So...why not just overhaul?

[Wyrsza]

No flames please, just my 1.5 cents. One thing has been on my mind for awhile now - HZ has been through several changes of hands. It has AMAZING potential as a game, so why not just overhaul it? Am I really the only one who would drop Warcraft like a rock to come back "home" if the game was rebuilt from the ground up, with a complete graphic redesign, mobs, FUN quests, and put onto some stable servers?

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Give me 15 million dollars and I'll get right on it.

[Wyrsza]

Give me 15 million dollars and I'll get right on it.

Not the point. I realize it costs money, but these people keep paying out the rear for the product as it is and doing nothing with it. A quest here, a small update there, but the game remains broken as a whole. The "concept" of this game blows other games, including WoW and WAR, out of the water. I've been hoping and praying it would go to a company that wanted to take it to its potential, but..

[Bill4747]

Well, Hal`cyon Sskyler is right, it takes tons of cold hard cash to do that.
I am confident that we will see many improvements, but it would take a massive influx of cash to do a complete overhaul. I do agree Horizons has potential,it just had some bad luck before, during, and after, it ran out the gate. I am quite pleased that people who care about, and are familiar with the inner workings of the game, are back in charge. I have played, ans actively play many mmorpg's, and I feel Horizons stacks up well against the pack. Each game has its strengths and weaknesses, but its hard to beat the crafting, dragons, multiclassing Horizons has to offer. Most importantly of all, A great community.

[Wyrsza]

Well, Hal`cyon Sskyler is right, it takes tons of cold hard cash to do that.
I am confident that we will see many improvements, but it would take a massive influx of cash to do a complete overhaul. I do agree Horizons has potential,it just had some bad luck before, during, and after, it ran out the gate. I am quite pleased that people who care about, and are familiar with the inner workings of the game, are back in charge. I have played, ans actively play many mmorpg's, and I feel Horizons stacks up well against the pack. Each game has its strengths and weaknesses, but its hard to beat the crafting, dragons, multiclassing Horizons has to offer. Most importantly of all, A great community.

In all honesty the community is the reason I keep popping my head in from time to time and considering coming back...I love the lack of "1337pwnlawlzomfgbbq" kiddies which is something WoW and other games has in enormous numbers and makes me want to smash my face into my keyboard most days. And then the other part of me secretly dreams that the two games would somehow mate and reproduce a HZ with "their" graphic quality, quest and combat system, and server crossed with the overall feel of the ORIGINAL HZ (I came back once and almost cried when I saw they removed half the mob areas I loved to hunt in and replaced them with housing..and in another area, the original mobs were replaced by giant CHICKENS) and its crafting system.

Wishful thinking.

[Deth]

I think you misunderstand the levels of cash being thrown around, Hundreds of thousands are being through around for the sale and it would take millions to completely build from the ground up.

[Wyrsza]

I think you misunderstand the levels of cash being thrown around, Hundreds of thousands are being through around for the sale and it would take millions to completely build from the ground up.

Actually, I'm a designer and work directly with people in (similar) fields, I'm fully aware of what a complete overhaul would cost financially. I guess the word, "just," is being taken too literally. Most of this post is simply wishful thinking-out-loud on my part, but I would have liked to see a company with the actual financial capability to bring it to its full potential pick it up.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

I'm sorry but you're really, really, really missing the scope of what it takes to "overhaul" an MMO. Especially if you want to start from scratch.

If you want a game built from the ground up, new art assets, new client, improved server tech, new story, new quests, etc. A sorta-decent 3D MMORPG is going to run you... I'd guess about 6-10 million dollars. That's to hire artists, programmers, designers, database developers, IT guys, gnomes, schnapps IV's and all the stuff that makes everything work.

Once you have these people, things start taking time. Because of the sheer amount of content that is required for an MMORPG a normal development cycle is going to be about 4-6 years. That's including doing things like purchasing middleware to handle tasks like animation, sound, some rendering, etc. If you already have a good server platform you might be able to knock off a year or two, maybe, but you're still looking at 3-4 years of development with no product to generate income.

