So I heard, and I was wondering...

[Galdethriel]

Well, I heard from a nice player who was there since Alpha about the things the game was supposed to have (I won't say the player's name, only that they were very helpful and informative ) and why it doesn't.

The player said that due to mistakes made in the very beginning the engine was never fully completed and that might be why we don't see so many of the great things that HZ was originally meant to have. Like underwater races, cities, swimming, dragon riding and so forth.

I've been looking at an earlier thread that was on about the original concept of HZ, and they had some great ideas (went to Bristugo.com too to look at the concept art, most of it was just. Win.) but never put them in. :/ If said engine was ever completed, would we ever be seeing any of these things?

~Galde

[AmonGwareth]

Okay, I'll say right now. Lets not get this going and pointing fingers or anything. Keep it calm and lets not get into a big war over this. Oh and most games have lots of things they would like to get in, but most cut stuff due to time and money and manpower.

Features or things that people said before launch and even up to the end of Tulga are null and void as far as stuff we may consider adding moving forward. That is all.

[Raptress]

As I understand it, there was an 'original vision' of Horizons that was scrapped completely and is rather seperate from what we have now. I believe the reason was that, at the time, it simply was not plausible to make such a game or something. If you were looking at the concept art with the vampires and lamurians and such, that's from that 'original vision.' It's very, very unlikely we'll see very much if any of the things from that 'version' of HZ.

[Vaz]

MMO trufax: Past doesn't exist and future doesn't exist.

[Velea]

If someone would like to invest in an Istarian Stimulus plan, however, so that some of these items may be put on the list, please contact me. It would only take a few hundred millions of dollars.

[Avalina]

Hey guys, I'm not really saying one thing on this one way or another, but I do want to say something that has kinda been bothering me. I know we players come up with some pretty far fetched ideas, and some pretty reasonable ideas too, but it seems like most of them are shot down with such finality from the Devs it's a little discouraging. It seems that every time someone has an idea its a big fat 'No, it'll never happen, don't even bother asking.' I understand that you guys are a small team and money is a large factor, but it really discourages me. I've been playing HZ since it's release in stores and I've been a pretty loyal player though out the years, even though I'm not always activly playing, I still pay because I know you need the $$. So instead of telling us all the things that will never work, and not to ask and what not, maybe you could tell us what could work. That way we can start coming up with ideas that might actually be able to be made into reality.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, when you shut down an idea, your pretty snippy about it, or atleast it seems that way to me. Trust me, we all understand you guys are very busy, overworked and stressed, but we're the die hard fans who want to see Istaria be the best it can be. We throw our money at you in Subs, (And I know there is a lot of expenses with running a company) but give us a glimer of hope. Point us in the right direction please! Just because we post an idea on here doesn't mean we expect it to be worked on right away either, all we ask is that it be considered.

I dunno if I've made any sense at all, but this is just something I felt that needed to be said. Sorry to get off topic. It's just all these no's and never gonna happen's kinda bum me out, and make me wonder what can happen. I see the labyrinth and I go Yey! And the Treasures Yey! But if everything else is a no, its kinda makes me wonder if its worth it... And it makes me frown when the Devs are so quick to jump on the defensive, guys we're a team. Player+Devs=Happy Istaria family. We're not trying to attack anyone, we're just curious because we arn't there with you everyday and on the inside loop. Y'all have done an amazing job cleaning up (the unnamed company's name) mistakes, and we're excited to see new life, and we want to help and give ideas! Please don't be short with us, we only want to be a part of what's going on.

[Raptress]

The only things I recall getting shot down with a very firm 'no' are things I understand the reason for. I'd rather they give us the firm no than anything like a maybe if it's an incredibly small chance or would require someone to win a lottery and donate it, etc. Games take a lot of money to develop, much like a movie does, I'd imagine. Major changes to the engine that would allow underwater-anything would probably require serious development. The labyrinth isn't anywhere near as hard because it's adding a new area and new monsters to the game, which is easier because the systems for that are already in place.

As a disclaimer, I only know sort-of what I'm talking about when it comes to all these game systems, so I may be wrong-ish on some stuff.

