New article on MMORPG.com

[Deth]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...ophePartI.html

[Senkeleron Fell]

What an embarassing bunch of sour grapes that was....

[Deth]

As a great old TV Char once said. "Just the facts Ma'am."

[Phillip]

The transition has proven anything but smooth. The first sign of trouble was seen publicly when EI attempted to change the problematic billing system they inherited.

Inherited? from who? It can't be TG. Their billing system worked to perfection, and under Bowman, Horizons was an astounding success.

[Garfonso]

Their billing system had issues, they got fixed just a month before the transition.

[Peaches]

I look to the future and what it will bring with horizons, thats what counts in the scope of things here. They did bring us the festival event, even though its last years version, its fun, especially for those players that missed out on it last year.

Good things are coming, I believe!

[Phillip]

Their billing system had issues, they got fixed just a month before the transition.

Yeah, and Charlize Theron is my other wife.

[Garfonso]

read the complete article... it even gives links:
http://community.istaria.com/news/archives/index.php?author=&cat=&dates=&search=billing&submi t=Search&id=}

And Mr Andercheck is completly right when he says:
"...there were numerous issues with previous Horizons billing including a lack of flexibility, subscribers being prematurely or double billed and a lack of confirming emails."

this missing features are not bad issues, but they are a issues... GN's billing system is much better. Don't know why TG had to use such a crappy system.. maybe it was cheaper... *shrugs*

[Deth]

Yes TG had problems with billing. Most notably early on, at least that I heard. The again just before the sale when they and PBT were trying to come into Federal compliance.

The question would be how hard would it be to close down billing and trail accounts to work out a deal with PBT to keep maintaining billing?

[Phillip]

That's what they're doing now. Basically from what i was told is they're trying to get a working system in place, not a work around. It will take time.

[Goffy Monekin]

Inherited? from who? It can't be TG. Their billing system worked to perfection, and under Bowman, Horizons was an astounding success.

I hope that there was an intended sarcasm in that. Atleast I read it that way.

It's an article that states the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Garfonso]

I found the comments to be... just what I expected..

A big bunch of people who think they know everything and the majority of them has never really played HZ, that I'm sure of....

Interesting was how many people seem to hate DB...

But I won't believe a single word postet in that thread, they all want to bash EI or Bowman or even MMORPG.com... seems to be real fun on that board.

And Menkure is wrong.. she didn't lost the community, after all she can still login and play, or am I wrong here?
The community in game should be considered community... these boards are just... whatever...

[Vlisson]

hmm i wonder if Deth account is now banned too ^^

if not than thanks for the link and the possibility to discuss this arcticle :-)

I hope we will see this year some impressions what EII is able to do for HZ (and i hope we will see at least 2-3 positive ones *g* )

[Deth]

No I am still here. I found this really intresting my self and look forward seeing the others. Of note Several of those involved have said that this is about 95% accurate. The 5% that's inaccurate isn't exactly inaccurate, just a interpreted a little off.

AS I told someone else somewhere else. I bring this kind of thing forward not to knock EI or try to kill the game but to try to show EI the kind of player base they have and open thier eye to the fact they need to talk to us and be up front about thing. I really hope come Jan I will have a reason to resub.

[Garfonso]

if the game is fun there is always a reason to resub...

If the game isn't fun anymore, then there is no real reason to resub, it's just that simple, isn't it?

[Deth]

True in that if it is fun they yes I would never have canceled my resub. But unlike any other game that I have played or even read about I have time and hard work invested in the game that I really do not want to give up. On Order I did 90% of teh work on the Chiconis mine/Community Lair and sent in ticket after ticket and bugged Dev after Dev to get the machines turned on and the hole in the wall fixed. The hole is still not fixed.

I have helped Dorrin(sp?) and others complete about 90% of the Dralk Community Lair, only the T6 on the T6 Library, the Grand Hall and some bends and such on the back side of the Grand hall yet to be done. So I as you cna see I am a builder at heart but if there is nothing new to build nothing new to learn then no it is not fun. But that does not stop me from stating my view in hopes of makeing the game fun for me and others again.

[Fratricide]

***Long post... sorry bout that.. I get carried away sometimes***

I find it completely satisfying that someone could sum up what I've seen over the past few months in an article that EII cannot remove from the face of the Internet. I truly harbor no ill feelings towards EII, but their state of Denial is right up there with TG and GN with the whole UNITY scandal. Why that couldn't 've been fixed before now is way beyond me.

