My 6 month check in

[Drakolis]

I've been checking in on this game once every 6 months or so. Looking to see if anything has happened that would interest me in coming back to this game. I started at the begining with a ton of promises. Disappointed like many I left. The idea of the game interests me still, I do enjoy dragons and building things. The main part of the game though just bored the crap out of me.

Few questions:

1. Has the game improved client wise? It didn't run very well even on the low settings. is it better now?

2. Content, last time I was on the quests were not very well thought out. There was no feeling of purpose in the game other then spending hours making a building or bridge. When it first came out there was note that building could be destroyed by the mobs. Has that been put into the game? what content makes it worth playing?

3. Communication with players from the people in charge. Now this was off and on, at first there was a lot of news and posts on what was being fixed and added to the game. I've seen that this game has been sold to another company a lot. Honestly I only with I had the money myself to buy it. Question is , does the current owner communicate well and honestly with the players?

[Velea]

1. Has the game improved client wise? It didn't run very well even on the low settings. is it better now?

There have been numerous updates to the client and many report improved performance.

2. Content, last time I was on the quests were not very well thought out. There was no feeling of purpose in the game other then spending hours making a building or bridge. When it first came out there was note that building could be destroyed by the mobs. Has that been put into the game? what content makes it worth playing?

No, mobs do not destroy buildings, and I doubt they ever will.

I can't answer your "worth playing" question. That's something you have to decide for yourself. I'd tell you that even if I wasn't on the development team, btw. I don't know you and your reasons for playing an MMORPG.

What I can tell you is that as a design team we are committed to continuing to develop the game world and are working to "revamp" areas one at a time. If you read through posts by Amarie (our community manager), myself, Amon, LaughingOtter, and other members of the design team, you will see what we've done in the past and plan for the future.

3. Communication with players from the people in charge. Now this was off and on, at first there was a lot of news and posts on what was being fixed and added to the game. I've seen that this game has been sold to another company a lot. Honestly I only with I had the money myself to buy it. Question is , does the current owner communicate well and honestly with the players?

Nope... none of us ever post here, no announcements, no nothing.

Seriously, though, take some time to look around the forums and see for yourself and decide if the "level of communication" is what you wish it would be. Again, it's something only you can decide for yourself. Obviously I feel we do an outstanding job of communicating with those who take time to read the forums and post their questions/thoughts. But only you can decide for yourself if this team communicates "well and honestly".

[Drakolis]

[quote]
No, mobs do not destroy buildings, and I doubt they ever will.
[quote]


That is too bad, that was one of the main points of interest I had for this game.

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

it will anger players who spend months, no, years, building their buildings to see them destroyed by some freak roaming kwellen bashing away at it...

however rebuildable special event buildings, like the outpost but then far easier to build that have repeatable quests in an area and get raided by Withered Aegis groups and once destroyed must be rebuilded in order for people to do those repeatable quests again might be a very nice idea, and will give both crafters and hunters alot to do.
maby have a Gruk like boss occupy the ruins of this outpost once it has been taken and razed by the enemies.

ok, i realize i rather have the devs doing much more important work with the plots and everything going on at the moment. just wanted to share a possibly nice idea or alternative to this very old idea of all buildings being destroyable...

[aine]

I've been checking in on this game once every 6 months or so...The idea of the game interests me still, I do enjoy dragons and building things. The main part of the game though just bored the crap out of me.

Dragons and 'building things' are not some of the main parts of the game? Heh. *Mumbles as she works on her lair*

[Quote]very old idea of all buildings being destroyable...[Quote] sounds like a prime opportunity for mindless grinding, to me. Just my opinion, however. *Mumbles again, 'they'd better NOT tear down my work!"*

Drakolis, you can see for yourself that our Dev team responds on forums. As you are taking your 6-month check-in, just read a few of the threads. The answer is obvious and undeniable.

While reading them (if, in fact, you do so before posting) you will see the answers to your questions. Loads of added content, server stability and regular maintenance, etc.

Better yet, give the trial a whirl and see it firsthand. Call me a skeptic, but if you have been checking twice yearly since 2004, I doubt the game bored you to the degree you claim...I think there is a spark of interest still alive. If not...why are you posting?

[Sigi]

[quote=Drakolis;193123][quote]
No, mobs do not destroy buildings, and I doubt they ever will.

That is too bad, that was one of the main points of interest I had for this game.

Really, is that the only thing to take from the (really nice) answer by Velea?