[Sigi]

As far as I understand, we are here to play the game, not to develop it

[AmonGwareth]

Hey guys, I'm not really saying one thing on this one way or another, but I do want to say something that has kinda been bothering me. I know we players come up with some pretty far fetched ideas, and some pretty reasonable ideas too, but it seems like most of them are shot down with such finality from the Devs it's a little discouraging. It seems that every time someone has an idea its a big fat 'No, it'll never happen, don't even bother asking.' I understand that you guys are a small team and money is a large factor, but it really discourages me. I've been playing HZ since it's release in stores and I've been a pretty loyal player though out the years, even though I'm not always activly playing, I still pay because I know you need the $$. So instead of telling us all the things that will never work, and not to ask and what not, maybe you could tell us what could work. That way we can start coming up with ideas that might actually be able to be made into reality.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, when you shut down an idea, your pretty snippy about it, or atleast it seems that way to me. Trust me, we all understand you guys are very busy, overworked and stressed, but we're the die hard fans who want to see Istaria be the best it can be. We throw our money at you in Subs, (And I know there is a lot of expenses with running a company) but give us a glimer of hope. Point us in the right direction please! Just because we post an idea on here doesn't mean we expect it to be worked on right away either, all we ask is that it be considered.

I dunno if I've made any sense at all, but this is just something I felt that needed to be said. Sorry to get off topic. It's just all these no's and never gonna happen's kinda bum me out, and make me wonder what can happen. I see the labyrinth and I go Yey! And the Treasures Yey! But if everything else is a no, its kinda makes me wonder if its worth it... And it makes me frown when the Devs are so quick to jump on the defensive, guys we're a team. Player+Devs=Happy Istaria family. We're not trying to attack anyone, we're just curious because we arn't there with you everyday and on the inside loop. Y'all have done an amazing job cleaning up (the unnamed company's name) mistakes, and we're excited to see new life, and we want to help and give ideas! Please don't be short with us, we only want to be a part of what's going on.

I'm sorry if you feel that we are coming across too harsh or too final. Its a fine line to walk because we like players making suggestions. Many times, however, suggestions that are posted have been discussed many times before and the tech needed simply doesn't exist (and without a lot of time and money probably never will).

However, there are suggestions we have implemented and that is why we want them to keep on coming.

All I would like to do is encourage players to do a search before posting their suggestion. Cause about 90% are repeats.

[Avalina]

Oh yea, I agree, I'm here to play a game, but I also love the fact that we can voice our opinions and ideas here. It makes it more interactive I think. And while I agree with both of you, I'm well aware that it takes gobs of money to run and change and add things to this game, maybe I didn't state that I understood that in my previous post. All I'm saying is that I'd like to know the kind of things that are plausable so we can gear our ideas as players in the right direction. I'm not trying to attack the Devs in this, I'm just asking for a little more understanding. Not everyone knows what was suppose to be in the game, and why certain things are and arn't there. If we only get a No, can't happen too small a staff and not enough money, well that doesn't really tell us why it couldn't be done in the future. I'd rather know that there is a slim chance for something to be done in the future rather than just be told flat out, no. There have been "No" to several peoples ideas, and not all of them were unreasonable in my eyes. But that brings us back to my point, we don't know what unreasonable is exactly.

[Avalina]

I'm sorry if you feel that we are coming across too harsh or too final. Its a fine line to walk because we like players making suggestions. Many times, however, suggestions that are posted have been discussed many times before and the tech needed simply doesn't exist (and without a lot of time and money probably never will).

However, there are suggestions we have implemented and that is why we want them to keep on coming.

All I would like to do is encourage players to do a search before posting their suggestion. Cause about 90% are repeats.

Awesome! See, that's all I'm asking! I know its got to get annoying with many things being repeated, I know I'd get tired of answering the same questions over and over again! Maybe you guys could make a sticky in the Suggestions section saying what's been suggested and what's plasuable or not? That way maybe we can cut down on repeats and unreasonable ideas. I know we should search ideas first, but I don't know about you, but when I have an idea I get pretty darned excited about it and don't think to search. A little reminder might be a good idea!

[Galdethriel]

Okay, I'll say right now. Lets not get this going and pointing fingers or anything. Keep it calm and lets not get into a big war over this.

...eh?

As I understand it, there was an 'original vision' of Horizons that was scrapped completely and is rather seperate from what we have now. I believe the reason was that, at the time, it simply was not plausible to make such a game or something. If you were looking at the concept art with the vampires and lamurians and such, that's from that 'original vision.' It's very, very unlikely we'll see very much if any of the things from that 'version' of HZ.

I dunno. I was just told that some of that kind of stuff was partially made but just dumped. I was just thinking, well, if you've got something already part done you might as well finish it. But if that's not the case, you know... I was only asking. :/

And Avalina, I agree with you. Suggested a few things before, and quite frankly yeah, they were stupid ideas. But they'd be far from stupid if they could be done. Still though, I guess there's no real position to be all too ambitious right now. There's some way to go yet, but so long as we don't have another company like the dreaded one I shall not name (Voldemort Ltd lawl XD ), HZ'll get there eventually. :P

~Galde

[Deth]

Gal,

In the old days with the first owners certain Devs would spark a fire storm. Both pre-blackout and post-blackout. Back before there was a Dev run boards as well as on other boards. Your lucky as for a while these boards were very heavily modded.

