Why I prefer Horizons to WoW

[pevil2000]

I couldn't really explain truly what I love so much about HZ. But I'll try. Perhaps some background as to my MMO experiences will help.

I started out in MMOs 5 years ago, with a free server of UO. I still miss UO, I would love to play it again, but I don't wish to start over. I've tried, many times. I played the game for 3 years, maxing a lot of skills (including the ever-evil Taming) though on our server it was easier than OSI. We had a very small, very friendly community and I loved the freedom. I admit the first time I tried it, I was put off by the "here you are, in Sosaria... do what you want" with no guidance, but once I got used to it and got a feel for what you could and couldn't do, I loved the fact I could go anywhere and do anything (at my own risk!). The crafting was fantastic and I loved that to raise a skill you had to actually practise it, rather than beat a monster with a piece of wood and magically become better at spellcasting, melee and healing all in one go You could own a house, and design it yourself, the place vendors around to sell your goods! Spellcasters were powerful but weak, tamers were strong but hard work, you could be a treasure hunter or sit fishing! Or become an evil thief, murderer or beggar. The game had freedom. It had reward as well, every .1 gain seemed like a huge achievement, particularly towards GM/Legendary status.

Eventually our community started to break down and our host couldn't keep the game running anyway. I moved on. I tried OSI but couldn't bring myself to level everything up again without my friends, and there is so little housing space left it just didn't seem worth it. I moved on. Many free MMOs were tried but eventually I gave in and decided to pay.

EverQuest 2. My first 'linear' MMO, and it was still fairly free. Quests seemed a novelty to me, and it was a shame not to do every one that I came across, which meant I was constantly trying to finish quests and got pulled along in the endless grind for more exp. Crafting was pretty fun, though I found it far less enthralling than UO (and I believe has been dumbed down now). The classes were intriguing, but being stuck to doing 'one' thing annoyed me, and I dislike the whole "yay, I levelled... suddenly I can cast a fireball despite never having tried magic in my life" model. I had fun with my then-boyfriend but we got horribly bored at level 26 never seeing anything for our efforts (and in fact losing progress if we died). No real 'pet' class like the tamer from UO disappointed me as well, though as a Warden I had fun running round as a wolf. So after just a few months, we moved on. Housing was a disappointment. One door, many instanced houses. Sure you could 'decorate' but you didn't own a piece of the world.

Again, more trying free MMOs, too many to remember. We got briefly addicted to Silkroad but it was too grindy. Not enough customisation. WoW was due out, as was Guild Wars... I picked GW due to the no-sub model, got into the last beta weekend and have played it from the beginning. I enjoyed it. I still do. I treat it as a singleplayer game though; instances don't give a huge world feeling. 3 years today in fact I've been playing. It's really not an MMO though.

I found HZ while playing GW and was immediately enraptured. Dragons, and not only dragons but flying ones! A huge world, a persistant world, with events and adventure and crafting and housing. Crafting to rival UO! The house is not just planned and then bought with gold, you actually create each unit and apply it, watching the scaffolds until they pop. With higher levels you can create different looking swords and put different stats on them (of course still limited but it's there, my longsword can lookd ifferent to yours). Friendly people who aren't just interested in where the next artifact/epic/gold piece is coming from, but in actually making new friends and acquaintances, and helping out those new to the world. The detail on some of the animations is amazing, despite being outdated and if someone casts a big, impressive spell, the whole world seems affected with the skies going grey or leaves being whipped up...

... and then Unity died. We were abandoned for over a year and a half. I didn't know what to do with myself. 6 months of HZ and I was already gonna miss it. I tried yet more free MMOs and failed on them all, hating their simplicity or lineality (is that a word? heh). I attempted Vanguard and in all honesty think it could potentially be the best MMO out there... unfortunately SOE got their hands on it. It's a beautiful looking game, I love the crafting and diplomacy, the fact it has truly 'built' houses like HZ... but it runs badly and if you attempt to go to an area you shouldn't, you have next to no chance of even running through, which cuts down on exploration of this amazing world. A month was all I could take. I tried it again recently... I loved it til I tried exploring and came across the same problems. Though few things will ever beat me climbing the mountain next to Tursh and seeing the huge fort with dozens of dragons circling it.

