full potential. By all means, if you have such ideas, develop and present them. Even if they can't be implemented for some reason, they may spark an idea that can.

[Henry Redacre]

Just to butt in here and drop my two-hundredths...

Wyrsza, in many respects I agree with you. This game does have some amazing potential. The IP and concepts behind Horizons are really pretty cool, and personally, if HZ could get to the same point in reality as it is in my dreamed up version of its potential, then yeah, I agree with you, it would be slapping WoW's arse and calling it quaint.


Other people have already stated their answers to the "why not...?" part of your initial post, and I think that may have been what got people riled up in the first place. The "why not...?" is a valid question really, I mean, why doesn't a group with deep pockets pick up HZ?

Welllll, this is just my own personal opinion, but yeah, I think it has to do with the baggage already attached to the game. It's had some major ups and downs, and it's quite the drama queen of the MMO market. Simply following the storied history of the game and its passage through various companies' hands reads like a Max Barry novel, and is quite the adventure all on its own.

Now, as far as what the developers can do and not do, it's hard to say. I've not seen the man behind the curtain, nor what kinds of hoops he's jumping through to get updates delivered to the game, but I do know he's making some pretty decent progress at getting the show back on the road after it's bad opening night, and disastrous last season. I'm liking what I'm seeing so far, and most importantly, I'm liking the *volume* of output from Virtrium as well. Not only are they making important fixes, but they're making lots of them too. And that gives me hope that a lot of things will get done in a reasonable future time frame. There are still things that bug me (no pun intended) about the game, but at the rate I'm seeing things get fixed, it's looking like future fixes are within the extent of my patience to wait for them. Naturally, everyone's level of patience is different, but me personally, I'm okay with what I'm seeing.

Finally, in regards to the suggestions you've posted so far, about working under Vista, and the blue link text and such.. well, those are bugs. And I'm sure Virtrium knows about them, and they're placed somewhere on their to-do list. I dunno about anyone else, but I haven't seen their to-do list, so I don't know what their priorities are, but when it comes to things like a (secure!) billing system and getting a test server back online, then I can deal with sloppy looking text for the time being. Again, I think that'll get fixed within the extent of my patience. As for the Vista thing, well, that's way over my head any way you slice it, so I really can't comment on that too much, but still, I'd imagine it's on their to-do list.

Virtrium is surely fixing things at whatever pace is most efficient for them. They can't fix things any faster than they are, or they would be, as far as I can figure. So in the meantime, everybody take a deep breath, make some lemonade with your lemons, and decide whether or not their pace fits within your patience. =)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

El Post-o Script-o: Now I'm all a-flutter about playing the HZ of my dreams again!

[velveeta]

What sort of thoughtful discussion would you like me to start? Ok, let's think constructively. Since the developers apparently read the forums religiously, how about making quest NPCs tell you what they want you to do, and adding an accept button instead of the blue links that start sloppily in the middle of one random word and end in the middle of another random word during a sentence, where you never know if you're about to accept a quest or the NPC just has more to say? That's the most simple fix I can think of, happy?

Now, if you'd kindly cool your jets and stop being so defensive over something that wasn't directed at you, would you mind posting a link to ANY thread that explains how to go about making the game actually run in Vista? I added some .DLLs and got the game to work ONCE, the thread has since been removed (?) and I haven't actually managed to get it to work again.

wow, this is kinda harsh...someone feels attacked, obviously.
but that's not my deal. my deal is responding to your request for how to temp fix vista.
i am able to get into blight after varying amounts of reboots - sometimes within 5-6, once not even after hours of trying. i am able to do so by following the directions in this thread:
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=16292

until there is a perm fix, this will have to do ya....

[Chioxin]

Hal's been in the seat Wyrsza, so I think he has the best over view of us all for what's goin' on =P He could likely tell you everything they're running and what not! He has the best perspective on this issue. I've read his responses and don't feel they're attacks, he's just straight up telling you "Why not." Don't take disagreement as an attack.

As much as I'd want an overhaul, I know it's not going to happen. Only someone with a DEEP love of the game and money to toss around would take up the cross to do that, why? Cause as Hal said they aren't going to make money off of it for a long time. 3 or 4 years is a long time [and that's at best]

Yes they can keep the original horizons running but if they took up a new project then for how long? You saw what EI did to Horizons without new development for a year? Even loyalist fled. So ... I think it wouldn't be a wise move unless they had two teams to do it, and I don't think they've the money for that.

