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Lucklustre

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: January 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, I have to say that anyone who awards this game more than three stars is either on medication, employed by the game's publishers, or both.

Horizons has been called ' the Fisher Price of MMORPGs'. The only thing that it lacks from that description is the robust nature of Fisher Price products. It's a laggy, buggy mess of unfulfilled promises, delivered with the graphics engine of yesterday, demanding the machine of tomorrow to run at a decent speed. If you own an ATI card then forget it, as the DX8 (yes, NOT DX9) engine doesn't work properly with ATI cards, resulting in horrible frame rates.

Even if you do get it running decently, be prepared for terrible character models and NPCs/Players that are slowly drawn from gray blobs before your eyes. Be prepared for a dearth of anything for the adventurer and a simplistic crafting system for those people who think carrying materials back and forth makes exciting gaming. A huge empty world with a very limited number of mobs are what awaits you. When the crazed fans of this game, offer 'It has a wonderful interface' as its defence, then you know that your money is better spent elsewhere.

Also, the game is full of bugs being happily exploited with the publishers too afraid to ban anyone and contribute to the games already falling number of subscribers.

Another annoyance is the web browser login system, which forces you to use Internet Explorer and which crashes a lot.

This is another insult to the consumer from gaming companies who think they can release unfinished products, take your money and then allow you to pay them for six months while they give you some of the things promised on the box.

I gave this mess 2 stars simply for the dragon player race, but sadly that in itself is not even finished properly (despite being the selling point) and has already been nerfed!

Horizons looks dated, lags horribly and offers nothing that competes with the current crop of MMORPGs. Maybe in 12 months it might resemble a good game, but by then you'll be playing something else anyway.

Horizons - A long awaited disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: April 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After a long, long (years) wait for this game to come out, and all the hype surrounding it, I pre-ordered my copy and rushed to pick it up as soon as they called to say it had arrived at the store.

But the game that was supposed to encourage roleplay, allow dragons to fly, have characters who aged or never went fighting... The game that was supposed to have such character design features so that no two characters looked alike even...

Doesn't.

Characters do not age. You talk to NPCs via a private chat box that no one else can hear, so you don't really "interact" with them, but instead choose which quest you'd rather they give you to maximize your experience points or money gain. Plenty of characters look alike, though there is a lot to choose from when designing a character, it's certainly far from limitless. And everyone will be wearing the same darn armor anyway, as everyone wants to generally be wearing the best armor for their class and level. Everything in the game has a level base on when you can start using it, and some tools become worthless after you've passed up a certain level.

Crafters [are] actually worthwhile, but it's boring as hell to be one usually, and you have to search down your raw materials before the higher levels get to it with their heavy duty cargo discs that can carry more for them, and their better tools that can ore more in the first place.

Mind you, some things required for the crafting can [only] be found on the mobs, so don't expect to be crafting everything in the game unless you make a lot of cash selling items to buy the resources off the fighter classes, choose a fighting class too, or have a friend who gets the goods for you.

Oh.. and the game favors specialization on all levels. All the wonderful things about being able to play a combination class of, say, cleric and warrior? Nope, you'll likely get your virtual butt handed to you if you don't specialize and become a paladin or something later. Mind you, you have to get level 15 or so in both before you can become a paladin. And don't even think about becoming an adult dragon who flies. They only recently added the flying ability to the game, and it can only happen after you get past a certain level and stuff your hoard full of crap. And hoard depreciates over time - and more so once you're an adult. I hear that nerf happened back in beta.

They recently nerfed the archers to make them pretty much useless, and since they were who I was having the most fun with (even after the first nerf to "pinion" they were still fun, but now you might as well not bother to make one) I've canceled my account.

