What do you think?

[Hoberton]

I am concerned about the future of Horizons. I have seen WAY too many of my fellow players leave. I myself do not play much anymore. I came back online tonight because a close friend finally made it to her first level 100 adventure. I enjoy these times and will always help and rejoice when others find happiness in this game.

The community is, without exception, one of the best in all the games I have played. I wish the game was growing for all of us. New content and open discussion with developers to the players would probably, (hopefully), bring back a lot of people that have left.

I only hope in opening this thread that something will happen to keep this game alive and the community together.

My only request for the owners is please make an effort to have a discussion with the player base, let us know what is happening.

[Casyle]

Yeah.... I'm starting to wonder what the heck EI is doing and thinking.

Sad... Back in Beta some friends and I were huge HZ supporters, and we all pledged that we'd be here until the plug was pulled.

I'm the only one left... EI has successfully driven away people who lived and breathed Horizons, and my friends' only wish? Some communication!!!

Gah, I just want to...

*Clenches his fists and screams*

[Vlisson]

there is a good phrase:

change it - or leave it

i tried to change it via the only possibility i have, the board. But numerous posts which got deleted (not only mine) and no answer at all (i dont count: hey we are working hard on it, trust us) made my decision very easy

i loved HZ, i have been one of the "elite" who said: i will only go if they plug the server off. but it seems that i have been wrong ^^ i left 5 month before they plugged it :-)

[Takora Drakan]

I'm here since beta and was also there the last day when they shut down Unity for meantainance (sp? :P) sadly the server hasnt got up yet. Now I'm playing VG meanwhile waiting for Unitas to start. I really hope i can play again my dragon and i still support horizons. No other game has such a awesome community, NO NOTHER GAME.
Example: The community in vg vs Hz plain sucks. There are so much ***holes running arround, pulling your mobs, or pulling trains on to you. In hz mostly all players where friendly and helpful. When you where dead and a healer passed he rezzed you and gave you for free buffs. When you where in trouble with mobs the players asked first if you need help and when you agreed they helped you. After putting down the mobs mostly players asked if you want to group and help by the quest are you doing. Or the building events, ALL helped! Gathering, transporting, defendig, all races worked together and done their best to rebuild istaria. I MISS THAT ******** NICE COMMUNITY SO MUCH! The community maked horizons so ******** awesome !

[Steelclaw]

Well, from the looks of things, it appears that EI does not have any interest in Horizons -- it looks like they're just around to keep the lights on.

This is not a sustainable steady-state for an MMO and it stands to reason that things can't stay this way. I can think of a few possible (and plausible) outcomes, some good, some bad. One thing is for sure though: there is more to come, the show isn't over yet.

I'm not concerned about EI's silence. For all the anxiety it causes, it does not compare to the stress, worry and argument that comes up when they DO say something and we disagree about how they should proceed. Silence suggests that there is no change going on. No change means no additional damage. No additional damage means we're not losing players faster. Not losing players faster means that it is more enjoyable to play. Yes, given what has happened when EI has spoken, silence is not really all that bad.

I'm far more concerned about the community, or what is left of it. Never before have I seen the sort of close-mindedness and control exerted upon it as I do now. People are discouraged from speaking their mind. A well-knit community needs to foster that behavior, not restrict it.

Freedom to share thoughts and feelings amongst peers is the glue that holds the community together. They don't all have to agree, but they do need to be able to respect those opinions. A person who has spoken, has been heard, and has been thought about has just had their existence reaffirmed. That makes them feel good. It makes them part of the community and they stay because they feel like they belong. It's that simple.

What we have now is a situation where certain groups of people are denied their voice, the legitimacy of their feelings, and consequently, their existence. They have something they want to say which they feel is important. They try to say it here, but they can't -- registration disabled. Maybe they can, but then they fear that their post will be deleted or locked, their account put on moderation, or banned. So, they go in-game. Some real-world issues are really not to be discussed in-game: roleplay-enforced shard or not. That person is then told to stop and go away or just given the cold shoulder. Nowhere to speak, no one to listen, not recognized, not part of the community.

Sometimes that is the desired effect -- 'trolls' and 'lamers' do come along and it's preferred that those people move on as fast as possible. In this case though, it's not someone who gets their kicks out of upsetting as many people as possible. It is your guildmate, or your first hunting buddy. It is someone who helped you on your Rite of Passage, it's the people you built a bridge with, the ones you ate ambrosia with -- the ones you had fun with.

The disintegration of what makes Horizons -- its player community, is what worries me the most. My frustration is with the people who think they are helping by shutting 'negativity' out. I am most unhappy with the ones who think that problems, concerns and discontent belong in private messages and emails where they may be ingnored, instead of acknowledged and supported in a public forum. To a lesser extent, I'm disappointed with those who don't want to hear their fellow players, companions and friends vent.

Have you forgotten how comforting it is to have someone who will just listen?

[Thamoris]

* deleted *
Because I simply have nothing positive to say so it's best I don't say anything at all.

[MadDwarf]

Time to explain why the myth that horizons has the best community.

It does have a great community. Is it a testimonial to the game ? No not at all.

But rather a testimonial to pure unbiased math and numbers.

A games community is purely definied by its numbers. The kiddie and jerk factor is regulated by a ratio to max players. If you have a game with 1000 players and a game with 1,000,000. Numbers wise the game with 1,000,000 players is going to have more jerks and more kiddie types.

But its not a simple as that. A larger game that is doing better draws more people it also draws away the kiddies and jerks because these people always want to play the newest best game. The smaller games that arent doing as well or are doing poorly ( Horizons) will have these players drawn away and the remaining players will not have to deal with them. Likewise when a game does poorly or not as good as the competition those that are left are supporters. Most will play this game till the lights go out. Taken this fact into account they will naturally provide better support for any new players that arrive because it is in their best interest to do so.

