DEFINE THE GAME!

[Crazyfingers]

Hey Pharcellus, plz dont be offended, but this Thread is about the direction and definition of Horizons. The focus group is of little concern to me.

Is Horizons the testing ground for valhyre.com? If not, when will things relevant to Istaria be addressed? Confectioner class, the veilo, the economy, The WAR.
Seems to me, they only working on game mechanics and features that could be used in any game.

Is the plan to use Horizons as a testing ground and then work on another game?

I dunno. Would really like David Bowman and crew to answer these questions. So I can cancel my account or gear up for WAR!

NimKhazad

[imported_Ssilmath]

Hey NimK, did you read at all what Amon said in his second post? Go back and read it again...the focus now is on completing things that are needed, and on bringing that war to us...

[Phillip]

cool Pharcellus, point taken.

[Finduilas]

Hey Pharcellus, plz dont be offended, but this Thread is about the direction and definition of Horizons. The focus group is of little concern to me.

Is Horizons the testing ground for valhyre.com? If not, when will things relevant to Istaria be addressed? Confectioner class, the veilo, the economy, The WAR.
Seems to me, they only working on game mechanics and features that could be used in any game.

Is the plan to use Horizons as a testing ground and then work on another game?

I dunno. Would really like David Bowman and crew to answer these questions. So I can cancel my account or gear up for WAR!

NimKhazad

I was wondering why you bumped an old, old thread by devilduck.

http://www.valhyre.com/PNphpBB2-viewforum-f-4.phtml

But after reading that I understand. Lot's of former HZ players, some present ones, and 1 HZ dev. Plenty of fuel for the conspiracy theorists to stoke the fire with.

[Phillip]

ooops. it's out of the bag.

watch posts with these comments be locked down faster than a Texan blonde in a hot summer night.

[Finduilas]

ooops. it's out of the bag.

watch posts with these comments be locked down faster than a Texan blonde in a hot summer night.

LoL

Since this thread got derailed a long time ago, it probably doesn't matter.

[Peaches]

Nope, but, going in circles doesn't help much of anything either. Am watching the thread closely.

[Pharcellus]

Hey Pharcellus, plz dont be offended, but this Thread is about the direction and definition of Horizons. The focus group is of little concern to me.

I didn't start the segue about the FG; I just enjoined the discussion to dispel some inaccuracies regarding it. Segues are common in human discourse. Hence:

Is Horizons the testing ground for valhyre.com? If not, when will things relevant to Istaria be addressed? Confectioner class, the veilo, the economy, The WAR.

No. Valhyre is a completely independent, unrelated game to Horizons or any other game. It is an ambitious attempt to create a MMO as a first project by one of the PLAYER forum volunteers (whom we all know by now as Dangit). I believe Amon's participation there is no more significant than his participation in Rants Refugees or in his own private personal affairs, with respect to linking it to Tulga.

When will all things relevant to Istaria get addressed? Who knows? I think it is apparent by now that there is no answer DB and crew can give to that question other than "when we get around to it", since every time they set a ballpark timeframe, they miss the target by several AU. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't communicate with us about project status regularly. The reason people get up in arms about it like you and others here are is because they keep us all in the dark from some Institutional belief that "it's the right way to do it".

Seems to me, they only working on game mechanics and features that could be used in any game.

While that is normally true of many aspects of game development, there's a lot of stuff they are doing which is for Horizons only. ARoP and Lairs (the specifics, like art assets, lore, etc, not the core design elements) really wouldn't be easily transferrable to another game.

Is the plan to use Horizons as a testing ground and then work on another game?

I dunno. Would really like David Bowman and crew to answer these questions. So I can cancel my account or gear up for WAR!

I'd like him to answer a LOT of questions regularly, too. Not just for me, but for the entire playerbase. My gut tells me that they are too busy dealing with HZ to worry about another game at this point. This game by itself is enough to keep a team of a couple hundred developers busy, and we all know there aren't that many working on the game, let alone another.

[Wailer]

Pharcellus: Let's call a spade a spade. Dangit was in official discussions with AE the last 2 months before they completed the asset sale. He went to the head office to meet with DB and aside from much speculation all he stated was that he was not there as an investor.

Here we are 9 months later and we find that the date of purchase for the AE assets by Tulga conincides remarkably with the founding of a new company, a one man show, who is, even more remarkably, attempting to create an MMO all by himself? Amazing how closely this resembles the 3 umbrella companies the AE principles formed back in June of '04 just before they filed for Chpt11.

Now you have an Old Hz Mod who left and opened up his own company to make an MMO with no employees, no engine, but is advetising for MS SQL "server programmers". Know any other MMO engines that run on MS SQL?

I just wish they'd drop the whole cloak and dagger routing it's just so old. If Tulga would stand up for once and follow through on their comitments it would go a long ways to restoring a drop of the faith the community once had in them.

Hearing about stuff like Dangits new venture through the grapevine because, through some strange freak conincidence HZ devs are posting on his forums (Coincidence.. yeah thats it) Does nothing but discredit this whole process.