[Teto Frum]

Whether its play worthy is not a very good question, thats a pretty relative question, im sure everyone playing says yes , and everyone still keeping an eye on forum but not playing say no.

Hz oops Istaria is a great game if you enjoy a slower paced game, with a mature likable community, but its still a grind that wont change ever its the setup of the game in my eyes.

the client is light years ahead of what it was when you left most likely too me at least.

Depending on when you left, odds are not much content has changed on the adventure side, but Vi has had several more pressing issues to deal with in their first year.

So i guess my advice to you is do the trial and see what you think.

[Enter]

Hello,

I was one of the original beta testers and like MANY, I quit about 6 months after release.
I returned to Istaria just this last week.

The Developers:
Let me offend the developers first: (on sarcasm)
After 12 years of playing MMO's I have learned, "You can't fix Stupid" is the best way to view developers. (off sarcasm)

No amount of ranting on the forums or even polite well reasoned discussion will make a stupid dev do the right thing.
Example: The recent changes to Death Penalty which I am reading about.
In a game with literally only a few thousand subscribers one is forced to ask the questions: Will these changes attract or scare off new players? Does this make the game more fun for the existing players?
Hint: Death Penalties are sooo 2004....
Just compare the subscription numbers for WoW (easy mode) Vs. Vanguard (Harder mode)
On the gripping hand: The plot resizing seems VERY well though out and is being handled in a timely manner given the small size of the staff!
The devs do seem to post frequently and appear to have a real love of the game, so that's a huge bonus!


Game performance:
The game engine is old and was VERY poorly written in the first place.
There have been many minor improvements but without a complete rewrite, don't expect greatness.
Given the small size of the dev team and their limited funding, don't expect a rewrite.
However, given a modern gaming PC, the game is very playable these days.
Three suggestions for small improvements that would help ALOT.
1. The game was designed for 56k modem users. This code needs to be reworked to add an option to increase data transfer rates for users on FIOS/Cable. This would GREATLY speed up teleporting.
2. Fix the memory leaks! I have 2 gigs of memory and I can watch the memory usage climb over time til the game eventually crashes after 5-6 hours of play.
3. Add support for using multi-core CPUs. Istaria would benefit greatly from this since it is very CPU driven.

David Allen was a GENIUS.
The concept for this game is the very best in the industry. I OFTEN find my self thinking that I wish Blizzard would have bought this game. They could put the money into allowing the game to fulfill the promise of it's initial design.
David Bowmen - Not so much!
Honestly, I would not have resubscribed if he was still running things.

Having said all that:
I am playing and having fun!
The community is GREAT, easily the most mature group of players in the industry!

Istaria has the BEST crafting system of any MMO. PERIOD

Multiclassing is awesome and ranks second only behind Asheron's Call which has an open skill system.

Dragons!
This is such an obvious winner!
I remember the big joke about the release of Dungeons and Dragons was that they spent all that time and money and forgot to add the Dragons!
Dungeons: Check
Dragons: Ok, who was in charge of the Dragons?
CLASSIC case of "You can't fix stupid".

Housing: Istaria is even better than UO!
Every other MMO developer needs to look at these two games and learn a lesson!

In Summary:
Istaria is what it is.
Don't expect any revolutionary changes, but incremental improvements seem to be coming at a steady stream with the latest dev team.
If you like to craft and want to build a tangible presence for your self. This is your game.
If you want to hang out with mature players and avoid the leet dudes. This is your game.

Time for me to stop posting and get back to building my skills and looking for a plot to call my own!

[Tzael]

Hi Drakolis,

I can't really answer questions 2 and 3 having only just returned a few days ago having had my Unity characters restored. Question 1 I am capable of answering with absolute clarity.

1. Has the game improved client wise? It didn't run very well even on the low settings. is it better now?

When I returned I unboxed my 'HZ' computer. This is the very same computer I played Horizons on while subscirbing to Game Network's European service provision. Nothing has changed on this computer since the last time I played.

Performance was roughly the same, but graphical problems are more apparent. Take water for example, it is common for chunks of water to appear and disappear. Overall I felt that the client had deteriorated slightly.

Wanting to get the most out of Horizons I have resumed work on a project I began back when I was playing on Unity. I've got access to the Alchemy 3.0 SDK and so I investigated the possibility of making wrappers for the version 3 libraries. I now have the option of choosing between DirectX or OpenGL hardware rendering and although I haven't mapped everything to its version 3 counterpart, I've made enough progress to ensure framerates are comparable to what is expected of any capable graphics card.

