Yes, I am quoting Dr. Phil's Life Law #1: You either get it, or you don't.
What's to get about Horizons?
Well, let's go back about 18 months to when the game launched. That's when I started playing. Iwas browsing PC games at Walmart and I picked up the Horizons box and based on something I read on the back of the box my imagination was captured, so I put the box in my cart and paid $50 for it and have been following the Horizons saga ever since, though not always playing Horizons or always even very happy with it.
What was that thing I read? "Player-driven world of quests, invasions and cataclysmic events."
The thing that stood out to me was the phrase "player-driven world." The phrase suggests to me that players would create the world of Istaria in a big way, and determine the course of its history.
How is this unlike other games? Well, take Norrath for example, the world of Everquest. That world is NOT a player driven world. The gnome Fuzzlecutter is STILL standing there in his little camp in the East Freeport newby yard, like he was day 1; Fippy Darkpaw still spawns periodically in North Qeynos and tries to make it past the guards; Fiddy Bobbick still fishes off the end of the pier in Rivervale (and gets hung up in the weird swimming bug that still hasn't been fixed). Until a zone is revamped, as some have been recently,it willremain exactly the same as it was the dayit went live, though there are a few tweaks here and there sometimes with expansions. Then after revamp, the zone will stay as it is until the next time it is revamped.
When you play Everquest, your character doesn't really impact the game world in a lasting way. The interaction of your character with the world is confined to hailing npcs, fighting mobs and chaning your character's armor, appearance and weapons. You can't take an axe and chop down that tree over there. Your character does not add to the world by building in it. You as a player don't have much impact on the look or feel of the world or how it develops. The developers develop content for you, and you either like it or you don't. You take it as it comes, and you play it. It is a passive experience.
Now, consider Istaria, the "player-driven world." Our interaction with the world is larger than the EQLive interaction because we CAN chop down that tree over there, or gather that ore or flax. But the most obvious way we have a lasting impact on the actual content of the world is plot ownershipand building. It's not instanced!We actually change the world of istaria in a permanent way but being able to build permanent structures in it.
The less obvious, but far more profound, way that we, the players, DRIVE the world of Istariais by means of our interactions with the developers. Look at how the gamehas changed in the last 18 months in response to our "driving!"Whole continents and islands and categories of settlementshave risen up out of our collective imaginations. Blight anchors and aggro changes and combat systems andresource fields andmonstersand more have come and gone under our collective direction. Our developers have not only been developing 4 games for us (bipeds, dragons, crafting and construction) but re-developing and re-re-developing them over the last 18 months.
Recently we have been clamoring for even more direct interaction and direction of the game world, and the developers are going to give us the quest tool and maybe a way of authoring textures so that we can change the depth and thelook of the world in yet another way.
Do we "get it?"
Well, some of us do. But we all need a reminder that every great power comes with its own great limitation. Take that really big strong guy over there: he's really big and strong, yes, but because he's big and strong he can hurt things he doesn't want to hurt.The great power of Horizons is that it is a player-driven world. But that is also its great limitation. Yes we influence the direction the world takes, yes we buildin it, yes it is OUR world. BUT it is what we make of it!If it has too little content for some of us, thatmay be because we've clamored too much about performance issues, and we are too ready to say "fix what's broken first" whenever anyone suggests new content.
Moreover, the fact that the world is constantly evolving means that we are constantly testing it. We are, as some say, in a perpetualbetastate. That kindagoes with the "player-driven world" aspect of the game. Every change brings some issues that need fixing. That is just the way of the computer.
"Player-driven world of quests, invasions and cataclysmic events."When I reread the Horizons box, and particularly that phrase, and when I think about the past eighteen months of Horizons, I can see that the developers have delivered on that claim in a BIG WAY.
But you either get it, or you don't.