Even if you have all the technology in place, do you have any idea how much content exists in Istaria? There are thousands of quests and NPCs, tens of thousands of items, hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and millions of database rows associated with what makes Horizons Horizons.

It's entirely foolish to throw all of that out and start again. What's happening now is a core team of people who were integral to developing what unique features people enjoy about Horizons are doing all they can to fix what is broken, improve what needs improvement, and expand what can be expanded given their own resources.

The problem is there are no easy solutions to these problems. They will all take time and careful consideration. If Virtrium were to ditch everything and start anew no improvements would see the light of day until many years in the future while Horizons would be left to rot. That isn't even possible anyway, as without a product there is no source of income to fund development.

The best course of action at this point is for Virtrium to continue to improve the game with what resources they have. In turn that will bring more income via subscriptions which will then be able to fund more development staff. Those development staff can continue to improve the game and tackle it's major demons (client, story, balance, etc.) which will then bring in more subscriptions, and so on.

The reason you won't see a miracle build client and 1,000 new quests in the next blight notes is a matter of scale. Right now Virtrium has just started to take the reins and subscriptions from returning players are coming in. That isn't going to grant anyone a magic potential granting wand, no matter who takes over... unless they have 15 million dollars and can make checks out to me. It'd totally take care of everything after that.

Take care of everything to the bank.

Though, I'm curious as to what you would think Horizons needs to realize it's "potential." The developers read these forums religiously, and if there's some specific, simple, implementable suggestion in your mind I'm sure they'd be up for it. Even if it wasn't necessarily easily implementable, it'd still be worth saying.

[Helious]

In the cool, bright light of reality

but I would have liked to see a company with the actual financial capability to bring it to its full potential pick it up.

Any company with the financial capability to take this game to it's potential never would, they would instead create a game which would (on the balance of probablity) make then substancially more money.

In case you haddn't noticed were in the niche end of the market baby .... no PvP, no uber graphics, a crafting system that takes more than 3 clicks to create an uber weapon/armor, no guilds that make you feel cuddly, warm and protected from the big bad gankers, no raids, no 13 year olds on chat calliing me a noob cause i ain't 1337 and stfu ....... which is to say thank you thank you thank you and that's why i'm here.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

I came back once and almost cried when I saw they removed half the mob areas I loved to hunt in and replaced them with housing..and in another area, the original mobs were replaced by giant CHICKENS) and its crafting system.

I don't know what others think, but as much as I miss the old Parsinia iron/silver mine and some of the old monster areas, I do _NOT_ miss the world as a whole pre-merge.

Even though many favorite areas were bulldozed, for each of those lost ten new regions popped up with monsters, resources, etc. The world before the shard merge was vastly more empty than it is today, and today there are still too many empty areas. Not to mention monsters more or less stopped at level 60, and many only spawned in one distinct area. It's a matter of perception and nostalgia for those early, familiar areas that makes them sound great, not their inherit design attributes.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

In case you haddn't noticed were in the niche end of the market baby .... no PvP, no uber graphics, a crafting system that takes more than 3 clicks to create an uber weapon/armor, no guilds that make you feel cuddly, warm and protected from the big bad gankers, no raids, no 13 year olds on chat calliing me a noob cause i ain't 1337 and stfu ....... which is to say thank you thank you thank you and that's why i'm here.

This is the best thing I've read all day.

[Justa Mirage]

Ground up is just not possible without cash flow.

But...

If they could "port" the assets, artwork, animation, to another "engine" and not lose the world we live in, and the engine works well with most graphic cards, then that would be one hell of an upgrade.

It was what I was hoping they would do with Asheron's call 1, put the exact same maps, content, dungeons, etc, into AC2's graphics engine... but was told straight out that the compatability was just not there to port it to this new engine. The same could be true with Horizons. There may not be an engine compatible enough with better capabilities to port the game over to...

