[EU] European Consolidation

[Luca Mazzasogni]

Dear players,

after an accurate analysis of the situation based also on the feedback gathered through the poll on the support website and reading various forums on the Internet, we have decided that a consolidation for the European shards would be the best choice for the future of Horizons: Empire of Istaria here in Europe.

The merger of Earth, Ice and Wind into one single shard will begin tomorrow evening and as soon as possible we should be able to confirm the exact time at which we will start working on it and an estimated time for the end of the work that will see involved in a common effort both the teams at Artifact Entertainment and here at GameNetwork.

Wewould like to take this chance to invite you on a new poll that has been just posted on the product website europe.istaria.com where you can vote for the name of the new unified European shard.

If no major issues will arise all the plots auctions will be reset and will start again in their fully developed version as soon as the shard is online again.

For any issue or for any question you can contact us on the support website or join the discussion here on the Forum.

Your sincerely,
Horizons Europe Team

[Kitten]

/sarcasm on 'What a surprise, never would I have guessed in my wildest dreams that it would go ahead!

/sarcasm off

Bah enough said.

Kitten

[Divine]

Ohh my god...


NOOOoooooo...


[:@]

[Slaihne]

Luca,

I have quit HZ for months now, reinstalled windows, and now using HZ cd as drinks coaster.

So, pray tell, why do i get the following from GN....

>>>

Dear Player,

We would like to inform you that your account has been successfully renewed.

The order xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx of 12,95 EUR have been processed with your VISA-SSL information.

Your account will expire on next Nov 18 2004 1:37PM.

On that date your account will be automatically renewed again.

The Game-Network Team.

>>>

Are you guys billing me. If yes, then why? And how do i get this credited back?

rgds

Slaihne

[Ded Yaga]

Appreciate the fact that a decision was reached quickly Luca but its real interesting what sort of selective blindness the feedback was analysed with. i will hang around and see what happens but will certainly not set alot of store by anything GN says in the future.[:(]
Dont think I will bother voting though as shard name is probably already decided too.

[Bleri]

Well if it was going to happen it had to happen fast I guess :( And I think we all knew it was a done thing regardless of what they said.


Got nothing left to say on the matter really except .......... well nothing Im still gobsmacked that they took this decision now and not 2 months ago.


I guess it lucky for GN that Taz isgone so any posts and promises cant be directly quoted.

[Ariwena]

You guys really don't give ******** what your playerbase says no ?

[Xiao_Mei]

If no major issues will arise all the plots auctions will be reset and will start again in their fully developed version as soon as the shard is online again.

Would I be right in thinking this means there will be 7 days (to place bids etc.) from the new server being declared healthy to before plots actually get auctioned ?

[Varangaard]

@!%*&?^$/ (and other expressions I deem largely unprintable)

[Luca Mazzasogni]

We will release an accurateauctions dates list as soon as possible in the next few days.

[Ariwena]

No one gives a ******** anymore what you guys release Luca, you asked us for a poll and you already made your mind up.

You wanna be trustworhty? post the poll results here.

[Lovice]

Heh, no surprise here.

At least they don't try to tell us it was a close vote. But I doubt I'll ever participate on any GN poll again.What's the point.

[Tzael]

This isn't what I wanted to hear, but we all knew that this is the decision that would be reached, regardless of what we said or how we voted on the poll. I suppose I can always hit the cancel account option in the login site, but with 9 or 10 months left paid up on my account it's not like it would be making any real statement.

[Korial]

First off, how about making http://europe.istaria.com render properly in a browser that isn't Internet Explorer?

Secondly, I stated on the Stratics Hz forum that your initial post on this sounded very much like you had already made your minds up as to what would happen. Given the overall negative feedback on forums and on in-game channels, I'm going to stick to my initial impressions.

Thirdly, we now have to re-organise those guild members who aren't quitting and get them to re-bid on guild plots, and swallow another week's delay in plot auctions.

Fourthly, "Europe", yeah that's an imaginative name. Do we get "The Final Countdown" playing as background music as we log in?

[Luca Mazzasogni]

Just to clear out something very quickly.

We started a survey to gather your feedback and your thoughts about the situation (as stated in the news and in the poll), we have never said that it was a poll to decide what would have happened to the European shards.

The player base feedback is something important for us and something that it's obviously part of this decision, but something as"big" as merging three shards into one will take in consideration several different factors and each one of them with a different priority level.

Still the feedback gathered in the past few days helped us in this decision as well.

[Amerelium]

...well, at least it will be done quickly - so finally people can start using their plots again...

[Vahrokh]

Luca I am sorry to tell you that with all what has been done around this merge we could write a manual on how not to do it with the players.

We are not dumb sheep. Nor stupid.

20% of my shard people left just because GN shown a complete lack of @@ there.

And because it is now really clear that if any problem arises you have no skill to fix it sort of "reformatting all". At least a crash course your techs should have gotten from NA devs. And a WM. At least we'd avoid the bad fame when one character or a quest gets a problem (and has to be forwarded to NA) or about the huge plot bidding bug and screwup.

Will we get one WM now that we are all crammed like chicken in one shard? Or we will get deafened by the silence once more?


Really... please make your mind up for once.
The not many staunch followers need some good direction, not an hiccupping management that lives and decides on a die at the beginning of the week.

Notice how I did not speak about merge being good or bad.
It was the overall management that lacked visibly.

Sorry if I am bitter. I love the game. But others are weakened already by the ... well all know what and how much trials them every day and some or more than some will snap.

Best regards,
Vahrokh

[Mutrock]

Ok, this sucks big time...who the hell analysed those polls and stuff? [B] Thumbs down to this crap.

[Ariwena]

Just to clear out something very quickly.

We started a survey to gather your feedback and your thoughts about the situation (as stated in the news and in the poll), we have never said that it was a poll to decide what would have happened to the European shards.

This is the biggest crap you pulled outta your sleeves in months Mr Mazzasogni.

Don't threat your custommers like they are 12 year old children.

Edit # 7010. this board is working on my nerves... here is the quote.

we have never said that it was a poll to decide what would have happened to the European shards.

[Ded Yaga]

It was stated a decision had not been made, therefore your poor unfortunate players naturally assumed that the poll would have some influence on the decision not just be used to guage howbadly people would actually be upset.