There's a huge disparity between the levels - you can group with higher level people and still get experience and all, but stay in the back as the mobs will crush you with a glance. The mobs tend to know cool spells before their player counterparts get them. Mind you, the mobs tend to flock together - strangely there are miles and miles of road that are both unguarded and unclaimed by either good or evil. Although "miles" is a relative term, as the world feels pretty darn tiny. Then again, I suppose it doesn't need to be too big with no people in it. Did I mention the utter lack of townsfolk in Horizons yet? Yep, everyone has a purpose - a trainer, a merchant, a questholder, a guard (and they sometimes have quests too). No townsfolk just wandering about to make it feel like a real world.

The major in-game events are both geared towards higher level characters (newbies need not attend) and, I've heard they are major lag-fests.

There's hardly any roleplaying going on, even on the roleplay servers, so if that's your game - don't bother. And if you're like me and want to make a bunch of characters and play until you feel out which combo you want to make your main character - well you're only allowed to make five characters [total]. And I mean total amongst all the other servers. Not five PER server, but just five total.

I'd be sorry I gave up my EverQuest account if this game hadn't pretty much turned me off on this kind of game altogether for now...

Also, tech support is next to non-existent. My husband had trouble with his account a couple weeks after signing up, and the best they could do was give him a work-around that allowed him to get into his characters if he changed his password each time before he tried to log in. They didn't communicate with him on what they were trying to do (if anything) to fix it until he complained. I'm not sure if they ever got it fixed, it became such a hassle logging in for him - "will we get in or not tonight?" - that we stopped bothering. Half my enjoyment of these games is getting to play them with him.

A work in Progress but the place for me

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 15
Date: December 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was a beta tester for this MMORPG for several months. As opposed to the 'gamers' who prefer to keep their extravagant praise or flames anonymous, (Exception, Kore Breach...), I am proud to identify myself as Gila Gobergin, Sslik crafter/adventurer. I also posted as 'Gobergin' on the Tazoon.com Beta forums, if you would like to check those out for more background.
This is not the game for the 'uber l33t' hack-n-slash AFK Macroers. If you don't even know what I just said, there is hope. If you really liked Ultima Online until the hackers and PK'ers ruined it, this is going to appeal to you. I know- I beta tested the original UO as well. There is no PvP and the intention is to foster a greater sense of interdependence and community. I firmly believe that a more mature mindset- not chronological age, just a willingness to actually work on a game reather than expecting to macro yourself through everything- will find this a really attractive game. The thing that appeals most to me was being able to develop all the skills I needed to completely support my character as both an adventurer and a craftsman. It tickled my fancy to develop a character that basically was a classic MilitiaMan- Fully competent businessman and crafter who was able to whack the encroaching undead as well. I can only offer my personal opinion, but I had never heard of this game before until I joined the beta- but it cured me of a nasty Diablo II LOD addiction.
As has been stated, there are problems with this environment, and it did come out of beta earlier than I would like. For the first month or so, expect a certain amount of lag, glitches and odd happenings. However, this is in no way a major disaster on par with Anarchy Online or Star Wars Galaxies initial releases.
Oh yes, and on the graphics..... most of those who complained actually never bothered to modify their graphics settings. I was very happy with the graphics I saw and had only a low-midrange gaming video card. In Beta, the lag got bad at times, but that was mostly due to unoptimized code which was cleaned up by the end of beta party.
I played this game for months in beta (All the way to a very enjoyable close of Beta combat sequence) and saw steady, continuous improvment all that time. I never was bored, and always found a way to deal with any glitches that came up. I have pre-ordered and plan to be there as soon as my CD comes in the mail.

This game is a must have

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 33
Date: October 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Am beta testing this game and it simply rocks.

It has better graphics than EQ, SWG, EQ2.
It has more advanced tradeskills than EQ, SWG, EQ2.
It is both solo casual gamer friendly as well as having group and community goals and challenges.
If you don't like PVP and griefers, this game is for you since there is none.
So much to do, so many things to own including houses and property and the ability to build towns.

Don't miss out on playing this game from first day of launch.

Becoming a finished game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Every day I play I see this game becoming more and more finished - since the last reviews especially! Classes are more balanced, crafting is fun, fighting is also fun and easy.