Billing, Yes it was inflexible, but I havn't had a problem paying by Debit card since Day 1 (well 9 in my case, @#$%!#@ online shop). Yes, I do know they had a few issues with it, and I can see how PBT would have an issue transferring all them accounts without a total buyout. Makes me wonder why TG didnt have those accounts bound to the game instead of Just the company, I know it should be possible to do that. I also agree that TG had some issues in June with Federal compliance, but that wasn't totally their fault, as the Fed Guidelines changed.

I think the Real problem that EII has faced since their taking responsibility for the game is that they aren't taking responsibility for what "they" are doing. They are trying to peg problems on what happened in the past and not saying... "We have found this problem and we are doing XXXXXX and XXXXXX to fix it." No need to blame anyone for creating the problem, just Work on the solution to it.

I saw in there that Mr. A said there was a huge backlog of trouble tickets some going back 9 months. I'm sure that was the case, as many people have had tickets in about this and that thing that TG wasnt able to resolve yet due to lack of time or finding the root of the issue. Whatever reason why, there is no reason why they cant just send the ticket issuer an email saying, "we have found this outstanding trouble ticket, if you are still having this issue, please send a return email so that we can know that this issue still needs to be addressed." Not that difficult.

As far as saying, "If the Game is still fun then keep playing, if not Leave." Well... The game is only fun so long as there are people that I enjoy playing with. I don't necessarily play the game to obtain lvls, or to get this or that, or to do xxxx quest. Those things are interesting in and of themselves I am sure, but my gaming time is more about being in game playing with people I enjoy being with. Helping friends accomplish what they long to do. Being there when soandso wants to do xxxxx section of RoP.... or someone wants to go play around in EDL or WDL or wants some equipment made.. or whatever... if my cohorts are not there because the game has become stale, If I want a stale game I can play a 1 player console game, because there are no new quests, no new lands to discover, bugs that are detrimental to gameplay, soundcards that dont let you login to the game, a client that doesnt let the world data leave your PC memory even after you havnt been someplace for over an hour and finally crashes you to the desktop or worse reboots your system (yes... I know the client was inherited and you can blame TG for not having a better one to start off with), then the people I enjoy playing with will perhaps not stick around or come back until some of those things are addressed. (sorry for the bit of a rant there)

I have enjoyed playing Horizons in the past, I have not been able to force myself to login for the last few weeks, mainly because of PC issues, but moreso because I'm afraid that when I do, of the 50+ Guild family members, not just characters, I know I have out there most of them have decided to not login anymore because of the formitable outlook that there is. It is like We are now on the Horizon and there is no more horizon in the distance.

I would have to encourage EII to show us the next horizon that we should have in the distance, this game is not just ours to play, but theirs to show us what it can become. EII should show us that we actually have something to look forward to. Not just words (what little we have) but a tangible game plan. **** sorry cant put this sentance in ****

Anyway... Sorry for my ranting and carrying on, but Im sure you can see where Im coming from. And if not, then well... I feel sorry for ya cuz that means your in this just for yourself and not the community.

[snickel]

Seems there are 2 types of players:

a) those that are mainly concerned about the present and when the present state of the game holds enough attraction, they'll continue playing it (I myself am of that type)

b) those that are concerned about the future so much that it colors their present -- they need to have something to look forward to or they cannot enjoy the present state. I can sympathize with that view as well.

So -- I'd like to add my voice to those asking EII to give us a little more detailed glimpse into new content that they plan to introduce. The introduction of new working content will also be the most effective way to silence the doomsayers.

[Garfonso]

Fratricide, I totaly agree with you here...

Sometimes I login and only chat a bit without doing anything, just standig arround... if I wouln't feel like a part of a very strong community, the game would have lost me a long time ago...

And I, too, would feel better, if patching began once again and new content would show up once again, but on the other hand I really can understand that it will need time...
As I know they haven't hired people from the old team... I'm not one of the persons who says "There can't be any development without the old team"... The arcitcel calls some persons "critical". If a developer makes himself a critical person, it is the best thing to remove him from the team, because that just means, no one can understand what he does..
Of course it will take more time to get a new team working and knowing what it does... but maybe a fresh team will have a different view on certain things and get a fresh wind into HZ, once they got to know the code?

Ups... I got a bit lost here.. hm...
I'll just let it standig as my 2cents... should not be seen as attack against anyone..

[Senkeleron Fell]

What it reminds me of most is a political ad running right now in Arizona.

It is complaining about some anti-smoking ballot initiative. It states that it will cost something like 5 million dollars, which is more than this, and more than that, and more than this other thing. Then it points out that they are going to raise our taxes to pay for it. How dare they!

Excellent ad, all true.

What they fail to point out is that the taxes they are going to raise are the taxes on cigarettes :-)

Good spin. The facts you leave out are sometimes more important than the facts you put in.

The uninformed will take the ad at face value...