5 Years Istaria (Horizons)!

[Takora Drakan]

December 5, 2003
Horizons officially launched in Europe.

Oh my I was so busy yesterday that I forgot to make the thread!

The game is now offically 5 years old! Oh my the memories! Takora Drakan is now 1828 days old, I created her dozen times in the beta and finally the last time at the EU launch on Earth. I never met such a loving and nice community in any other MMORPG so far, good that the spirit carried also over Unity! It was like Earth just mixed with the awesome people form Ice and Wind too! I could now write pages of stuff but I don't want to bore you with my old stories.

Have some old and dusty memories? Share them with us !

And I wish the game another 5 awesome years of gaming! Happy Birthday Istaria!

*gets her glasses and walking stick and rolls in her lair with a wheel char*

[Hoberton]

Happy Birthday, Horizons/Istaria.

[CottenCandy]

Happy Birthday

[Salama]

Whee, happy birthday Horizons!

May you live long and gather even more years! *gets ready for the 10th anniversary*

[awdz]

Whee, happy birthday Horizons!

May you live long and gather even more years! *gets ready for the 10th anniversary*

*echoes those sentiments a thousand fold, and tries not to think about how much klava that will take...*

[Vaz]

Happy anniversary Istarizons!

[Unicorn's Lady]

Hmmm.... five years ago..... At that time Herman, Nate, and I lived in the lands of Ultima Online, specifically on the Catskills shard in the village of Edinburgh that we had helped to found. All our old friends and guildmates had wandered off to other realms months & months before. Even Herman and Nate had stopped playing and I was alone and lonely. So I started to search for a new home.

Lo and behold! I heard rumors of a new realm called Horizons and I went to search out these rumors and tales. By January, I heard the tale that in the fair lands of Istaria you could milk a cow by beating over its head with a bucket. That was such an amusing way of gathering milk I had to go see for myself and Istaria has been my beloved home ever since!!!!

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY ISTARIA!!!!!!!

Nellie Lovett/Ochre Tekton
*Who still loves to beat on cows & chickens with her bucket!

[Hrough]

I think I actually heard of Horizons back when it first came out. Being a jobless highschool student at the time, I couldn't afford it, and thus it slipped out of mind.

I've been with the game close to a year now, and it's the longest I've actually been with a pay-to-play MMORPG. Forget another five years, I'm toasting to ten!

[BlueFire]

Happy B-Day Istaria!! I've been playing for a bit more than one year and LOVE this game, I hope it stays... forever!

A little song here from Canada:

(it's in french)

Une fleur sur ton coeur,
Un bisou sur ta joue,
Un sourire pour te dire:
Joyeux Anniversaire!

(which may translate as: )

A flower on your heart,
A kiss on your cheek,
A smile to tell you:
Happy Birthday!

[Vlisson]

grats Istaria, never thought that i will happen

but im glad that the core players still support the game!

happy anniversary

[Arietna]

5 years old, really? Goodness me, I don't remember buying it when heavily pregnant but I guess I must have done - as my oldest child will be 5 on the 22nd.. Having said that, I *do* recall taking a break having not long installed it, that was probably the reason!

Happy Birthday Istaria!

[Chaldor Itieles]

Istaria oh good old Istaria....
...never found a place where a player can do more to participate with the world.
...never found a game where i wrote more stats and recipes on papers
...never found a game where i was able to fill up my silos with tons of ressources
...maybe once a day we will meet again

the evil crazy elve that has a never ending dispute with a "postlike" yellow dragon

[Akuluxtraxas]

So who else? I hit my 5th year anniversary recently!

May Istaria live many more years to come!

[Maliki]

I guess I also hit my 5+ years then, started about 6 months prior to release at the begining of Beta2. Grats, and hopefully more years to come.

[LaughingOtter]

Five years... I took launch day off so that we could get the character names we wanted & get the guild name registered.

Like the song says, "What a long, strange trip it's been..."

[peladon]

Five years... I took launch day off so that we could get the character names we wanted & get the guild name registered.

Like the song says, "What a long, strange trip it's been..."

... thus far.

And let there be new songs that will speak of the many tomorrows when they be yesterdays, those candles yet unlit and much less burned when they are old and melted wax and we yet light more.

Elder and wise... clear it was thy scribe had merely forgotten to complete thy words. I trust I be not remiss in so doing... .


Sephiranoth, called by some ShadowSeeker

[Favoran]

Five years... I'm 2.5 years behind that. Ah, well. I wish I could have been around at launch.

[Uro]

Seems like it was in another lifetime it all started.

It's been a bumpy ride, but it's still going, that's more than can be said about most games after 5 years.

Have some old and dusty memories? Share them with us !

I can think of at least 100 dusty memories. The problem is that they mean little to most people today, so sharing them serves little purpose.

A few things I could say that reek of dust:
1) getting to level 100 on Cursed wolves + deadly ogres + marrows(marrows was bad news for a dragon since they where immune to common damage)
2) getting to any craft level on tier 4 resources.... like cobalt..... for scales..... the horror....
3) zymosis - that was fun.... if you where a dwaggy that is, I imagine it was pretty horrible for the bipeds
4) roaming avatar of pain - Immagine a roaming mob with attending guards, that amongst other things went rigth past the portal point in morning ligth. My guess is that a lot of people have tried porting there, seing the load screen and then being dead upon getting a screen picture

[Frith-Rae]

Ahh yea, I miss the roaming AoP - and I have memories of the attacks on Harro and other player cities that would shutdown portaling there for a couple days before we fought them back...

Wish they'd bring those back..those were fun!

One of my newer AoP memories comes from players dragging him over to Nadia and Co. and having him wipe them out...good times..good times..

[AmonGwareth]

Ahh yea, I miss the roaming AoP - and I have memories of the attacks on Harro and other player cities that would shutdown portaling there for a couple days before we fought them back...

Wish they'd bring those back..those were fun!

One of my newer AoP memories comes from players dragging him over to Nadia and Co. and having him wipe them out...good times..good times..

Invasions require a bit more manpower than we have unfortunately. And woah you should have seen the number of complaint tickets we used to get when we would shut down or camp portals.

I would like to bring back the AoP, but in his current state he's very VERY weak. He would need some serious buffing and reworking to make him a viable challenge again. Just hasn't really been a high priority issue yet.

Five years ago today I was answering support tickets, we were getting slammed, cause of the rocky launch (database issues). But we were all in high spirits and looking forward to great things.