Reality and Wishful Thinking

[Tantalyr]

From the very day Horizons launched there have been folks seemingly obssessed with insuring the death of this game. The membership of this cabal has changed a bit from time to time, but its goal has been unchanging and unswerving: trash Horizons, its owners, its players, on every single forum possible. Proclaim its imminent demise whenever and wherever possible. If (as is usually the case) they have no facts to justify the trashing, then by golly they'll just guess and speculate and rumor monger in the hopes those rumors become accepted "fact." And almost without exception this group's membership has consisted of folks who no longer play the game, if they ever did in the first place.

And I have never understood this obssession.

It's like this methinks. I have this ugly dog. His name is Tom. He's a "Heinz 57" mutt who won't win any dog show awards. He's blind in one eye, and he pees on my floor way too often. But every day when I get home from the office he's always there waiting for me, overjoyed to see me. He jumps all over me, and we play and we play until both of us are exhausted. He doesn't bother anyone else. And I love him to death. Tom will die one day. He may even be dying now. Why would anyone want my dog Tom to die sooner rather than later?

I play this ugly game. Its name is Horizons . . . .

[IndyMan]

yeah, we most certainly can.

Can you list for me all parties envolved at this time please ?

[Kwinn]

Can you list for me all parties envolved at this time please ?

No, I can't but after reading through more lines of chat logs than I care to count I found this:

[11/30/06 22:59:22] [David respect role playing chat: David] tagath: I'm commited for the next few years to finish another project with a g reat team.



So, HE is NOT with PME/EI. Fact!

[AA0]

Interesting thing about investors is that they work somewhere else and let their money work for them.
The only thing in this thread is very biased facts, nobody knows anything, you are all just slanting things to your own views, both sides.

[Steelclaw]

Too many folks appear to be confusing reality with wishful thinking and speculation. Delving into the realm of reality finds some very interesting, cold, hard facts.

PME/EI now owns Hz. Fact

PME/EI has some manner of arrangement in place with HGI. Fact

David Bowman is out, gone, no longer involved, BYE!! Fact

(SNIP! You don't have to see this all again)

TG gutted several mob spawns, was fully capable of typonese(crystals come to mind here), and in general did not seem to care one jot what the playerbase thought of proposed changes. They went ahead and shoved them live over repeated and heated protests. Fact

Save for one, what you state as fact is either your interpretation or assumption. Subjective statements are not fact. Declaring something a "problem" or a "fiasco", or having something "seem" a certain way are all examples of subjective statements -- not facts.

Go ahead and share your feelings, but please don't call them facts.

As well, I call you out to cite your sources regarding the ownership of Hz and David's (lack of) involvement.

That is... If you're still around. :P

Fact:

I'm sick of the Forums and will be less and less visible here. This is my last post for a while

Fact: The last public post from Nagafen answering questions about Horizons (actually the accounts) was on Nov 2, over a month ago.

Fact: We have had no announcement of the existence of new (not live events) content since EI took over.

Fact: There has been no statement of intent, mission statement, list of plans, or even an introduction from PME.

Fact: We can still log in and play Horizons.

So. Everyone else out there... It's your turn to interpret these facts and come up with your own subjective statements. One thing though. If you don't like it, don't be quiet. While I don't claim it to be fact, keep the following in mind:

Silence is acceptance.

[Mairynn Nalnair]

L

And I have to repeat: Unity need some words about it's future, or dates or whatever. FACT!

Read her Luca gave some information in my tread on gnonlines forum

http://forum.gnonline.net/showthread.php?t=84071

[Tantalyr]

Save for one, what you state as fact is either your interpretation or assumption. Subjective statements are not fact. Declaring something a "problem" or a "fiasco", or having something "seem" a certain way are all examples of subjective statements -- not facts.

Go ahead and share your feelings, but please don't call them facts.

As well, I call you out to cite your sources regarding the ownership of Hz and David's (lack of) involvement.