AS to things that were dumped. There are many things that have been said that were in work and later dumped, how much work was never said directly, but for me some seemed that it was very far along but looking back I do not believe that they were as far along as we were lead to believe. Some of the Dev's did not know how to do PR, I feel, and so miss spoke.

[Velea]

But Avalina, how do we know what someone may suggest until they suggest it?

Asking us to make a list of what's plausible puts a limiting constraint on what players will suggest. The only "unreasonable suggestion" is the one that someone never makes.

And to be frank about it, usually the reason does come down to one of two things:
1) The technology for it doesn't exist in game and there isn't the funding to develop it.

Or
2) It really doesn't fit with the world of Istaria. These suggestions are rarely made because most who come to the forums know the world well enough to know that flying spaceships aren't ever going to happen because they don't "fit" in Istaria, but they sometimes do.

But what benefit is there to taking the days worth of work that it would be to go through years worth of threads and make a post that says "This is what's not possible" when
A) someone can search and usually find when their suggestion has been made and said not possible
and
B) doing so puts limits on the collective imagination of the players who post here.

[Avalina]

Ok, hang on I think what I was saying is being a little misunderstood. I'm not saying drop everything that your doing and search the forums for all the suggestions ever made, no way, that'd be hell. What I'm saying is tell us what direction we should be thinking in.

Like for example you just said one of the things- Must fit into Istarian lifestyle. IG: No space ships, automatic weapons, etc.
Another thing I beleive you guys have nixed is the idea of rideable mounts or ridable dragons. Can there be rideable cargo disks?
Was the underwater cities and races completly squashed?

Things like that, the hot topics, the general ideas are what I'm talking about. Appearently new monsters are able to be done, new areas on land can be done. Is this Labrynth occupying land that wasn't used before? Or are you guys splitting the world and craming it into a new space?

If someone was willing to just give us a few guidelines as to what could be done, our ideas wouldn't be hampered, they'd just be on the right track. Oh, and I was just saying to make a sticky post to remind people to do a search on their idea before posting it. Like: Before you post, please remember to search your idea incase it's been said before! Also when thinking up ideas please keep these few guidelines in mind!

[LaughingOtter]

I don't think anyone on the team wants to sound like we're upset or annoyed at the ideas people come up with. As Amon noted, we have implemented a number of ideas just because they really were easy to do. What we may not have done in every case is come out and say, "good idea, we just put it in", simply because we normally save announcements for the patch notes.

Speaking just for myself, though, if I know an idea is not workable (for whatever reason), my inclination is to tell people that it's not workable so that they won't waste their time & energy exploring or promoting it. Honestly, I'd rather see the effort be put in to coming up with ideas that can work.

[CallakDW]

The impression I get is simply that if it is an easy setting tweak or two in a database that does not require much in depth coding, it's much more likely to get implemented. If it's a thing that requires some recoding of a few base libraries of the client or server engine to make it work. You can pretty much give up on it, it won't get done untill VI grows to become a much larger developement team, or some other more powerful developer takes over.

One thing I think the devs should keep in mind is saying that somthing can't be done just because it is not easy doesn't mean it can't be done. It gives the wrong impression. What I prefer to hear is statements like "We don't have the resources to do this at this time, but the suggestion has been noted."

[SinOfSuns]

What Amon appears to be saying, in a very diplomatic manner, is that when you have to answer the same questions over and over again one gets a little tired of doing it. Naturally, this can lead to apparent snippiness or a tendency to make "short" replies.

Also, to use the search feature before you make a suggestion and then maybe he won't have to shoot you down XD

[AmonGwareth]

One thing I think the devs should keep in mind is saying that somthing can't be done just because it is not easy doesn't mean it can't be done. It gives the wrong impression. What I prefer to hear is statements like "We don't have the resources to do this at this time, but the suggestion has been noted."

One other thing to keep in mind is that it does not always mean we don't have the resources. It may also mean that we don't really feel like it would add to the experience of the game or that it simply isn't a feature we feel we should spend time on because priorities lie elsewhere.

[CallakDW]

If you think it isn't worth adding because it doesn't add much to the gaming experience in your opinion, then just say so. However if priorities lie elsewhere then you don't have the resources to apply to it right now, correct? This is exactly what I was saying.