questions for ei

[Zais]

What will you do about confectioner? The loot revamp? The blighted labrynth? The Tier II revamp? The Teir VI revamp? The Tier III revamp? The Tier IV revamp? The Tier V revamp? Ancient Dragon Schools? New Events? Customer support? New Quests for adventure schools? the bad client performance? Elder Play? Tier VI resources? New sets? New monsters? New techniques? New simulation technology? Dryad Trees? Dwarven Tunnels? The Settlements Expansion? Companions? Balancing the 29 different Adventure Schools? Unity? Technique drop rates? Plot reclamation? Dungeons? New housing? Communication with the new developers? Will we get new patches? New races? New content at all?

Who will develop all this stuff?

[TheHaunt]

Zais-

I believe there are quite a few of us that have many, if not all, of those questions...

I have expressed my concern about the rather abrupt announcement, without any discussions, explanations, or commentary of any kind (yet).

As I've stated elsewhere, I'm hoping E I will respond and/ or comment SOON...

[Vlisson]

i fear we will get for several month not any patch/fix/update

only if the new company bought some old staff members too

[Zais]

i fear we will get for several month not any patch/fix/update

only if the new company bought some old staff members too

A bunch of people in-game were talking that noone from tulga was in IRC for most of last week.

I think we're getting real close to another unity.

[Lycaunoss]

I question that concerns me is that of accounts and billing. Are we suddenly going to be required to re register and pay again for our accounts?

[Vlisson]

this would be strange! they bought HZ with all stuff, so all paid accounts should stay payed

ok we from unity are different to you, we paid GN in the past and will continue to have GN as our publisher

[Landowyn]

Good time to get a new debit card with a new number.

[snickel]

What will you do about confectioner? The loot revamp? The blighted labrynth? The Tier II revamp? The Teir VI revamp? The Tier III revamp? The Tier IV revamp? The Tier V revamp? Ancient Dragon Schools? New Events? Customer support? New Quests for adventure schools? the bad client performance? Elder Play? Tier VI resources? New sets? New monsters? New techniques? New simulation technology? Dryad Trees? Dwarven Tunnels? The Settlements Expansion? Companions? Balancing the 29 different Adventure Schools? Unity? Technique drop rates? Plot reclamation? Dungeons? New housing? Communication with the new developers? Will we get new patches? New races? New content at all?

Who will develop all this stuff?

I think it is a good thing to collect these questions, make a big list. For these (and I do not doubt more things come to mind after a while) are the questions that EI must answer to put the fears of the old playerbase to rest.

Do not think this is a whine or that these questions are rhetoric -- they are at the heart of the matter:

In what way will the horizons game experience change in the future? Will it be as much fun for adventurers, crafters, biped and dragon players alike?

A good way to calm some of the fears would be if you could give some information about the background of the future developers (there will still be developers, I trust?)

[Varangaard]

Having slept on this announcement and thought about this stuff, these are some of te things I hope EI will be answering once they start speaking here and making their intentions for the future clear.

* Obviously, on short term there'll be a slowdown in development. One can't just hop in and take a running start on such things as client or server technology and replace 2+ years of working knowledge and intimate understanding of the source code. The question is: on long term, how do you plan on keeping up the rate of development Tulga has exhibited? Your team doesn't appear to be as big as Tulga's. Incidentally, what will happen to such things as cleaning up some of the models that reportedly are very badly designed and drag down performance?

* The client. The current graphics engine obviously won't hold HZ up for longer than a year or two, it is just too previous generation and lacking in power. It is un undeiable fact that an upgrade will be needed. There was a project in Tulga to eventually replace it with an Ogre-based engine. What will become of this?

* The planned Settlements expansion had some interesting stuff on plate. What will become of those?

* What are your plans for Unity server?

* The near-future projects like confectioner school and loot revamp. What'll become of confectioner that we hear is about done by now. What will become of loot revamp that possibly would have eased the acquisition of technique resources?

* Many people have been able to believe in Horizons because the developer team communicated with us openly, both on the forums and chatting in IRC. We knew that they listened to us and that our problems were at the very least always heard. How do you plan on communicating with your players?

* Lore. Game lore is important to many players. It is not very well organized and exists on paper, in heads of people responsible it, and somethimes ingame only. How will you go aboutstaying faithful to current lore and not contradicting it?

* Continuity. Some of us think that certain Tulga personell have been integral to the success and special flavor of Horizons and their work has been invaluable in bringing the game to where it is today. What will you do about this?

* Finally, what are your plans for integral parts of the game like the no-PvP aspect, most rewarding crafting sytem in MMOG industry, and world flavor? Current Horizons playerbase is here because they like the game just as it is. We know that radical changes can spell doom to a game; take a look at the Very Special Changes implemented in Star Wars Galaxies and see how they made people leave in massive droves. People will be wanting assurances that the reasons they play will remain the reasons they play.

That would be all... for now.

[Ebonscales]

Now the real question of importance is.....

EI... will Dragons be able to carry passengers in your version of the world? If so, Will we also be able to dump them off over the deepest parts of the Istarian oceans after debuffing their recall ability


Will be anxiously awaiating a reply... .or well at least awaiting official word from them regarding their plans for the future of Istaria.. the drowning the bipeds part can wait I suppose

[Tcei]

Here's another biggy, I hear rumors that theres going to be a merg between Chaos and Order, if thats so, does that mean you plan to do away with roleplaying completely? Or perhaps go to the other extream and start enforcing rp on that server.