Basics: Horizons is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG). It has a detailed, and heavily involved craft system and also a player vs. enemy fighting system (limited player vs. player is currently on the testing shard and may go live soon). The two are closely integrated. There are 10+ playable races, including 2 player unlocked ones, dryads and satyrs. While there are the basic races (humans, elves, dwarves) there are also very unique races (satyrs, dragons) In fact, playing a dragon vs. playing a biped can be seen as a completely different game. As for classes, there are many to choose from, both fighting and crafting. One the best things about this games is the multiclassing capability - if you choose warrior as a school, you're not stuck with it - you could pick up a magic using class later as well. The same goes for crafting classes. (Dragons are excluded from the multiclassing thing, they only have 2 classes - dragon adventurer and dragon crafter.)

Learning the game: When I first learned the game, I did find it difficult, but I don't think I had a typical experience (long story short - the only game manual I had was in german.) The developers have recently put in a new dragon tutorial island though and I went through that. Though it doesn't teach you everything, you do learn the basics as a dragon, and I found most of the relevant information covered. There is a new biped tutorial island coming soon as well.

Changes in the past year:

Dragons: The Rite of Passage (becoming adult and being able to fly) is long finished for dragons and the Ancient RoP is nearing completion as well! There is no hoard decay, that was taken out well over a year ago. Dragons have become a more powerful class as well when compared to bipeds - we've enjoyed a pretty sizable armor increase in particular.

Bipeds: I'm primarily a dragon player so I can't speak much for bipeds, but I know they've added many quests for bipeds, most notably racial specific quests.

General: Much has changed in the last year - expert forms were introduced widely and are now readily available. The land mass has changed noticably - monsters relocated, and many areas totally reorganized to make more sense for newbies. Monster classes were completely overhauled and redesigned for tougher and more interesting fights. Crafting has been worked over too, especially metal crafting. The technique portion of crafting has been reworked too. I'm sure I'm missing things here too! But all in all, enough has definitely changed for those who tried this game a year ago to warrant another try again today.

Community: As always, this game has the most mature base of players I've seen. People actually help each other - there's little griefing. Everyone also seems intelligent, there's no AOL speak or leet speak that I've seen. If you're sick of the kids in WoW, this is a nice place to take a break.

Graphics: The graphics have largely remained the same. The graphics are a little primitive compared to games nowadays, but they're still completely adequate. The atmosphere and landscapes are probably the best part of the graphics. The game uses the same engine, which has its problems. Although it has been worked on, there are still memory problems, but an occasional relog can usually fix that.

Sounds/Music: The music is great, some of the best I've heard for a game. There have also been some new scores introduced for various areas, and I haven't found one that I don't like yet. Ambient sounds - there definitely could be more, as it is, there are very few. Fight sound effects are fine, nothing amazing but certainly not terrible. All in all, I tend to leave music and sound effects on when playing even through over a year of play. The music is just that good!

Overall: The game has improved greatly in the last year. The company is obviously dedicated to improving the game as well, and it seems Horizons will be around for a while. If you're an old player who hasn't tried it in a while, I definitely suggest another try. If you're a new player, give it a try too!

New ideas - great Dev team - super game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 17
Date: September 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

There are some very good new ideas going into this game, as well as some beautiful graphics and some of the best sound in an mmorpg ever.

I'd highly recommend giving it a try!

Beta participant

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: December 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

...from just about the first group of people let in (there were a few before me) I have watched this game develop into a remarkable design... there is something new here in that certain abilities will stay with your character even when you switch classes. What this means is that you can play five levels as a cleric then switch to a warrior and still retain those heals and buffs that were abilities rather than spells.

Now granted, you will no longer be able to cast the spells of the old class, even though you retain the abilities. Yet after you have gained a warrior ability like Powerstrike as a warrior you can go back to your cleric class without penalty just where you left off.