I have more work to do on this pet project before I'll be happy with it, then I'll be presenting my work to Virtrium. Hopefully they will see the benefits and allow me to release the outcome of my work to the community. Unfortunately if Virtrium want to incorporate my changes into the main client then they too will have to license Alchemy 3, and I'll tell you right now that Vicarious Visions will make it very awkward for developers to license their older technology. I'm glad I bought an open license (not tied to a single project) several years ago when my interest in Horizons was intense enough to see me spend stupid amounts of money towards trying to improve my personal gaming experience.

---------------------

[Favoran]

2. Fix the memory leaks! I have 2 gigs of memory and I can watch the memory usage climb over time til the game eventually crashes after 5-6 hours of play.

This is the biggest issue for me when playing Horizons (meh, Istaria). I always reset the computer before bringing the game up, yet I still find myself slowly running down on FPS until it gets so bad that places like Dralk or Chiconis won't even load properly; I get 2 (or less) FPS, the controls take 5-ish seconds to respond, and object constantly appear and then disappear, which is my cue to close the game and log back in. I shouldn't have to do that to clear the RAM.

Having said all that:
I am playing and having fun!
The community is GREAT, easily the most mature group of players in the industry!

Istaria has the BEST crafting system of any MMO. PERIOD

[snip]

Dragons!
This is such an obvious winner!

[snip again]

In Summary:
Istaria is what it is.
Don't expect any revolutionary changes, but incremental improvements seem to be coming at a steady stream with the latest dev team.
If you like to craft and want to build a tangible presence for your self. This is your game.
If you want to hang out with mature players and avoid the leet dudes. This is your game.

Well said. That's what makes Horizons(/Istaria) so much fun.

[C`gan]

Personally, I'm running 2 copies of Horizons on the same computer using the 382.13 blight client copy I have. No crashes for however long I leave it on.

[Justa Mirage]

The memory leak is a thing of the past, unless you have something else on your computer leaking memory.

I played yesterday from 8am until 7pm non-stop with no problems of memory leaking, needing for reboot. I did switch characters at 5pm to help with an ROP, but 8am-5pm is a long time.

[Vlisson]

you are then a lucky guy Mirage

[Favoran]

you are then a lucky guy Mirage

I have three HZ-able computers, all of which suffer the same slow degrade of FPS as times goes on. It only happens when play HZ, which is understandable considering the demand on the computer to play a game like that. Perhaps you just have the money to afford better stuff than most of us, Mirage?

[Justa Mirage]

I have three HZ-able computers, all of which suffer the same slow degrade of FPS as times goes on. It only happens when play HZ, which is understandable considering the demand on the computer to play a game like that. Perhaps you just have the money to afford better stuff than most of us, Mirage?

It is old by comparison to machines now days:

Core duo 6700 Intel, ATI 1950 XTX 512M, 3gb memory, Sata hard drive.

I use the on board sound card to avoid driver problems with "sound blaster"
I exclude all Istaria directories from my virus scanning.

I get lag once in a while, depending on network traffic, number of "particle effects" going on around me, etc. but FPS loss and latency <> memory leak. It means you need a decent graphics card with a speedy GPU.

[Shian]

Oddly enough, my 'old' computer that is the min req. gets me more FPS and I can play it longer than my newer machine. (which actually stopped running HZ some time ago...)

[Dakoren Ironhand]

I get lag once in a while, depending on network traffic, number of "particle effects" going on around me, etc. but FPS loss and latency <> memory leak. It means you need a decent graphics card with a speedy GPU.

You more likely need a lot of RAM, fast hard drive and a decent CPU.

Your graphic card doesn't does as much.

[Justa Mirage]

You more likely need a lot of RAM, fast hard drive and a decent CPU.

Your graphic card doesn't does as much.

Sorry to differ with you...

When I turn my UI off and have nothing but the screen, my FPS shoots up 100-150% (from 30fps to 80 or 90) because there are no transparent windows. I had a graphics card with 128mb of texture RAM at one time, with a slow GPU. Processing graphics and particle effects is just as much the part of your graphics card as it is your CPU.

When I upgraded to an ATI 1600 AGP card with 256mb of texture memory, the game improved a lot, with the same Athlon 2400 chip I had at the time.

An old addage about computers, you are only as quick as the slowest component. If you have a speedy computer, but your graphics card sucks, it will drag your gaming experience down a peg or two. Giving the GPU on your graphics card more of the processing, frees up your regular CPU to run the game more efficient.