Which leaves us with developers making the engine that we have now work better.

Falling Damage: needed

Occlusion with mobs and world objects and AI to learn to go around the object instead of walking through it. Same with walking up the sheer side of a cliff.

Mobs that are pre-spawned before you get to an area.

reduced polygons in polygon rich objects. Fade-in rendering on objects but not land mass... you can see the land mass but not a house, until you get <nn> feet from it and it fades into view.

just a few things that could be worked on that would make the game more playable on lower end system and some higher end ones as well.

[Wyrsza]

I'm sorry but you're really, really, really missing the scope of what it takes to "overhaul" an MMO. Especially if you want to start from scratch.

Nope, I'm not. See above.

If you want a game built from the ground up, new art assets, new client, improved server tech, new story, new quests, etc. A sorta-decent 3D MMORPG is going to run you... I'd guess about 6-10 million dollars. That's to hire artists, programmers, designers, database developers, IT guys, gnomes, schnapps IV's and all the stuff that makes everything work.

Once again, I'm fully aware. No need to be so defensive, you're acting like I personally insulted you?

Once you have these people, things start taking time. Because of the sheer amount of content that is required for an MMORPG a normal development cycle is going to be about 4-6 years. That's including doing things like purchasing middleware to handle tasks like animation, sound, some rendering, etc. If you already have a good server platform you might be able to knock off a year or two, maybe, but you're still looking at 3-4 years of development with no product to generate income.

You can overhaul a game without taking the original form of the game offline during its development period, and essentially you'd be marketing a new game, not an expansion of the existing one. EQ =/= EQ2.

Even if you have all the technology in place, do you have any idea how much content exists in Istaria? There are thousands of quests and NPCs, tens of thousands of items, hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and millions of database rows associated with what makes Horizons Horizons.

Actually, I do.

It's entirely foolish to throw all of that out and start again.

This game, in the right hands, has the POTENTIAL to outshine the top games on the market right now. If it was possible for its developers, and I'm not saying it is, starting over wouldn't be foolish at all. As it stands, they own the rights to a potentially amazing product. Just for fits and giggles I'll throw this analogy out there since I'm a dog breeder - I go out and pay $10,000 for what could easily be the top show and stud dog in the country, then promptly neuter it, throw it on a chain in my back yard, and feed it occasionally because I didn't have the money to campaign it to its potential. It's a waste of a potentially good thing, IMO.

Though, I'm curious as to what you would think Horizons needs to realize it's "potential." The developers read these forums religiously, and if there's some specific, simple, implementable suggestion in your mind I'm sure they'd be up for it. Even if it wasn't necessarily easily implementable, it'd still be worth saying.

I have plenty of specific suggestions for things that need to be tweaked, shall I start with the fact that the game is almost unplayable unless you partition your drives and spend a couple hundred bucks to downgrade your OS because it doesn't run on the OS that comes standard with 95% of newer PCs, and once you do get it to work, you have to run it on the lowest possible graphics settings to get a semi playable framerate? From there I suppose I could go into detailed suggestions about actual gameplay, NPCs, and what not, but it seems like a waste of time right now.

Like I said originally, the post was mostly me wishing out loud, I don't expect this game to ever live up to its TRUE potential unless development rights are sold to a financially stable company that wants to take a chance with "HZ2."

[Wyrsza]

In case you haddn't noticed were in the niche end of the market baby .... no PvP, no uber graphics, a crafting system that takes more than 3 clicks to create an uber weapon/armor, no guilds that make you feel cuddly, warm and protected from the big bad gankers, no raids, no 13 year olds on chat calliing me a noob cause i ain't 1337 and stfu ....... which is to say thank you thank you thank you and that's why i'm here.