[Deth]

Here's another biggy, I hear rumors that theres going to be a merg between Chaos and Order, if thats so, does that mean you plan to do away with roleplaying completely? Or perhaps go to the other extream and start enforcing rp on that server.

They would not start enforcing RP on a single server. It would be like other games with no RP servers. Channels would open up that people RP in and people would get to know who to RP with. I do not see much beyound a lot more l33t names that unless they are offensive would not be reported as the RP rules do not apply to names.

[AA0]

Here is my list of questions.
What will happen with the confectioner content? The tiered revamps? Loot revamp?

The last patch brought us some large game killing bugs, will these be fixed?

What new content is planned?

Are the original devs going to be rehired? Is the GI.net site going to be kept? Both are crucial for keeping new customers.

Did the sale include plans for the newest client? client improvements? The lastest server version?

How about The Settlements expansion? Will this continue?

All these things were vital for horizons coming up. We need to know what will happen.

[Vlisson]

what will change? will we get PvP?

or will EL go the way HZ has been in the past and improve it?

[Tcei]

Just happen to browse thru their site and found this littlebit under the Horizons logo:

Horizons: Empire of Istaria MMORPG Published by E I

Will this mean EI has no plans on developing Horizons?

Certainly the impression I get..

[AA0]

you hit the boards back up time

[Helcat]

Just happen to browse thru their site and found this littlebit under the Horizons logo:



Will this mean EI has no plans on developing Horizons?

Certainly the impression I get..

Why do you assume that? Because they use the word "publish"?
If so, that's a faulty assumption...

[Steelclaw]

Well, congratulations to EI on their purchase of Horizons. You have acquired not only the game, but the community that plays it. We tend to be demanding at times, and for the most part, articulate in our requests, as you've seen already.

I'm pretty sure you've had a chance to look around. How about introducing yourselves and your development team? We're all eager to meet the new faces we will be working with.

What kind of support will be provided for us? What kind of turnaround on tickets should we expect? How about server uptime and response to server problems? Most QA tickets got a response within 24-48h and there was always someone to tend to a problem with the live servers, day or night. Can we expect this same level of commitment?

As you might be aware, Horizons isn't quite 'done' yet. There are aspects to the game that linger from its days with Artifact, such as incomplete schools, broken formulae, poor spawn placement and poorly laid out loot tables. Will development continue as to bring these anomalies in line with the more recent content and player expectations? At what time can we start to expect to see new content (quests, lands, mobs, housing, furniture, equipment ...) created by EI?


Community. We're a player community, however, the developers were part of it. What sort of developer interaction can we expect from EI? Will there be a dedicated community representative? Will the developers hang out on IRC and actually interact with the community? Will we have an active role in the progress and fine-tuning of the game, or will this be a 'take it or leave it' relationship?

There are many more questions to ask, though these are a good start. I hope to hear from you soon.

[LaughingOtter]

Some of these concerns have been mentioned already, but I think they bear repeating.

1) What are your plans for the Horizons community and for this forum? I've looked through the EI webpages and the Savage Eden forums and what I've seen concerns me. I'd urge you to contract Ophelea and GI.net not only to maintain the Horizons community, but to revamp what you are offering to the Savage Eden community as well. I don't doubt your existing web staff has worked very hard on your web presence, but GI.net did an outstanding job here, as you can see.

2) This community is accustomed to a very high degree of interaction and dialog with the game developers. Can we expect the same level of accessability and interaction with your team?

3) "EI is committed to maintaining the integrity of the Horizons way of gaming and will continue the Horizons support in a new Phoenix, Arizona office." OK, sounds good. What does that mean in real intentions and actions? "Maintain" implies no develpment, only maintenance of a static and forever unchanging game. "Support" could mean nothing more than server maintenance, regular backups, and someone answering tickets. Are we going to be getting new content and new game systems, or are we going to be left to stagnate?

4) I have serious doubts that four people with seven weeks of training are going to be able to provide new content to develop and grow the game. What are you going to do to demonstrate you are in fact committed - if indeed you are - to growing the game? Will we be seeing veteran Tulga employees rehired to continue their work on the game?

5) “The magic of Horizons is not only in its uniquely supportive community, but also in the deep potential this game has for a player’s participation in building the environment and growing the storyline�. Sounds good. What is happening with the quest editor? In case you didn't know it, I'm one of the players who has been writing quests and helping the content team with things like NPC dialog & such. I am a big believer in player-created content. However, if you think player-created quests - even as good as the ones this group of people can produce - are going to be an acceptable substitute for game system development and new features, you are quite mistaken.

I won't speak for anyone else who has written quests or volunteered to help the team in other ways, but for myself, I did what I did because I believed in the game and trusted that the management and employees of Tulga were as passionate and invested in the game's success as I was. If you want our help - and you may not - show us the vision.

6) What's going to happen with the outstanding patches, bug fixes, and updates? Just before all this happened, a really nasty aggro change went live and hunting as we knew it is currently FUBAR. The confectioner system is almost ready to go live, but as part of that system, we can't make ambrosia to remove death points because there's no essence of blight in the game. There are broken quests and bugged NPCs and flooded lairs, all waiting on fixes which need to be pushed live. When can we expect to see those fixes?

7) What are your plans regarding merging our servers?

8) Are there plans to add PvP in ANY form, alter or abolish existing classes, change or abandon the crafting system, or otherwise substantially alter our gameplay? If so, what are they?

9) Are there any plans to hand the game over to the shop in Korea that seems to be doing most of the development on Savage Eden?

10) Why did you buy Horizons in the first place?

That'll do for a start.

[Kulamata]

Beautifully put LaughingOtter.