Luca's been going on about a new site for the European players, since I'm no longer able to post on the GN forums I decided to post the link here and offer my feedback.
http://www.gnonline.net/horizons/
It's only a preview just now, but it's basically a redesign of the old Horizons website. New features appear to be a guild listing, patch information, and a place for players to post player-organised events.
The site itself is very image intensive, although right now it is one big image and I would hope that the final version of the site is highly optimised. Regardless, it will still be heavy on dial-up surfers. It also doesn't seem to be suited for resolutions less than 1024x768.
I would hope to see GN collaborating with Tulga on creating one unified site for all Horizons players, with features such as the online consigner viewer that is available to the North American players. More to the point, a centralised resource instead of this branching away from the existing community foundations that has been demonstrated. It makes much more sense for both GN and Tulga to work together and create a one-stop shop for all of us, because to be honest it's getting a bit frustrating visiting two sets of forums, and soon two community websites.
btw the market feature of the preview is likely to be a place for players to post their own items for sale, either for a fixed price or an auction. I don't think we'll be seeing a replication of the online consigner feature I mentioned above initially, at least not in the short-term.
I am pleased to see GN actually doing something, I wish they could work closely with Tulga though because it feels like I'll spend more time going through multiple forums and soon multiple websites, than I'll be able to spend time playing the game [:P]