I tried LotrO from the day it opened its doors with my boyfriend. We had a lot of fun, made it to about level 23ish (seems to be the standard area for me to get bored... hehe) but it was just too grindy, too linear still, crafting while good was not fantastic. A couple of months, if that. A great game and certainly no worse than WoW, in fact I think it better, it just... is still the same old "level up, gain x skill, be the same as Minstrel A".

I finally gave in to WoW, a free server with a friend at first, before moving to official servers to play with my deputy manager. And I've been there ever since, 1 year 4 months. I have a level 70 holy paladin, we just started raiding Kara. I met some interesting people in game, mainly idiots though. Luckily a lot of real life friends started up a guild and we got a bunch of other nice people in there, but when I log in there is nothing to do but grind for gold to get my epic flyer, or go raiding. I don't craft. I took enchanting simply so we'd always have one in 5 mans. I have mining as it's good money-maker. Crafting is not only simple, it's pointless (unless you're a clothwearer or an alchemist). Everything requires you to be logged in god knows how many hours a day just to achieve anything worthwhile. No housing. Instances... ok so it cuts down on ninja-looters (theoretically...) and spawncampers but... well it's not a truly persistant world then.

2 years after HZ first captured me, my dragon is reawoken. 1.5 years in the void. She'd have been played all that time had I been able to. I even restarted nearly a year ago now on Chaos, though I rarely logged on. She's been awake 10 days now. I haven't logged into WoW once and will only log in to raid (and then, only because my real life friends will whine at me if I don't). I'm not going to renew my sub when it runs out. I'm back in Istaria and I don't intend to go. I have another 48 levels of Lairshaping to go, and 23 more adventure levels. And that's just on my Lunus. I have a Helian and another Lunus to raise, plus 4 bipeds with multiple craft and adventure classes planned. I have a fantastic guild, a great server and a bright future. I can do what I like, go where I like... it is as close to true freedom as you can get.

I still think that UO is the best MMO out there, though that's probably due to the fact that I have met a ton of great friends that I still talk to, and that it was my first MMO. Horizons is very, very close to second on my list, if not joint top. They're the only two MMOs I've ever had the pleasure to play that truly give a sense of freedom, of being a character in a world, not simply a bunch of pixels interacting with more pixels. I've only ever roleplayed in those two games; I can't get a feel for characters in the more linear games. My first GW character has a backstory... but only really because she's Pevil, and Pevil has an ongoing story. Here I feel my characters; know just how they would react, what they'd say and can envision it. They actually live, and so does the world.

[Arietna]

welcome back

I tried UO as my first ever MMO but I probably picked a bad server- I got jumped on by players every time I left the city to get rabbit skins to make some new patterns for tailoring. I LOVED the fact I could choose to dye cloth whatever colour I wanted, make whatever clothes I wanted and actually *could* wear the grotesque pink tartan S&M leather miniskirt just because I COULD.

If it hadn't been for the killing every time I left the city, I may have played it more than the 3 months I did :/

I never tried GW, was in EQ1 and EQ2, LOTRO, vanguard, WoW and have much the same views as you have about them. Although I didn't play or enjoy WoW as much as you seemed to Vanguard I also revisited (around Christmas time when they had "Randolph" the free flying reindeer, and rediscovered how much fun diplomacy was.
Then.. I got the HZ bug again.. Station pass cancelled, rarely log into Lotro. I am home again

[Shurandel]

If you even make one complaint, or not even a complaint but just talking about what you'd like to see changed then everyone just tells you to "stfu" or "then why don't you quit?" Or "just go play something else." There's no constructive criticism - which makes games better. If you try to talk about what all you love about wow then the same people will call you a f%g - (censored on purpose) or will tell you to stfu.

