It's been a long time . Horizons/Istaria is a game I never forgot. Played it in its beta form, and from day one of release. I still poke in from time to time, and I've got the bug again at the moment. So, I thought I would say hello, and add a thought or two, for those that care, or are bored enough to read!

I was surprised, and happy, to see that there are plans for this year to convert the game over to the Unreal engine. Is there any news on how that's going? That would be awesome to see!

If you'll all indulge me, there was one thing that crossed my mind, concern wise. In this conversion, I would guess that would mean new art assets too? If so, again, I would be thrilled to see it happen. But, I would sure like to see a lot of the look and style of some things stay close to their current incarnations. I was thinking specifically of Dragons (was always my main character), and one other thing (more on that later). Dragons in this game, to me, were always a unique visual experience. If it came to pass that new art made it into the game, I would sure hope that the devs did all they could to retain the look and feel of the original, while of course improving on everything. It would be a shame to end up with something looking so different it just doesn't even feel like Istaria.

The other thing I'd hope would be cleanly retained would be, oddly enough, some of the awesome color blending effects of the current engine. It seems so simple but, I have to say, I haven't seen some of the color blending/shimmering effects in games quite like the ones I've seen here. For example the dragon scale forges...the forge molds on the front, the way those colors opalesce, is awesome. I know it's an old engine and perhaps a simple thing, but I just can't think of a game that made quite the use of color shifting/blending as that simple effect. It always caught my attention at least, wherever it was used. I remember a robed wizard in the newbie area too that had a simple slow color changing robe on. Always thought it was so neat the way it slowly altered in color.

Anyways, thanks for reading, hello to all, and hope to see you in game a bit.