I think their best bet, as others think, is to just work with what they have. There's still a lot then can do [I hope?] that will make the world better! We'll see with Virtrium pops up with. As with any new owner... I'll give them Six or so months of my time/trust until I say forget it.

[Spirit]

Vista compatibility is an enivitability. It _can_ work in Vista very nicely and I've personally observed this, but there are some compatibility problems that cause to not always start and these will be worked out in time. With everything that needs done after EI some things still take higher priority.

Just to recap, Virtrium has been in control of the game for only a few months. Not to mention at this point they are a small company with no other sources of income. In that time they have implemented and integrated an entirely new support system AND account system, brought a shard back to life, rolled out a major content patch, and are in the process of releasing a new client with a completely rewritten terrain manager.

Client problems are probably the game's biggest sore thumb, and it's an unfortunate situation, but seriously, for most games the client is the entire game. For Horizons the client is a major, complex piece of software that is only a small element in the game as a whole. The biggest misconception I keep reading is how people underestimate the enormous task of improving performance. Since launch it has seen leaps and bounds and still has a long way to go, but the very nature of a zoneless world with thousands of appearance configurations puts an upper bound on how good it can get.

--

Client ranting aside, registering for the forums only to say the game will never reach its potential instead of engaging in a thoughtful discussion of /how/ it might reach that potential isn't constructive, it's tipping in the direction of trolling.

The developers know the client needs work, they're working on it, and I'm sure would like to hear any other ideas you might have. Everyone here has answered the question as to "why not just overhaul?" Multiple times even.

I agree with Hal. Performance issues aside, when you really think about what just the client end is actually doing... the work involved is just mind boggling and unmatched in the gaming world so far. VI are doing a great job in the time they've been on the case and I wish them all the best for future progress. I do remember how it ran when I first signed up, when my new newly built high spec pc was brought to its knees.

I kinda get the same impression from Vanguard, but it still lacks the complexity of Hz's. Plus $ony's at the helm ... D'oh!

Rakku

[pevil2000]

I would like it, but also wouldn't.

If they were to do it, I would want it to retain a similar feel graphically. Steer clear of cartoony but without being overly realistic as well.

I have to say, one of the things I've always been impressed with is that even though the graphics are out of date, the animations are AMAZING. Seriously. Overload a hatchie. Turn the camera to look sideways at it. Watch it walk. I don't think I've ever seen a game with so much effort and detail put into the animation. You can almost see every muscle work to move the dragon along. The tail swings, the head nods, the back lengthens then bunches, the wings bob...

So many games nowadays that seem to think that walking is only controlled by the legs, and once you get past the hip/shoulder joints on a quadraped, the body is perfectly still. And even simple things like blinking. The amount of detail is astonishing and while occasionally it may feel like they've gone overboard sometimes, i think that stems more from not being used to games including all this rather than it actually being over the top

If they could keep the amazing animations, update the graphics to be smoother and less blocky and still keep the unique feel of the world, I'd love for them to overhaul.

[gopher65]

That's another good point pevil2000. There are a few things graphically that HZ does way above average (too much so for a game of its time), and that probably hurts performance as much as the poorly put together client. It's funny you should mention that hatchie walk, cause I was just marvelling at that the other day. It is beautiful in its own way.

[Kulamata]

The hatchie "puppy run" is great, and the mobile tails too. A recent MAJOR MMO release could not handle tail mobility, or tails at all for that matter.

[gopher65]

The hatchie "puppy run" is great, and the mobile tails too. A recent MAJOR MMO release could not handle tail mobility, or tails at all for that matter.

That's because most of them will run at max options on a 8086 at 50FPS:P. Ok, maybe not quite. I understand that they don't want to limit their audience by requiring a megamachine to play the game, but comeon. At some point I want to see a well coded MMOG (ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha) that needs a computer with a halfway modern graphics card and a decent processor to run. Instead we either get unprofessional mom's-garage projects HZ, Vanguard, and Ryzom, or polished but unimaginative lowest-common-denominator garbage like WoW, which gets old very quickly. I'm disappointed in the entire MMOG market to tell the truth. Except maybe for EVE. But that game wasn't my cup of tea.

Someday I'd like a game that has the best of both worlds.

[Menkure]

The hatchie "puppy run" is great, and the mobile tails too. A recent MAJOR MMO release could not handle tail mobility, or tails at all for that matter.

