Long-ago player returning and saying hallo
Hey all...
Well as the subject states, I played Horizons a while back - originally, hmm... geeze... well, it was still owned by Artifact and published (if memory serves me...) by Atari.
I don't remember when, but I know that I left the game for a variety of reasons - well, one at least was FFXI - but I'm not here to go on about long-ago issues. I remember having good memories of enjoying the game play... but really poor memories of game performance. Unfortunately, the latter can have a significant impact on the former, as was the case with me.
I came back when Tulga had it for another try and found that the same poor performance was still making it difficult to play, so I figured "okay, well I'll let them work on it a bit more..."
We all know what happened with Tulga... and EI...
Anyways... now I find that it's been picked up yet again (I swear, the number of new lives this game has had so far could make a cat envious :-p) by a company whom, based what I've read in an interview on mmorpg.com as well as the fact that they are obviously very serious about turning the game around and giving it the chance that it has always deserved. And man, we need something unique like Horizons, now more than ever, what with all the shallow, derivative... dung... flooding the MMO scene lately. As a game, I always thought Horizons had insane potential and deserved to succeed. I couldn't say the same for some of the people who've had their grimy paws on it, however. It's just needed the right team to do what it took to make it work. Looks like that team has finally shown up... at least, here's hoping.
I figured "You know what... let me give it another go". I downloaded the trial, fired it up and... man... I'd forgotten how much I love the soundtrack for this game... The game patches without a hitch. Launches smoothly... I kinda chuckle at one of the loading comments about "... loading structure beneath character...", remembering back to when I used to load into the game and find myself beneath a town or something and load in, sure enough, to find myself *above* ground.
Now for the moment of truth... First thing I notice is, the performance. It's *smooth as silk*. I mean.. not as in "smooth compared to how bad it was before". I mean smooth, period. I don't know what they did since I last tried it, but man... what a difference. I cranked the settings up to full, expecting there to be a serious hitch... but nope.. the frame rate has dropped only slightly, but other than that, still smooth.
I then messed around with the interface a bit, remembering - and forgetting at the same time - just how configurable it is. All set, I start off in the newbie area which seems very new to me. I don't remember running any of the quests I was given, nor going to any of the locations I was sent to. I remember there being this loooooooong hallway with a variety of different side-rooms you had to go into, talk to a trainer, do a small task and so forth. None of that. This new setup is so much better.
Then there's the crafting - something I always loved about Horizons. It took me a little bit to get my bearings again, but I picked it up before long, especially thanks to the extremely present tutorial pop-ups. It looks like the crafting has also been sped up? Instead of crafting each item individually, an entire "batch", no matter the number is created at once. I don't know if I like that. I rather liked the sense of "time and effort" that went into crafting. I'm one of those people who finds it more immersive that way... call me crazy. But then again, I *do* play Final Fantasy XI. So it's consistent, if nothing else
In any case... I finally finished the tutorial zone and was on my way to New Trismus (If I spelled that right). I'm there now and sorta running around, getting my bearings again. I ported to some different spots and vaguely remembered some of the scenery. I haven't ported to Tazoon yet - which was one of the *worst* areas for lag and chop that I remember. If that area runs as smooth as everywhere else has, then I am officially 110% impressed with that.
The only thing that's thrown me off a bit, and I'm hoping someone (or several someones) can perhaps point in me in the right direction... is the chat system. For one.. it seems like it doesn't work quite intuitively. I'll join a channel, and can see people talking, but for some reason everything I type, under that tab, goes into "local". The only one I could seem to get to talk in was "Former Unity Players" or something like that, and of the several people listed, only one was responding. Hopped over to the Dragon channel which was far more active, but again... couldn't communicate because for some reason none of my messages were "picked up" by that channel.
So... could someone help me out in that regard and let me know what I'm doing wrong? Also... it'd be really cool to know of some people to, perhaps, talk to in-game. I'm a rather social person (if you couldn't tell by this post.. heheh - it's almost over.. I swear!) and not having any way to communicate really bums me out after a while, particularly in a MMO where I can *see* other people talking.
In any case... I'm done yapping for now and "thank you" to those who endured through it all
Thanks and see ya in-game!
Originally Posted by Galilee
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Re: Long-ago player returning and saying hallo