So now lets say Horizons gets an ace developer to buy it. These guys and gals are kingpins of the programming and gaming development world. They whirlwind and fix horizons making it all it could have been with dynamic everything. HORIZONS gains thousands of players. Captures a very nice 300K playerbase. Do you still believe the community would be the best bar none ? I can say undeniably and there is no logical arguement that can be put forth that Horizons community would do anything but go down the crapper. At least by the standards that some of the less enlightened have spouted in this thread.

Fact is community is what you make of it. My guild in WoW was a cornerstone of helpful and friendly. We SOUGHT and recruited only those that would NOT ruin the guilds atmosphere. This meant no jerks and no kiddies. It was large enough so that you could always group with guildmates and we never really had to play with anyone outside of it. Know what ? I had better player to player experiences in that game than I had in Horizons. Eve as well I had much better community experiences than Horizons. My guild in DDO was awesome and definitely had no kiddie types. My Horizons experience entailed bickering over petty market price crap and having my silos exploited and whatever else people could grab when the permissions system decided it was going to fail. Likewise I also had very positive experiences in Horizons with its community. But at the end of the day when I look at my various MMO experiences I count horizons as only one of my more positive community experiences and I count a few others that rank above it. For myself and anyone else dealing with other MMO experiences we can safely say there is no without exception. There have been many exceptions indeed. I hope this clears things up a bit.

That all being said to the OP if you have only just become concerned with the situations horizons is in you are 6 months late on that realization. I honestly believe PME/EII does not care. I bet they are trying to default on some purchase contract claus they had with Baker over the game. What other logical conclusion can one make given the facts at hand ??

[Thamoris]

MadDwarf said exactly what I had said before I deleted my words and said it better.
Comparing Livingston, Texas ( pop under 2k ) with Houston, Texas ( pop over 4 million ) in regards to community makes no sense at all.

Hundreds of hours played in Vanguard with over 100 people in my guild and I have yet to have a single, griefing experience. I can't say that for my first few hundred hours in Horizons back in the day where I was griefed on nearly a daily basis in what was still...a much smaller game than VG.

Now PME griefs all the remaining players every day they continue to pay and play. When will enough....be enough already?

[Ahael]

Nobody has ever griefed me when I've been playing Hz... but, my server was Unity.

[Takora Drakan]

Nobody has ever griefed me when I've been playing Hz... but, my server was Unity.

Same for me, and when such a thing happened, the community helped the person that has been "damanged".

[Kerech]

No change means no additional damage. No additional damage means we're not losing players faster. Not losing players faster means that it is more enjoyable to play.

Not losing players faster than what? Faster than a game that has completely shut down? Maybe.

But, have you seen the server population declines since July? They can't lose players much faster than that, and they can't lose many more players simply because there aren't that many more to lose.

[Justa Mirage]

Dragons in dragon channel last night: 17 and silent
Marketplace dwellers: 34

doing a player search on all people everywhere: 72

Hell, we could have pizza and beer and still have change left over for 72 people!

Anyone remember "Virtual World?" the "avatar 3D chatroom?" where you could stake your claim to some land in their world, and build things using their construction materials they provided?

That's what HZ has become... a 3D avatar driven chat room, with things to build and possibly an occasional monster to kill when you are bored of building.

My favorite saying (and I want a bumper sticker of this):

If you ding and there is no one online to hear it, does it make a sound?

Here is the depressing thing I see playing and crafting:

I designed my lair to have a "lair" room under my hall, a nice Tier 5 one so I can have "something" to build that gives me XP for lairshaping. I thought to myself... besides the eyecandy of the pretty waterfalls, the only other thing this room does is allow storage...

Then I thought....

Storage for what?

I thought some more...

Well, to keep those extra scales for younger hatchl.... oh yea.. not many of those... ok... to keep a bunch of comps and troph.... oh yea... everyone has mostly everything they need now. Maybe I can just use it as a big storage tank for holding spellshards, orbs, and... oh yea... only 72 people on line and 90% of them can make spells too...

So, when my "lair room" is complete, I guess I will figure out by then, what is going to go into it... (maybe my corpse, when they lay me to rest)

[Vlisson]

remember the old days...

release...

only content to lvl 50...

the spot of golden golems and silver golems between aughundell and harro

15 golems for 50 players...

kill stealing, train pulling...

when the server has been very good populated...

OK i agree that the community has grown, but only because all not-hardcore fans left after 1-2 month. Only the guys stayed who loved the idea and the game.

decreased population means more mobs per player and so the big problems never happened

but i think only because we all have been very sentient.

we suffered but we have not given up our hopes.

in my new game i play i would never accept the things i agonized with horizons.

my naivety is gone

[velveeta]

as i believe i have stated before, my puter died recently and i never even missed horizons. this is how i know all my relationships are over.......when i realize that i haven't missed being with them for weeks.
tonight, i created a free account on rubies of eventide. it is certainly not horizons, but at this point i feel that is a good thing.
i am assured that i will not become as emotionally involved and no money wasted if it takes a dump. but it's amusing and lighthearted, like a 'friend with benefits'.

peeps, all i can say is do what makes you happy. if it makes you happy to continue playing horizons, by all means, go monkey nuts. if it makes you happy to rant on the forums until you get censored, do it.
but remember this, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

[Brunswick]

All what you post looks good and its right.( I think and hope )

But i think only Players read what you post .

I never see a comment from an Admin in the last time.

I think EII have no interesst on that what you scribe .

Unity is dead

Mfg Brunswick

Ps.: Sorry for bad english