Further, the crafting system is really stellar in implementation, and is useful for recovering from the weaknesses associated with your character's loss of a fight.

I dropped back to only a four star on this because I have trouble seeing how the devs are going to be able to match the excitement generated by RvR player -vs- player combat, but it is possible I suppose. I'll just have to go back in to see...

Not recommended for experienced MMORPG'ers

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 26
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's about 2 weeks before release and the current beta version is horribly buggy. Framerates (on my high end computer) are pathetic (averaging about 15 - occasionally dipping below 5fps). Gameplay is, to be generous, very boring and very tedious. Graphics are good, but not great. Character development is shallow, all characters are basically the same. One bright spot is crafting - which is somewhat deep - but mindnumbingly boring.

I'd wait a couple months before I bought this dog. Maybe after an update or two it will be worth buying.

This would be a good beginner ORPG for a young teen or someone who has never experienced MMORPG's before. Experienced gamers should avoid Horizons.

Beware, you might like it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: April 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played three different characters with combinations of skills, and am over 50 with each character now.
Dragons are still nerfed to some degree, but overall, after adulthood, they're decent. My cat that's a ranger has been put aside due to some of the nerfs they did to archery... My Paladin however is rocking things that are much higher than he is, the problem with this is that there isn't a lot that is higher now.
The only serious problems I have are finding crafters to make me that new sword or piece of armor! People that can make tier 4 stuff won't make tier 3 (it's not worth my time, or find a lower level crafter to make it so he can make some money... What an attitude, and seriously prevalent in HZ! You don't want my silver? Hell, I would pay 10s for certain spells right now! How is that not worth your time?) So, if you're in the middle somewhere, it may be really hard to get certain items unless you decide to become a crafter to support your adventure class, ie, spell crafter for mage, armorer / blacksmith for warrior type, etc.
Well, one other is that there aren't any higher level quests (above lvl 60's anyway) Hopefully they will fix that SOON!

Where will Horizons be in three months? Probably a lot more filled in! They're adding things every week! Newer spawns, adventures, events, quests, etc.
This game is a lot of fun! But you really do have to work on your characters!!!

Boring, complicated, and unfinished

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: March 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was very disappointed with this game overall and stuck with it for a full month before quitting. What got me interested in the first place was its beautiful graphics and the chance to play a dragon! The graphics are wonderful with towns that are breathtaking. The crafting system is complex to the point of being too complicated. Resources are fairly scarce and very hard to find once you advance. There's no information on their website on the actual gameplay, schools, crafting or anything of real value. If you MUST try this game, I seriously recommend getting into a guild as soon as possible so the experienced players can help you since you'll never be able to figure this game out on your own! The world itself is huge, which is both good and bad. The main problem is that you WILL walk miles and miles without seeing any spawn at all! There's not enough variety of monsters when you do find them.... You'll be killing zombies and maggots for the rest of your life! Entering towns or being around too many people will most definitely give you lag, no matter how uber your pc is! Getting too close to server events has a tendency to randomly and spontaneously disconnect you from the shard. Recently, the devs have been nerfing dragons (a race that is still incomplete at the moment - there's no adulthood!) And to make matters worse, if you've been spending all your time playing a dragon, working skills and earning money, well.... you can't even own a home of your own, so what's the point of playing a dragon? And if you're not a dragon, there's not enough land to set down housing with your bi-ped any way! So if you're going to try this game to be a bi-ped, play some other game, any other game. Seriously, there's no long-term goals after you start this game. You spend your time either crafting or killing monsters to gain in skill, but what for? It gets pretty boring pretty fast. By the way, it took me several days to actually quit since they keep your billing information in the hands of another company altogether and they had me going in circles. When you first sign up, you MUST give credit card or debit card information or you won't be able to play, and if you dare quit, you have to make a phone call to a completely different company. There's no ingame support and reporting any trouble is based on sending emails and waiting on emailed responses... This is poor service for a game that should not have been released so soon! As far as I'm concerned, it's still in a beta stage.

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