That's cause the animators for that *cough* recent MAJOR MMO were Lazy.

The tail animations in Horizons were done in Maya, and are soo easy to do it isn't even funny. The tail is modeled in the standard position, and the animator adds the skeleton and binds the skin to it. The animator then adds a curve control point to it which tells Maya its natural curve, then adds in physics constraints. The animator doesn't really need to do anything after that, as Maya figures out from the physics and curve control point how the tail would "react" to the movement of the rest of the body. There may be some slight tweaking here and there, but nothing major, like having to animate the tail frame by frame by frame. Maya pretty much does all of that for the animator.

So, yeah.. the reason why that other latest MMO doesn't have tails, is simply cause the modelers were lazy, or didn't much understand how Maya animation works.

-Menkure

[Tryagain]

best be realistic.

Horizons will never ever challenge any current mainstream MMO game period end of discussion. Its just not going to happen. The pure person hours needed just to even fix bugs and add a mediocre amount of content for a 3 person team is alone a mountain.

The best Horizons will ever attain is that it might strain real hard for that 10K subscriber goal that Mr Simmon's has set out.

Its not ever going to do better than that. Just to many shiney pennies running around and that trend will never change in the MMO market.

Horizons presents well but fails to follow through in player retention. It just can't compete content wise and the sandbox game feel it has only goes so far.

thats why a complete overhaul is never going to happen.

[Deth]

Well good thing they are not a three person team then i guess.

[peladon]

best be realistic.

Horizons will never ever challenge any current mainstream MMO game period end of discussion. Its just not going to happen. The pure person hours needed just to even fix bugs and add a mediocre amount of content for a 3 person team is alone a mountain.

The best Horizons will ever attain is that it might strain real hard for that 10K subscriber goal that Mr Simmon's has set out.

Its not ever going to do better than that. Just to many shiney pennies running around and that trend will never change in the MMO market.

Horizons presents well but fails to follow through in player retention. It just can't compete content wise and the sandbox game feel it has only goes so far.

thats why a complete overhaul is never going to happen.

Heh... my words are but a whisper of a forgotten wind, but let that wind speak these words loud.

Were I one of those ye call ' realistic' ( and what more Real than a drake of many years riding the winds of a land set beyond dreaming? ), then I would have wept at this land's wake some one or more of the first thousand... mayhap I count one or more too many ... of those times it was spoken as dead and past and buried and gone.

It seems I am not... Real-istic. .

Will this land ever set it's nature and count of those that wake against those others ye speak of? I know not. If some ten of thousand ever wake, I will not ever speak to them each and all. Heh.. I am but a Fool and who would speak with one such? Has this land already set its very spirit in contest against those others and won that battle handily? For this drake, it has. For others? That battle is one each sees fought before them and casts their heart's tally as they will.

And ye speak of the land holding those that wake to it? There are those that have woken since the land's first waking. Are they many? That is a matter for one's meaning of many. Are they enough? That is for the gods.

This land is what it is, as I and each are. But the nature of that meaning stands to each heart alone, and the truth of thy words stands to each alone. Let none speak of what is, but thus let any speak of that which they feel or believe, and I will stand to their right to do so.

Heh.. though I would pity any that relied on such a poor defender as the Fool... .


Sephiranoth, called by some ShadowSeeker
Nobody and Nothing ever, save the Five do Feast
A Fool that walks among the Wise

[Helious]

The best Horizons will ever attain is that it might strain real hard for that 10K subscriber goal that Mr Simmon's has set out.

Its not ever going to do better than that. Just to many shiney pennies running around and that trend will never change in the MMO market.

Horizons presents well but fails to follow through in player retention. It just can't compete content wise and the sandbox game feel it has only goes so far.

Given the recent events in the MMO market i'm more optomistic, certainly a lot more than i was a month ago that's for sure.

I think HZ will reach 10k if the dev team continues at the current pace and when ready a decent and sustained marketing campaign is put in place.

IMHO WoW stagnated the marketplace, and it wasn't even WoW's fault. WoW massive success awoke people upto the business opportunities that this new market presented and the predictable happened. People looking for a quick buck, much in the same way as in the early PC games market, came in flashed big wedges of investment funds about and demanded a big return on their investment. With the continually growing (at that time) player base many programmers became devs and joined in the gold rush.

We had an explosion in the marketplace, we had the birth of the WoW-clone and we even have some college degree course devoted to games design. Predictably (and that's easy to say with 20/20 hindsight) it all went **** up.

