Should I come back to Horizons?

[medweasel]

Hello Everyone. I've had a hard time lately having fun with mmorpg's for some reason and have been playing City of Heroes/Villains because it was the easiest and funnest to get into since I couldn't decide what to do. I was sitting here just now thinking of re-opening my WoW account (which I'm not really wanting to do for alot of reasons) when I got an email from mmorpg.com showing all of the things Horizons was going to be working on and it made me think of this great game. I haven't played since the game was first out. There were no dragon lairs, No Advanced Rites of Passage or whatever it's called for Dragons. Yes, I like to play a Dragon. It's the main thing that attracted me to this game. The crafting and the great community kept me here but the reason I quit is because of the Ram leaks. My PC at the time wasn't that great and I could barely play Horizons with pretty bad frame rates but i could still play at least until an hour or two into the game when everything started getting Slower and slower until I had to log out and then log back in and do it again.
So I guess my question is, are things alot better in Horizons now?
1. Do they have lairs that dragons can now build?
2. Can you now be an ancient dragon?
3. How is performance? Ie, ram leaks, etc...
4. Is the community still the nicest, friendliest, most helpful and coolest one out there like it used to be? Everyone here was so nice, completely the opposite of how those rude mean people are on WoW
5. I remember that right when I left, they had changed how mobs spawned. Basically when you came to an area, it would judge what you were doing, if you were crafting or looking to fight and then the mobs would spawn accordingly which didn't work too well. On some quests where I had to kill 40 of this or that I could only find 2 or 3 mobs every few hours and that was a real sore spot for me. Is it better now?
6. Has the merger with Tulga and that other company given Horizons a new perspective? Are they really doing things now or just saying they are?
and
7. Is Horizons dying? Or is it going better now than ever? I don't mind a smaller community. That's one reason I always enjoyed the game. A small, family like communtiy where everyone was super nice but I don't want to come back to ghost towns with no one ever around to talk to or help out.

I guess that's it. I can't afford two games so I have to choose one and I really didn't want to go back to WoW but I sure miss my fantasy games. Grrr, I can't wait for Age of Conan. I think they're gonna have another great community like Horizons had or still has. WoW was fun for a while but after getting several chars to 60, theres nothing left to do, plus I HATE the community. A bunch of B.net kiddies with absolutely no respect. You can't have a meaningful conversation unless it's an 8 hour talk about freaking Chuck Norris which is completely moronic. Here's exactly how it goes: Chuck norris can fly. Chuck norris has two speeds, run and fly. chuck norris is God. chuck rocks. STFu noob chuck sucks. No chuck rocks.
You see where I'm going with this. I want more from a game. I miss the "old school" players who had courtesy for their fellow gamers. I like being able to talk in a game about the things I like and the things I dislike. If you try saying anything you dislike about wow then you're told to go play something else, or quit or stfu noob.
Okay, enough ranting. Is Horizons worth coming back to? I really enjoyed it and think my pc will run it now. I have 512 Ram a 256 mb Geforce 5500 FX vid card and 2.0Ghz AMD Sempron so i figure that should run it okay. I don't need the settings maxed. Thanks everyone. I look forward to maybe seeing you all soon.

[awdz]

So I guess my question is, are things alot better in Horizons now?
yes

1. Do they have lairs that dragons can now build?
yes

2. Can you now be an ancient dragon?
yes

3. How is performance? Ie, ram leaks, etc...
when i first started playing, i got booted a lot - my guild named it the 'bodkins syndrome'. it's been a long time since i've been concerned about getting booted midplay. sometimes i run into a laggy area but not all that often. i think the performance has improved quite a bit from the early days. you'd have to try it for yourself to see though.

4. Is the community still the nicest, friendliest, most helpful and coolest one out there like it used to be?
if anything i think it has gotten nicer (at least on order where i play)

5. I remember that right when I left, they had changed how mobs spawned. Basically when you came to an area, it would judge what you were doing, if you were crafting or looking to fight and then the mobs would spawn accordingly which didn't work too well. On some quests where I had to kill 40 of this or that I could only find 2 or 3 mobs every few hours and that was a real sore spot for me. Is it better now?
absolutely better than what you describe. there are places to consistently find the spawn you need for those 'kill 40' quests, and spawn rates are much improved. sometimes you have to wait a moment or two for spawns to pop, and it helps to know the linked fields so you know where to find them faster once you clear the field you're in. generally speaking on order i don't have any difficulty finding the mobs i'm after, though with each event there's usually a group coordinating hunts to go after the 'big guy' - on order check the 'daknor's death' chat these days to join in