I don't see the vast majority of the statements made in Kwinn's original post as "subjective" at all. They are demonstrably provable and, hence, objective.

Let's take, as an example, the billing "issues." Surely you cannot reasonably object to describing mistaken multiple billings and inability to cancel accounts as "problems." And the fact that these billing issues/problems cropped up at least six weeks prior to the sale to EI, and were not fixed prior to the sale, is proven by simply reviewing Ophelea's posts on these issues/problems in June and July of this year as reflected here.

As to Bowman's association with EI/PME, no--I have not seen any direct statement by either party that Bowman no longer has any involvement with either the present owners or the development of Horizons.

That said, I would note that PME's press announcement, which specifies the directors of the company, makes no mention at all of Bowman. I would note, too, the fact that upon the original sale DANU (Mr. Andercheck) stated in IRC that Bowman was no longer associated with development of the game. Despite whatever might be the state of Bowman's reputation in the MMO industry, I should think it obvious that had PME brought Bowman back on board the press announcement would have stated so.

Moreover, I was online the evening last week when Bowman came online, and went into the MarketPlace channel. The tenor of his comments, as Kwinn aptly noted, can be summarized as "poor poor pitiful me." He bemoaned his "loss" of the game, and excoriated EI/PME's handling of Horizons since the purchase. And I distinctly remember him decrying the fact that he had been made the "scapegoat" by so many for the state of the game. Plainly, these are not the kinds of things that a current owner/investor/employee of PME would state to the players in game.

As for the other observations made by Kwinn which you quoted, do you actually disagree that the Tulga dev team "gutted" several mob spawns? If so, I would suggest that you log in and try hunting mithril golems, or any Tier III gem golems. I should think that characterizing the spawns as "gutted" is, if anything, charitable.

Tulga's typos--particularly with respect to the crystals they rushed to the live servers--are an established fact. One need merely read the descriptions of, say, ten different crystals and you'll find typos in at least three of them. And the fact that the crystals were rushed out is amply demonstrated by my favorite crystal of all--the jewelry crystal of Tooth & Claw. Umm, giving Tulga the benefit of the doubt here, I suppose it's possible that Tulga just plain forgot that dragons cannot wear jewelry.

Finally, Tulga's disdain for its players' opinions regarding game changes (announced or otherwise) is amply demonstrated by the threads on changes in the Discussion forums from the spring and summer of this year. One example was Tulga's sudden decision to revamp (actually I should say whack with the nerf bat) Tier VI resources. When folks like me posted our dismay at implementing just a few radiant wisps, Tulga responded by drastically reducing the amount of Tier VI travertine and thornwood that had been in game for over a year. And then told us that there hadn't been any changes . . . . (Indeed, one of the legendary players on Order--Archebold--cancelled his accounts as a direct result of Tulga's apparently utter contempt for the desires of its player base).

Subjective? Nah. Just the facts, ma'am.

[AA0]

They sure are subjective, you spin the facts to suit as you want them.
Spawns were gutted, by mistake, and were fixed or being fixed on the internal shards. The crystals were fixed internally.
Billing issues that happens six weeks earlier were not the same as the ones that happened afterwards, not even close.

You can word things all you want, but what happened is what happened. You can claim something as fact all you want, and it is still wrong.

[C`gan]

Here's a reality I actually am enjoying facing:

While things are the way they are, I am able to help both my guild and myself built our plots and lairs. Tagath is gaining crafter, adventure, and lairshaper levels as well as getting his own weyr built.

Perhaps while the development side of the coin is working out what they're doing or going to do, those of us who can help the community AS IT IS should do so rather than bemoan the situations about which we can do nothing? Or is my guild the only one on all the shards who still has construction to be done and characters who are not all level 100 in all their classes?

[Peaches]

I have sooo much building, and working of crafting schools, that keep me really really busy. I tend not to worry about things I have no contol of, I log in, and build mostly, because, that is what I enjoy the most.