It's like they are trying to find new and faster ways to alienate the few remaining fans of the game =(

Wailer

[Tribunal]

*looks around the thread*

Wow Nim, you sure do have a way of getting a popular Thread

[AmonGwareth]

Valhyre is not affiliated with HZ or Tulga at all. Wailer, you are jumping to HUGE conclusions that there is no basis for.

I posted on valhyre.com because I am friends with Dangit and he asked me to read some of his stuff and comment on it. In addition, I do have a life outside of Tulga and I do like games. I post on other forums also, but I am not affiliated with those games (Rome: Total War, World of Warcraft, and others).

And that is the last I'll post on it.

- Amon

[Wailer]

Amon I really appreciate your saying that. I have no beef with devs having a personal life and haivng friends etc. Thats cool. =) It just was starting to look real scary for a second when Dangit all the sudden announces he's launching an MMO that uses MS SQL (of all the terrible DBs to use).

Thanks for posting. I wish dangit well. He has an "intresting" personality but myabe his business skills are better.

I've been down the indie MMO road and let me tell you it is not a pretty one. 4 years I've bene slugging it out. I wish Dangit more luck than I've had.


Thanks for speaking up on behalf of the developers. It's real nice to know that Horizons isnt being used as a test bed for soem future purpose. A lot of this community really wants to see it grow into the game it once couldve been.

Thanks

[Cobal]

Right, so PvP is going to be in.
It may even make it to the life servers at some point.
I have nothing against consentual/arena PvP, but...
This might result in "Waaaa! my class is not balanced!" type whines.
I hope the devs will ignore those whines completely, HZ should not be defined by stroking ones e-peen.

[imported_Leannae]

It's a pity that this thread had to go nearly 9 pages and dig up all sorts of dirt before someone would answer.

Considering how popular this thread was, the most reads for how many days, it would appear that many, MANY people were waiting for some type of response.

[Crazyfingers]

So what does David Bowman think of all this? DangitNotAChance, a friend of Developers, moderators and other Horizonsgroupies starting a thread called, "Your opinion matters, at least to me" Asking players of Horizons whats important to them. Then starts his own game basically saying it will be what Horizons was meant to be.

Sorry Amon but Dangit is not a friend of mine and the Gamers of Horizons.

Tulga and MR Bowman will you bring Horizons back to life or sale your assets to DangitNotAChance? aka Wormtongue.

Bring on the WAR!

NimKhazad

[Crazyfingers]

This is a good post.

Lets leave out the underlying problems like lag, only because they've been discussed ad nauseum.

Here are some things that I see that are lacking and/or needed:

1) Crafter/Adventurer co-dependencies. These need to be increased. How?

(Need a comp? Just go to Nadia!)


2) Blight is remarkably static. It doesn't wax or wane, it just sits there.

(Want to avoid the WA? Don't go into hazy green areas with lightning. It doesn't even take a meteorologist. Just walk and if you see green skies, walk the other direction. Bingo, no blight. We know where it is, we know where it will be tomorrow when we log in).

Wouldn't it be neat to show up tomorrow and port to harro, and see green skies and lightning, the grunts and screams of the Withered Aegis haunting you in the background? They're near... yes, they're near. We'd better organize a defense, attack is imminent.

3) The blight are permanent.

(We kill them but they just respawn!)

Wouldn't it be nice if we brought three fullgroups of badass players into the spiral, and layed the smack down? Blood and sweat littering the floors and walls... corpses everywhere, battle comands being issued and well executed. . .. and when the last witheredbody fell, the skies clear and the sun shines again?

4) The blight don't pose a threat.

(Want to avoid the WA? Don't go into hazy green areas with lightning. It doesn't even take a meteorologist. Just walk and if you see green skies, walk the other direction. Bingo, no blight).

What if you logged in one day and saw the shrine in aughundell blazing with flames..screams of NPC's dying and the crashing sound of the walls being broken---bricks and mortarfalling at your feet. Crushing Ogres, Dwarven Berzerkers, Ebon Arcane Lordsand Druid Commanders destroying structers and killing all in sight. The portal breaks and we can't get toAughundell to save the town! The town must be secured and rebuilt for the consigner to unlock, for the portal to work, and for the blight to realize that they picked the wrong fight. . . . .

The people of istaria immediately drop all of their differences and fight side by side in a common interest to prevent disaster from striking.

This is dynamic.
This is a game.
This is fun.
This is Community.
This is Horizons as it should be.

[Y]

[imported_Leannae]

I doubt you'll ever know what David Bowman thinks. 9 pages and still nothing from him? Maybe he couldn't take time out from his sweatbox dreamwalk vision to be bothered.

My response to his show of concern is simply *hits cancel 5 times* I am not a lemming.

[Phillip]

define HZ, currently: nearing the end of beta 1.

beta 2 intwo months end by mid 2006, and beta 3 will end around 1st quarter 2007*.


*or 2008, 2009 etc

[Peaches]

I think 9 pages or so is enough to define the game. Not really worth continuing going around in circles.