Maxing the game's full potential doesn't necessarily mean making it an EQ/WoW clone. My WoW characters are purposely sitting guildless, in mostly quest (and simple pick up dungeon group) obtained gear, on a PvE server, and have never raided for a reason. In fact, the only reason I have a Netherdrake in that game is because I missed flying around with MY adult dragon in HZ. You don't need "1337" kiddies, PvP ganking or even instanced dungeons to have a fun game. Certainly not what I meant by potential.

[Spartikus]

Lot's of things are "needed" to make Horizons a better place but let's put things in perspective please.. Horizons hs been in the hands of a company under investigation by more than one branch of government for over a year now. For me to call them criminals would be my own opinion and something a court of law would have to convict them of before it were true.. Therefore I will leave at simply they were/are under criminal investigation by more than one level of government.

What you have with Horizons right now is a small group of people who are trying to revive it. These people are capable of doing it, they understand the backend of the game better than perhaps anyone in control since the products inception. When you talk about "overhauling" the servers I dont think you appreciate what exactly it is that you are asking. It took me three years to design and produce a backend database setup for an MMO and my backend is hardly tested under production stress levels.

All of the previous companies that have owned this game have poured well over 20 million dollars to get it to the point it is at today. I'm not defending that or saying it should have cost anywheres near that but it did.

You must be realistic in what your goals are for this game. I think Virtrium is being very realistic. They are trying to stabalize the product and clean up the last 2 years of mess that is in there. So far I think they are doing remarkably well. Keep in mind they've had control for what? a month now? No endless lines of BS, No streams of "It's on our pony list and should be ready soon" (like the 2 years it took to get ARoP in when it was officially "Working at release"). These guys are setting up a foundation that they can build from. Stabalizing the billing, the client, the content.

Everyone knows if you try and build a structure on a shakey foundation it'll fail. Software development is no different. Setup a solid base to build your world from. Then, one step at a time, launch the things that people want to see in the world.

Over time Virtrium can build momentum and show people the great game Horizons was meant to be. The game it should've and infact could've been but for all the drama queens playing president and managers.

These guys are workign hard and from my experience in development I think they are produce great results in a timely and efficient manner. I say watch this game over the next few months. It's going somewhere.

[Helious]

This game, in the right hands, has the POTENTIAL to outshine the top games on the market right now.

Give an infinite number of monkeys with computers an infinite amount of time and they will write a game that will outshine the top games on the market right now.

However, this statement gives me the strong impression that your assertions that 'you know what your talking about' is the same as my assertion that i know what i'm talking about when it comes to brain surgery .... i failed high school biology btw.

If this game had the potential to outshine ... not even WoW but even Vanguard ... then Vi would never have had a chance to buy this when it all went arse over tit for the last company in charge becuase they would have been out bidded.

The ability to produce a 'top game' (a top game by most peoples deffinition would be one with one of the highest subs) has slowly become a holy grail for the major MMO markers.

Just ask Jeff Anderson, of Turbine the produces of LotRo and other fine games, Monday he was the CEO of the company giving interviews about the future for his babies, Tuesday he wasn't, he wasn't anything at Turbine anymore.

Again just for the record, i love this game, i subscribed, i'm not a returning player, i'm a new player. i currently find this game so good i'm not even playing any other mmo's. I wish this game continue success and prolonged life.

I'm not bashing the game, i'm just bashing unrealistic expectations.

[peladon]

No flames please, just my 1.5 cents. One thing has been on my mind for awhile now - HZ has been through several changes of hands. It has AMAZING potential as a game, so why not just overhaul it? Am I really the only one who would drop Warcraft like a rock to come back "home" if the game was rebuilt from the ground up, with a complete graphic redesign, mobs, FUN quests, and put onto some stable servers?

Elder, and no doubt wise, I am but Fool. And my words are but the whisper of a forgotten wind... and they will no doubt be lost and that is no less than proper.

But this I say.

I am home.

If others find this land lacks their need, then I cast no ill to that finding. And I speak not to their need.