As I have said many many times, I dont look back at yesterday, cause yesterday is history, I don't look to tomorrow, cuz it isn't here yet, I look to today only, and grab what ever I can, the inner smiles that help me through that given day.


Let me give you another example, same situation, but different company. And yes, it includes programming issues. I have a Tivo, which allows me to record my special shows. A few months ago, they did some patching, and it broke the tivo system. What happens is, the tivo decides to have a nervous breakdown, by resetting itself, quite often, in the middle of a recording session. I lose many episodes. I get angry, but , there is nothing I can do to fix it, I have to wait for the programmers to do so, and after one call to them, according to them, its like finding a needle in a haystack, and will take some time to fix. This has been going on for several months now, affecting all our tivo systems. It is out of my control and all I can do is be patient, the same way I am patient with Horizons.

[LaughingOtter]

Tant, you should know better. "David logged on to Order and spent some time in MP" is a fact. "David's tenor was 'poor poor pitiful me'" is opinion.

"Tulga reduced the T6 spawn" is fact. "Gutted" is opinion.

With regards to the billing issues, we all are assuming facts not in evidence. The issues Tulga was having due to PBT's federally mandated changes were inherited by EI. We know this as a fact because the final fixes to the client had not been rolled to Blight at the time of the sale. Since EI has made no changes of any kind, those issues must still exist. What we, as players, do not and cannot know is to what extent the billing issues people are reporting now are due to the legacy Tulga/PBT issues as opposed to being due to new errors which are of EI's creation.

Until an objective observer evaluates everything and makes a determination of fact, we're all guessing blind.

As far as the comments about Tulga's decisions go, those are opinion as well, because they contain value judgements. The problem with trashing Tulga for making changes you don't like is that Tulga (or AE) also made everything you DO like about the game. Anyone who is still having fun and still playing is doing so because of decisions made and work done by the AE/Tulga team - including David Bowman - and some assorted player volunteers. EI has kept the servers running, but made no changes, updates, or fixes of any kind.

That IS a fact, and no amount of vitriol or invective can change it.

[Joaqim]

Read her Luca gave some information in my tread on gnonlines forum

http://forum.gnonline.net/showthread.php?t=84071

Yes I know as he was answering on my post^^
Well, but this was after I made my posting here. fact

[Nynelyves]

Well since both mine and Gwen's accounts were billed but we were unable to log into the game not much appears to have improved. Before anyone asks yes Gwen emailed EII and we got one reply saying that they had not billed us..it was Tulga. Hard to believe when the statement said EII. After that we recieved an email saying everything was fixed and had still not been able to log in. I gave up. I wish you all well and hope for the best for the HZ community. I hope these guys treat you as well as you should be treated.

9

[Justa Mirage]

Fact: The client is still majorly laggy on a wide configuration of machines

Fact: The server takes between 2-10 minutes to bring up inventory in silos

Fact: The mobs don't care about buildings, walls, trees, (world models) as they walk through them

Fact: There hasn't been a content patch since EII / PME took over

Fact: TG put out content, fixes, game assets, and content driven events

Fact: TG actually answered your trouble tickets and did something about them

Speculation: EII does not know how to add content to the game, only live events, and it will take a long time before they do.

Speculation: EII has poor communication skills to it's paying customers about developement of the game. I have stated this before in other threads: If you add 1 grain of sand to the beaches of Kion, it's a step in the right direction. It shows you know how to add content, and it shows you have an understanding of how the game system works. It would instill confidence to the playerbase that you know how to permanently add content to the game.

Speculation: EII does not plan on developing the game, only run it like Savage Eden has been.


Wishful Thinking: Horizons will have a stellar subscription base

Wishful Thinking: The content changes still waiting on blight will make it to the live servers with the bugs that exist now on blight fixed before it does.

Wishful Thinking: A new client / server will be written with the same look/feel that Horizons has now.

Wishful Thinking: I win the lottery and buy the game from PME and rehire those that know the programming of the game just long enough to impart their knowledge to a new Dev team willing to take the reigns.