Horizons: Empire of Istaria

[OnyxCougar]

Anyone here play it besides me?

[Razorfish]

Istaria? Wasen't that the name of the group of wizards in the Lord of the Rings?

Looks like an interesting game but with som many MMORPGs out, what makes this game unique?

[OnyxCougar]

I've played Everquest, I've played Galaxies. I've played Dark Age of Camelot.

Horizons is unique because of just how much the players contribute to the game.

Each server (shard) started the same, but as different players created different characters, bought different plots of land, and put different buildings up, each shard has become a semi-unique place.

Every week or few weeks, the devs (Artifact) will advance the storyline of the world by holding "events". For example, before I joined the game, the available races were Human, Gnome, Dwarf, Elf, Dragon, Saris (catpeople), Fiend, a lizard race, and a dragon.

As events unfolded in all the different shards, crafters digging in the wilderness came upon a strange set of caves. Adventurers were called in to hold off the Withered Aegis (the common foe) while crafters of all kinds dug out the tunnels. This involved Miners and Masons (to dig), Carpenters (to make the supporting braces), Confectioners (to feed the crafters and adventurers), all kinds of people to move the rock, etc.

When the tunnel was dug out, a cave was discovered with Satyrs in it that had been living underground for years, enslaved by the Withered Aegis. Finally, the Satyrs were free, and now they are a playable race.

Again, not all shards have completed this event. Some shards still haven't freed the satyrs.

Then, the Withered Aegis made an advancement on an eastern border town (home city of the Elves) called Faledan. Some shards beat the WA back, and those who fought in the battle started getting sick. And then spread this sickness to the rest of the world. (The sickness meant you can't recall, take 18hp of damage every RL 10 minutes that was NOT healable, and all your stats were severely lowered.) NPC's and PC's alike were getting infected, but Dragons were immune. Dragon Clerics could cure the populous, but no immunity was found until the Scholar of Contagion showed up in the ruins of Faledan. If you completed his quest, you recieved one immunity potion. After a certain amount of time, he left Faledan, and so those who didn't do the quest have to hope they don't get sick until the plague wears itself out, or a Dragon cures them.

Again, different shards have different worries. As you play the higher level characters become legends and are written into the history and events of the Shard.

One of the other neat things about Horizons is that if you don't want to adventure, you don't have to. You can be a strict crafter. Another cool feature is that if you don't like your class or your craft, you can change it at any time to something else. It's much like multiclassing in D&D 3rd edition. Currently, I am a 14th Cleric/10 Warrior. I am also a 4 Blacksmith/7 Jeweler/15 Outfitter. (I'm well rounded.) Once you reach a certain skill level prerequisite, new classes open up to you. For example, when I get my Two hand slashing to 142, I can switch classes to a Berserker, which can't use magic (so I lose my cleric abilities) but is an excellent melee'r. And, once my smelting skill is 150, I can choose to change outfitter to Fitter, which is a specialized contruction class that works exclusively in metal. If I don't like it, I can switch back to outfitter and poof! I'm an outfitter again, NO PENALTY, I haven't lost any exp I earned while an outfitter. (Now, I may have wasted time as a fitter, but at least I can go back to 15 outfitter.)

The music kicks ass. The graphics are very cool and if I crank everything, it will test my Radeon 9800XT to the limit, and my 1G DDR RAM gets a workout.

Overall, it's a badass game, and I cancelled my Dark Age account after 1 week of play.

You can get a free download of the game (better have broadband) and play no obligation for 7 days for free. See what you think. If you want to catch me, I'm on the Twilight Shard. Look for Tigrica. I'm on General chat.

Oh, and my guild's website is

http://members.cox.net/thedarkwatch

There are some screen shots there.

Note: as of this writing, ALL the cox.net homepages are down. Just keep trying, it will be up later.

[DanaC]

I was following this game's development with great interest until I realised they had gone for such a limited approach to PvP. For an mmorpg to really work, for me it has to have free for all PvP with consequences for murder, rather than an inability to fight people unless within a R-vR or E-vE context.

Still looks a fun game...My interest is currently being piqued though by another game which is just about to go into open beta.
Its called Darkfall http://www.darkfallonline.com and it looks very good. Theyre trying for an immersive world without artificially imposed restrictions on interraction. Might turn into another shadowbane ( urg) or maybe just maybe Ihave found my holy grail and its the next contender for the UO crown

[OnyxCougar]

Dark Age had PvP and I was never into that. For me, a game has to have more than killing other players to be a good game. It has to be more rounded. If I wanna PvP, I'll play Quake3 or Unreal Tournament. If I want a MMORPG, I want more than "you're my enemy. I will kill you now."

[DanaC]

I fully agree. Which is why Shadowbane was so disappointing to so many people. War economies and weekend sieges do not a great mmorpg make

I have played all manner of playstyles from a cowardly alchemist who never fought through to a rampant playerkiller and many others.

Even when I am playing a peaceful character whose main interests are crafting, adventuring and congregating in oldy worldy taverns, I find the world I play in has more vibrancy if there are player killers roaming the land. Yah you have to put up with some ofthe less pleasant aspects of that crowd ( u s0xx0r , pwned, griefing etc) But I always found that it added spice to my game.

What I seek most in an mmorpg is actually the virtual world aspect of it, and as such I seek as much realism in there as possible within the context of good game mechanics. Hence I prefer it if people are able to engage in the kind of power plays and political relationships that are born of the potential for violence and the fragility of law. ....Thats whyI liked the UO method. You could if you wished attack any player you liked....but there were consequences to that . If you became a murderer the world became more hostile to you and your characters life became much more difficult. The result was that ( particularly on the veteran shard) players began to police their own shards and communities.

With a few safe places to run to theres no need to disable our ability to be the worst kind of character

[Troubleshooter]

The only problem I have with unlimited PvP is that I pay money to play the game and I don't want some 14 year old griefer whose parents are paying for his game to intrude into my time.

If I pay, I pick who I play with.

[jaguar]

The graphics are very cool and if I crank everything, it will test my Radeon 9800XT to the limit, and my 1G DDR RAM gets a workout.

That's a big fucking computer.

That's the problem with laptops, crappy vidcards.

I'm yet to see a functional economy in a MMORPG

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by jaguar

I'm yet to see a functional economy in a MMORPG

Define functional.

[jaguar]

Doesn't have massive spiraling inflation issues over time.
Tends to be the most common problem.