That there are gods, and the land is woken, this alone is more than I ever thought would be, and in sure and certain marks those gods quite mad . And that madness is joy to me and hath mine avatar's support in coin and word and... and in very being.

There are other lands. and there are those in those lands I would hold dear to greet in Istaria's bounds. But that which I am, I am. Heh... and I am told that in some part patience is part of that being... So if Bori Gift and if Kwinn elder and if Arirabeth wise and Eliora Queen and if... if many others are not come, or come after long candle's burning... then that is ias it must be. And I will yet wait. Wait and dance.... and pay. For the woken are yet few compared to other lands, and even gods must eat and the land is a very glutton of coin...

But till recent tide, I bore a sword. And aye, draku I be... but I bore it till I need bear it no more, and now it sits in its proper hand. And thus...

I am home. And to hope for dreams such as ye speak... then dream indeed, elder and wise! Dream and hope and, if ye must... wait.

But for me... I will dream, and hope, and... wake. And mine avatar will count each coin well spent that is spent that this may be.


Sephiranoth, called by some ShadowSeeker
Nobody and Nothing ever, save the Five do Feast
A Fool that walks among the Wise

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

I suppose I could go into detailed suggestions about actual gameplay, NPCs, and what not, but it seems like a waste of time right now.

Vista compatibility is an enivitability. It _can_ work in Vista very nicely and I've personally observed this, but there are some compatibility problems that cause to not always start and these will be worked out in time. With everything that needs done after EI some things still take higher priority.

Just to recap, Virtrium has been in control of the game for only a few months. Not to mention at this point they are a small company with no other sources of income. In that time they have implemented and integrated an entirely new support system AND account system, brought a shard back to life, rolled out a major content patch, and are in the process of releasing a new client with a completely rewritten terrain manager.

Client problems are probably the game's biggest sore thumb, and it's an unfortunate situation, but seriously, for most games the client is the entire game. For Horizons the client is a major, complex piece of software that is only a small element in the game as a whole. The biggest misconception I keep reading is how people underestimate the enormous task of improving performance. Since launch it has seen leaps and bounds and still has a long way to go, but the very nature of a zoneless world with thousands of appearance configurations puts an upper bound on how good it can get.

--

Client ranting aside, registering for the forums only to say the game will never reach its potential instead of engaging in a thoughtful discussion of /how/ it might reach that potential isn't constructive, it's tipping in the direction of trolling.

The developers know the client needs work, they're working on it, and I'm sure would like to hear any other ideas you might have. Everyone here has answered the question as to "why not just overhaul?" Multiple times even.

[Wyrsza]

Client ranting aside, registering for the forums only to say the game will never reach its potential instead of engaging in a thoughtful discussion of /how/ it might reach that potential isn't constructive, it's tipping in the direction of trolling.

Actually, I registered with the forums so I could post a message on the dragon forums to request screenshots of the new(ish, I suppose it's been implemented for awhile now) hatchling head type as an adult dragon, and haven't yet gotten around to it.

What sort of thoughtful discussion would you like me to start? Ok, let's think constructively. Since the developers apparently read the forums religiously, how about making quest NPCs tell you what they want you to do, and adding an accept button instead of the blue links that start sloppily in the middle of one random word and end in the middle of another random word during a sentence, where you never know if you're about to accept a quest or the NPC just has more to say? That's the most simple fix I can think of, happy?

Now, if you'd kindly cool your jets and stop being so defensive over something that wasn't directed at you, would you mind posting a link to ANY thread that explains how to go about making the game actually run in Vista? I added some .DLLs and got the game to work ONCE, the thread has since been removed (?) and I haven't actually managed to get it to work again.

[Tcei]

This has been an interesting read so far, and while I agree a complete overhaul to bring Hz up todate would be nice in some aspects, virtualy any financial backer for such a project would turn this into a bastardized lie of Horizons, wow clone. As it is Im happy with what Vi is doing and have confidence in our future.