I haven't been in one group in WoW in over a year. I have never guilded and I don't chat in game anymore. Yesterday in Horizons I talked more than I played. My brother always thought I was antisocial and just liked to solo. While I do like solo'ing, that's not why I always do it in wow, I do it because the people are mean for no reason. I like talking in a game. I like commenting on things I like or things I'd like to see changed and I don't like having my day or my "fun time Online" ruined by a bunch of jerks whose only purpose being in a mmo is to make as many people angry as they can. I play mmo's to escape rl and because I enjoy them. If I wanted to be talked down to then I'd be somewhere else.

I play (not so much anymore) WoW too and i agree wholeheartedly with these statements which is why after 4-5 years of not playing i long to come back to Horizons as i still remember many of the "old days".

On WoW, unless i am boosting somebody, i always solo as i cannot stand the other players in general but on Istaria i am constantly checking Dragon/Market and my PM's to talk to my new friends as they interest me.

For anyone considering starting to play WoW, i would (in my opinion) tell you not to invest too much into it and here are some of the cons to it:

1) limited crafting (which i like most in a game). In Istaria you dont have many limits to crafting but in WoW you have 2xprimary professions, approx 3xsecondary professions and your weapon/defense skills

2) socialisation. There are so many ways in which groups are segregated and so many people that take things seriously that its not even funny. People are segregated by faction (horde and alliance) and also by class... you may say "duh" but a Istaria based version of this would be... a warrior saying to a cleric "you are overpowered because you can heal and i hate you for it, you noob". You never see it happen in Istaria but it is rife in WoW which is depressing

3) things get very... boring at the higher levels, unless you are able to put extreme amounts of effort into your character you are stuck in a rut on WoW. An example of this is dungeon "instances" and group raids. If you get to the stage where you want to spend a fair amount of time doing these the expectations on you are high, you are expected to be on at certain times on most days (i do shift work so my day varies which is a big no-no for "professional raids").

Speaking from a personal POV if you want to be a "top dog" in World of Warcraft, you would basically have to be unemployed with a very limited social life and be on the game from the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep - which many people do -whereas with Istaria you just log on as and when and you are ready to go basically

[Salama]

I definitely agree. Horizons has something that most other MMORPGS's don't- that is a mature, friendly community. (of course, there ARE a few exceptions.. but luckily only few.)

Hz was my very first MMORPG I started playing, and it has stayed my only one through all these years. Granted, I have tried a few others too, including WoW, and a bunch of free games out there. But.. they just don't affect me the same way. D: Same old boring races, same "l0l you n00b you ****!" people everywhere you go. (one time when I tried some game and I made a female character, a random player came to me and started calling me with insulting woman-names.. and "girl with a big ***". Seriously, what the heck. )

Plus, the wide world Istaria has.. you can go about anywhere, anytime. No zoned areas or anything. It really feels like a real world

It's saddening that I can't keep my subscription for long periods of time, this game truly has a special place in my heart.

[Galdethriel]

I've never really played WoW properly (first I got to run around as my friend's boyfriend's character, who has this big scary zombie mount--I didn't talk to anyone, just zoomed past them gleefully. Second try was with a character I didn't even play to level 3, I think--I killed a few of these glowy eel things, then got bored).

One thing I have to say from what I saw of WoW, however is this: 'How can a game that's such a money maker have such a pathetically rubbish character creation system?' XD Honestly, I was shocked. I went from being able to pick my skin texture and scale texture, markings, eyes, head crests, face shapes, body shape and size, height, tatoos and accessories and hairstyles of huge variety in HZ to... pick your face, pick your hair, go. I don't know if they've updated it since then, but... it was the singular most disappointing thing I've seen in an MMO, especially such a popular one. :O

HZ was my first MMO. I must have expected others to be either the same or better, but that was a real surprise for me.