But i now think the marketplace is changing and were entering a new phase of MMO's. In the last week alone, the CEO of Turbine (LoTRO etc) axed with extreme predudice (if you believe the gossip), Gods and Hero's:Rome Rising cancelled while in open beta and probably less than 6 months from launch and Bioware and Pandemic is bought up by EA.

I think were getting to the end of the boom cycle and were about to hit the bust cycle and a serious consolidation of the market. Medium companies falling by the way side or being snapped up by large gamnes compaines looking for a 'safe in' into the market. Were gonna see one or two big names crash and burn in spectacular fashion. The WoW-clone buisness model will be seriously wounded athough will struggle on for a little longer.

But more importantly as the number of big titles declines the number of sub 25k innovate games produced by the indpendents will flourish. If i was a consultant to a rich buisnessman right now i would be saying don't invest that 80 mil in one uber game, spread it over 10 games and play this market for the long term, no quick bucks are gonna be earned in MMO's.

[CallakDW]

So many games nowadays that seem to think that walking is only controlled by the legs, and once you get past the hip/shoulder joints on a quadraped, the body is perfectly still. And even simple things like blinking. The amount of detail is astonishing and while occasionally it may feel like they've gone overboard sometimes, i think that stems more from not being used to games including all this rather than it actually being over the top

To be honest, the one other MMO I have played incorperated a very interesting sidstepping animation- the upper body torso twisted to face forward while the legs and hip sideways when running. I found that rather amasing for an MMO. Not to mention tail presance and movement were there and realistic, but again I guess you can toss this out the window because that was WoW, from megadeveloper Blizzard.

Though dont get me wrong, turn walk on and watch any dragon walk, the movement is very realistic, but it's all one solid animation, not independant components as I describe above.

I do give Kudos for the current head movement according to camera angle in HZ though. I just wish that movement communicated so that other players could see it.

[pevil2000]

yes, wow does have decent animations, but having not seen any big, really tough enemies yet in it (only 45) I can't really compare it to Horizons. Well, that said I *did* have an encounter with Somnus (of the "uh oh... dragon... run away!" variety ) and while he looked ok, I wasn't too impressed. The characters you can play are pretty well done, as are the enemies but tbh I can't generally 'see' the animation because everything is covered with chunky, cartoony armour. WoW is an odd one for me; I hate the cartoony style and yet some of it I find beautiful too. But WoW tends to be like the old tombraider games; it still seems to make everything out of cubes, pyramids and spheres, stick them together and then hope that the armour/clothes will make it all look smooth. And I'm running it on max settings. One thing I love though is the blood elf jump (not sure if others do it), where if you land 'hard', they actually bend their knees right down and steady themselves with a hand on the ground.

I think the main problem HZ has animation-wise is its clipping. I can be soaring through a valley, looking majestic as a dragon should... next thing half my wing has disappeared through the cliff.

[Kulamata]

Wow's models have low polygon counts which is part of the reason for the cartoony look. (Other reason I suppose is that that's just the way Warhammer did it. ) The low poly counts are a good part of the reason why WoW runs so well on computers that fall well short of state of the art. I think that the animations are similar; quite good, if not great, but easy on the computer.

[pevil2000]

Yep running well on older computers is always a bonus. Which is the real overhaul that hz needs.

That said, I've always been very partial to the old isometric viewpoint of Baldurs Gate and UO. I still think UO is one of the best looking games out there (played in the 2d client, though its now upgraded with the Kingdoms Reborn expansion, which is nice but not... UO) simply because they don't have to waste time with horribly complex models and can just load up a few richly detailed textures.

[Magfuddle]

If the current new owners love this game, the changes will happen. It's been two years since I was stolen away to Azeroth. I downloaded overnight last night, started the install this morning and when I get home tonight will be logging back into Istaria for a look see for the first time in a very long time.

I lost my small guild plot because I didn't have an active account and I am not hopeful of many (or any) of the Last of the Forgotten still being around but the anticipation I have of returning even surprises me.

I have paid for one month to reactivate my account ... if I like what I see, I will upgrade to pay for a full year in advance. I would hope there will be others like me who, with the new owners and a website no longer loads a trojan, have come back to Istaria and are prepared to commit to another year in advance to help the developers with the funding.

[Ming]

Always great to see someone come back, especially if you're a gnome!