Design Preview 7/13/2005

[gusi]

I surely hope it's long. So far, the quest (imo) is laughable. It took 2 days or something like that for a guildie to come back and finish what's made on ARoP. What is it 6(?) months+ work and the dang thing is completed in 2 days. This is s'posed to be the quest of the game. Not something that can be completed with relative ease. You wonder why I dislike many of the actions (or inactions) of the devs....

Eh, another argument for another time/thread.

[Death-knell]

I surely hope it's long. So far, the quest (imo) is laughable. It took 2 days or something like that for a guildie to come back and finish what's made on ARoP. What is it 6(?) months+ work and the dang thing is completed in 2 days. This is s'posed to be the quest of the game. Not something that can be completed with relative ease. You wonder why I dislike many of the actions (or inactions) of the devs....

Eh, another argument for another time/thread.

OK, this is just rediculous. Your guildee has the walk through and assistance from his guild and motors through it. Thats not the devs problem.
I have my guildees assistance when I need it. The last part of the quest they put out took me over a week to complete. I did it on my own, with only a few "where the heck are they talking about?" questions and limited playing time.
You will always have people who will power through things just cause they can, you can't build quests around them. I feel sorry for the next dragon who has to start and run AROP end to end without it being given to him in parts. Lots of running around involved. I think it's been pretty well so far.

[gusi]

A quest should be able to cater for both power gamers and casual players. Especially if it's an epic quest. A quest that "separates the men from boys, and women from girls". Not going to say anything further regarding this "issue". As I said, an argument for another time/thread.

[Death-knell]

Theres no way you can cater to both, not without a toggle switch. You either make something the casual gamer can complete in a reasonable amount of time, which is the case here or you ignore them. There is no making both happy.

[Senkeleron Fell]

Theres no way you can cater to both, not without a toggle switch. You either make something the casual gamer can complete in a reasonable amount of time, which is the case here or you ignore them. There is no making both happy.

The power gamers are their own worst enemy. Especially in a game like this where there isn't really anyone to 'beat'. They power to the end of the content and then are surprised that it is the end of the content.

[Senkeleron Fell]

Truth be told, I have not been playing Horizonshardly at allsince EQ2 came out. I have how ever been lurking in the background watching the changes being made. I also did come back a few times just to see if things had changed and if I might be interested in returning (I had paid a year in advance and so it took a few months for the account to finally run out).

The Ancient Dragon rites has got me really jazzed as does the coming lairs and such (my character was a lvl 84 Hellian) and the other changes also look like a major step in the right direction. So before I say the next part I do want to give Kudos to the Dev team and the job they are doing... but...

The one thing that drove me away and has not changed (had the same issue each time I came back for the last few months) is the engine itself. I would fly low over the ground looking for mobs to hunt and the land would paint out far in the distance with no problem but harvestable trees and resources and more importantly the mobs themselves would not paint until I was right on them or they had already gotten a couple of attacks of on me.

I tried multiple settings and my machine is no slouch (P2.8 2gig RAM 5950U vid card) and that "lag" always remained. I have followed Horizons since before launch and before the "information blackout" and I really want it to succeed and honestly I would really like to start playing it again as (despite all of it's issues) it was a great concept. So I am hoping that some dev will make a comment on if and when the engine might ever get improved and updated. When and if that happens you can guarentee I will be back.

The problem you state with the mobs not showing up as you fly over is not really a graphics problem. Back around the time of the merge they changed the way spawned things work. It isn't that you aren't seeing them as you fly over, they really aren't there. It doesn't spawn them until it decides that someone is going to be in the area for a bit. Then it starts to spawn things. So you fly over, don't see anything, engine decides you are spending enough time here, spawns things, which then appear out of nowhere - sometimes very close to you.

[Goriax]

[*]Baeloch, The Fire Demon


[*]Glaciantus, The Ice Demon

I'm looking forward to these guys. Hopefully they'll be so tough that NOBODY and I do mean NOBODY can hope to solo them. Hopefully it'll take a goodly number of people to take them down. Also hopefully they'll dropstuff so nice that a goodly number of people will WANT to take them down.

Dragon Lairs



We are able to buy a Lair Plot and build out a Dragon Lair currently, we are working out the bugs and adding more Dragon Lair art assets. This is very real thing and is close to being released. more information as well as a more formal announcement coming soon.

Looking forward to this. Keep us posted.

[Safire]

Fall Focus The following items are the focus for the fall season of 2005[*]

School Review and Balancing[/list]


im seeing lots of nerfs here and therefore lots of people leaveing so i really dont think they should do this unless it meansto UN-nerf stuff like monks and archers.....but i dont think nerfs would be a good idea....

btw thank you manga for posting the preview

[Valornyx]

Lots of goodies there .. Can I ask the devs to allow us to use the dye kits on dragon scales too please ..

Even though you can't see them on our toons - it makes a difference when we look at our equipment window.. also when selecting which scales we will take from the vault ..

Also - though just an asthetic thing - I would like to be able to dye tools for my biped.

Thanks for the love, Dev's

[imported_Twelvebagger]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Death-Knell wrote: Theres no way you can cater to both, not without a toggle switch. You either make something the casual gamer can complete in a reasonable amount of time, which is the case here or you ignore them. There is no making both happy.

The power gamers are their own worst enemy. Especially in a game like this where there isn't really anyone to 'beat'. They power to the end of the content and then are surprised that it is the end of the content.

Then they make a dragon, and they're happy again :)

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

You know, one of the things I'm really looking forward to is the Quest Editor. Its not because I'm just "brimming" with ideas but I think it could really be a bridge between shards and the players on those shards.

I've read some of the articles circulating on the net about the clashes with regular MMO playersand RP'ers, and even on these boards we've seen the passions rise on it. I see the quest editor as a chance for regular MMO players to "tap" into the rp aspect of it by getting lore and following the stories from regular RP'ers. We have a pretty good community to drawuponand I see a chance to really expose alot of people to the "story" in the game. I would even go so far as to say, since the Quest Editor is a chance to mass produce quests/storylines thru the players themselves, its a chance to CREATE lore for Horizons.

Maybe some on the Order shard could start putting together info sites and a compendium of the game's history for those that have only downloaded the game. Maybe there's a chance for those who are intrigued by the idea of writing up quests but have never thought about RPing to learn something from those that do. Perhaps, through the Quest Editor and our great community, Horizons could become THE RP game. Anyone see the possibilities I'm seeing?

Bulgrim

[Kulamata]

Aaaannnddd we go BUMP!

This is a pretty full plate, and I'd guess that any major overhaul of the crafting system would come after almost all of this.

It's been a while since I read this. Still looks well thought out and appealing.

Since then DB said that, where possible, dragon lair plots will be added to guild complexes. Our guild site has lots of nice cliffs right there, and I am hopeful.