I played Lineage II briefly, too, and that couldn't match up to HZ on many accounts. Character customisation was rubbish, the tutorial was next to non-existant, and there was simply no one who would talk to me. I played firstly with a friend, but after spending over a week struggling to download the game he quit and... Well after that I was completely lost. I was on my own in this huge highlevel town, which I couldn't even leave because I'd be one-shotted by whatever was outside. But that was just my bad luck for being there. XD

Oh, I have to add, whatever game forces you to wear nothing but belts over your modesty, armour which doesn't cover your legs, breasts and stomach, or confines you to always wear super-high heels and be clad in tight leather just because you play a female character ... fail. Epic fail. Lineage II was one of these games. I don't think there WAS a single piece of decent armour in the entire game my character could wear. God help her if she had ever needed to go into a snowy area. >.>

I played Ragnarok on a private server for a while too, until it got shut down. Then I played on a different server. The community on those servers was nice, but the game itself got a little dull for me. Once I hit 82 it just became far too grindy so I stopped playing. (It had faster rates then the real server too, so I can't imagine what the actual game must've been like XD )

HZ, currently, is definitely the MMO for me. It's not grindy. It has excellent character customisation. Great community. Practically limitless possibilities for bipeds and limitless freedom for Dragons. Huge crafting system. Plots and lairs. Dragons. An actual enemy (I don't know if Lineage II, Ragnarok and WoW even have an opposition XD ). And it actually treats male and female characters as perfect equals: as a female character, you aren't required to wear belts or leather or bikini-armour in battle. A female character can actually dress nicely. I know it's an obvious thing, but it means a lot to me because I'm sick of being forced to either play a man or a piece of man eyecandy. D:

So I agree, it does have a lot of potential; always has. It just needs some care which it hasn't been given by it's past owners.

I'm so sorry for the length of my post XD

~Galde

[LOVWYRM]

hey Galde- if not with us- with whom you/we gonna chat about our beloved game^^?

I always like to share thoughts with my fellow-Istarians

My rl friends are a bit tired of that- after all this years

[Ashtalon]

Istaria is definitely worth it for the people who play it. There is a certain atmosphere that is created by the standard of people who play here and it's so, so much better than WoW for me.

I'm definitely staying.

[Raeshlavik]

I really dig Horizons / Istaria - have since I picked up the box on release day oh so many years ago.

As someone working in the 'interactive entertainment' field, I really appreciate a lot of the mechanisms under the hood of the game and the community is top-notch. There's an awful lot of Istaria in all of the current and next-generation MMOs, which I find funny...

Unfortunately I never seem to be able to stick around... I always seem to get into the high 20's with a dragon and the game gets sold off, the OS on my gaming rig gets updated and the client wont run, or some new and shiny MMO comes along and I *have* to try it out (and end up unimpressed)...

Well, this time it appears that the game is in stable hands, billing seems to work well, and it now runs on my (vista/win7) gaming laptop quite well! So I paid for a year to prevent me from wandering very far and this time I *will* make it to RoP and ARoP!

Oh, and for the record, my top three MMOs to date (and I've played nearly everything since UO) are:

1: Shadowbane - Very Horizon-like, but the stuff you built had to be defended. I like PvP, but I need a reason to fight other players that isn't some silly point-race or gear mechanic...

2: Horizons / Istaria - The single best PvE MMO ever made. Suffers a bit from a rough childhood (lack of content, aborted design choices, some tech reached a bit far back in 2003), but the guys and gals at Virtrium seem to really be getting things back on track.

3: City of Heroes / Villains - *This* is what character creation should look like... The rest of the game fell flat from lack of content, but with the addition of the 'Architect" expansion, this may be better.

Everything else is pretty much a few tweaks on the EQ design and not much to write home about...