6. Has the merger with Tulga and that other company given Horizons a new perspective? Are they really doing things now or just saying they are?
i'm not sure what you mean by new perspective. i've found the staff willing to listen and responsive to players' input - you can see on the forums where the staff responds to posts directly, and sometimes a tulga staff member will drop into the marketplace in game (name in blue on the list of names, as opposed to player who appear as white). the one caveat i'd give is for unity because of posts about lack of technical support for it by the contracted agency. however, for order (and i assume chaos) we've seen significant additions to the game as the staff has worked on various projects such as the dragon lairs and new quests - there is real anticipation about the upcoming confectioner changes because we believe they will do what they say. sometimes it just takes a little patience *sigh* because complex programming takes time, but i believe it's well worth it

7. Is Horizons dying? Or is it going better now than ever?
i can't speak for all guilds, but ours has been growing and i think others have as well. there is always turnover of some people but a strong core group on order and from forum posts i would guess something similar on chaos. i do not see horizons dying anytime soon

as for play atmosphere, i know we try to keep conversations in public chats on order limited to istaria. if i'm paying attention in marketplace when someone starts talking RL stuff like chuck norris, i will try to redirect the conversation to something in istaria, and will likely send a polite tell to the person to remind them that order is roleplay. in my experience, folks are willing to debate/discuss what is good vs. what could use tweaking in istaria - though longtimers love the game, so constant complaints wear on folks' nerves after a bit.

hope that helps you

[shadow_wyrm]

should you come back to horizons?

well of course you should. there is no other game out there with a community of people like this game. the people of order are awsome. guildie or not. everyone helps everyone.

so yes delete all those other games from your hard drive and join a community of people that would actually reconize you as a person instead of competition. it's not about who is the highest level and has the uber weapons. it's about being part of something.

lets face it most other online games is all about having the highest level guy with the best armor and weapons, but no one knows you. yeah you might pass by people and them go " wow look at that guy" but they don't know you from the next guy that passes by. all those hours of work and hard work just for someone to go wow.

the community of horizons is not like that. matter fact it's completely opposite. you are a voice that is heard here. not just another person that's online lagging up the server.

you get to physically see the hard work you put into the game. wether it's working on a plot or lair. or re-building communities or keeping the WA from taking over your home town.


so if you are a casual gamer like most of us then you will love it here. if you the type of person that wants everything right now and hates to work hard to get things. then this isn't the game for you.

[Kulamata]

A few other things that are worth mentioning...

Dragons are playable with much less frustration; hoard leak is long gone, shinies drop reasonably often with good hoard value, intrinsic and scale armor got boosted, and there are more and stronger offensive spells and abilities.

Quests of all sorts have been added, the redesign of Lesser Aradoth was very successful, the tutorials have been improved, and Peter Beagle was hired to develop quests; the first are beginning to go live.
As you'll see, content was extensively added for lower level players, as well as for dragons and higher level players, and mid level changes will be coming next.

The lairs are not only in game now, but can be spectacular. Some of the changes to the economy that were made at about the time you left (I think) have been rescinded, so you'll find that improved as well.

And there's a new continent, several new islands, minor stuff like that. Had Kwellens and Vexators been introduced before you left? Both excellent critters.

Dev communication has also improved; always room for further improvement (hint, hint) but it is also much better these days.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Someone really really needs to make a one page list of changes for the game - not bug fixes, on going patch notes list BUT a succinct list of all things added changed.

Just today, someone brought up the fact that there were now two action boxes or que boxes during combat. I had forgotten that the game (at launch) lacked the 2nd....

[Icabald Percival dragon]

In one word -- YES!!!

Come back home, where you belong *Big toothy grin* You will have more than enough to keep you happy and occupied.

I. Percival Dragon
Guild Master of Elder Spirits
Order

[AmonGwareth]

Hello medweasel, I hope the players have answered your questions well enough. We're constantly working to improve the game, both in terms of content and performance. We've fixed thousands of bugs in the last year or more and we continue to track them down wherever we can. Getting rid of those little annoyances helps players enjoy the game.

New content is always a goal of ours and while right now we're spending a lot of time on new player content (gotta be able to keep the new players when we get them!), we plan on content for the high-end players as well.

Oh, Bulgrim, the entire combat system was revamped in the spring of 2004. So it really depends upon when players left.

[C`gan]

Something else that I think you'd find of interest is that there have been NO character wipes since the game went live. If you still remember your original login information, your characters are still there, ready to go. You will have lots of patching to do.