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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.

Has the World Gone Crazy?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: December 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Have I lost my mind, or is it the rest of the world that's gone insane?

This game is not finished, pure and simple. I (like many reviewers) was extremely excited about all that Istaria claimed to offer. But I'm not going to sit here and make lame excuses for the developers just because I wanted this to be a great experience. Istaria is barely at the beta level. It was released to capture holiday sales.

The servers are constantly down. The billing / logon / account creation are all slow, unreliable, and just really poorly done. This I can all live with (though I don't see how the developers can claim to have stress-tested Istaria thoroughly, when even a moderate player load breaks EVERYTHING).

What's upsetting is that even when the game "works", it sucks. The graphics are terrible and clunky, even on a high-end system. The framerate is awful at even the lowest detail settings (which are pitifully ugly). The quests (even the beginning quests that everyone has to do) are often broken. There are only a handful of monster types, poorly distributed across the maps.

Both the billing and the customer service software are done by third parties, and both rarely work properly. People have complained of multiple credit card charges, and the support system sucks.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the support team has not addressed the pathetic non-gameplay. The knowledge base contains no articles about the bigger issues that plague Horizons.

I've been playing computer games since 1984. This is the most upset I have ever been about game quality. I am cancelling my subscription and will attempt to get a refund for the (overpriced even if it worked) software.

Just in case I haven't made this clear, Istaria is vile, utter crap. It is not worth the two CD's it is burnt to. People claim that we should be patient and that the developers will fix these problems. Whether that's true or not this game should not have been released in it's current state.

Not sure what kind of drugs these positive reviewers are on

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 20
Date: November 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

But this game is far from ready for release. There are horrible bugs still in gameplay, I cant even make a dragon at the moment. The graphics are excellant, for a video game 5 years ago. The animation is not so good as well. They need another 6 months at least for beta before this is ready for release.

FYI..I am doing the European beta.

HORRIBLE! This game does nothing to advance the genre.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 23
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Overall, this game has very very poor character models, and textures, sub-par graphics, and a combat engine that would put even the most slow person, asleep. Reading the reviews previous to mine, I can't help but think that none of the reviewers actually played the game.. Better graphics than SWG? OMG, the graphics in this game, aren't even up to old Everquest standards, let alone a modern and striking game like SWG. Don't believe the fanboys and hype, its NOT A GOOD GAME.

I'll start by saying Horizons Beta was one of the worst managed i've seen in a long time (which tells you how they will manage the retail customer support side). The communication from the development team was almost non-existant, and the format for submitting bugs wasn't easily accessable. Very often, changes would go into a patch, and testers would not be informed, vague patch notes like: "We fixed a few things..". The only person you'd hear from via Email was Monika and that was using a mail-bot to spam out notices of events. David Bowman avoided forums, avoided answering direct questions, and basically was like a scripted chatterbox in the development chats. DB, if anything, proved he lacks the knowledge, foresight and vision to make this game great. Hes an arrogant pencil pusher that is just trying to cash in on the Everquest-Clone craze with his own sorry clone.

Did I enjoy Horizons beta? VERY briefly, yes - during the first week I played, the newness of the world, and the thrill of testing yet another game in development was pretty exciting. But that excitement quickly waned, when I saw all of the problems with the game, and the deep flaws with the design doctrine and vision of the development team. In my first week of testing, I posted a list of 75 major things either broke or missing from the game - that should be considered requirements. Three months later, only 2-3 things on this list have been addressed, and the game hasn't significantly changed in that period of time.

So you want to play a Dragon? Perhaps this is the ONLY truely unique aspect of this game - but it really isn't very unique when you consider some things behind it. At the end of Beta, dragons were severely nerfed - because it was widely accepted that Dragons would be "Overplayed" in retail, and dragons are the reason a lot of people are buying the game. So they removed most of the power of dragons, and made them into very weak "Jack of all Trades" type toons. Worse yet, Dragon Dens, Dragon Hordes, and half of the dragon functionality is NOT currently in the game, or if it is, its very broke. Nobody is even sure Dragons properly age, since in beta, nobody was aged! Even simple things, like the spell/powers icons for Dragons are missing from the game as the beta ends. So think very very hard if you really want to tolerate something thats roughly 25% complete at release, and very poorly designed.

How about next generation features - since Horizons is supposed to be a "Next Generation MMORPG"... Well, considering that MOST of the features people expect in a new mmorpg, are lacking from this game, you can't really consider it next generation.. Familiars/Pets - Not in the game, and no plans to add them... Mounts/Horses - not in the game, and no plans to add them... Dungeons, you know, those great places like GUK in EQ, or Tusken Fort in SWG - Not in the game with no plants to add them.. Great graphics??? Sorry, not in the game, this game has graphics that we were playing 4 years ago with almost no noticable improvement - and even worse character design. The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say, I cannot find one next generation, or even current generation feature in this game! Its all been done before, and done BETTER before.

Stay away from this title, or you'll be wasting your hard earned money on a frisbee.. Its THAT bad..

EQ re-hash with no dungeons or content

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 20
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm in the beta test, don't be fooled by any hype. This game has NO original concepts, you can fight boring computer monsters only, and there are no dungeons only the same boring landscape everywhere, hell your character can't even swim! Combat is so simplistic you can get up and go get a snack and it has no effect on the outcome, your auto-attack is just as good as any other power. ALL RACES & CLASSES ARE THE SAME, they are no different except in appearance. Your level 20 fighter will be the same as every other level 20 fighter, ALWAYS! Save your money!

There should be a law against incomplete MMORPGs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 15
Date: January 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Why did I let myself spend $50 on this game?! ARGH! I've been playing for 2 weeks now, and there is downtime aplenty, bugs, no maps, and item disappearance galore. They even have an item replacement policy on the homepage it happens so much. I am so completely disgusted with this game. Star Wars Galaxies had problems, but there was something to *DO*. There are ACRES of non-content, and server lag will have your characters and MOBS rubber-banding all over.. And I have a fast cable modem. Further, when trying to engage MOBs, you have to chase the thing for 15 feet before you finally attack, usually in the middle of a camp. You never have any idea where you are, there are no maps, no locate "/loc" coordinate system, no "/where" to find NPC's.. I HATE THIS GAME! GIMME MY MONEY BACK!!

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.

Billing issues

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: December 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have tried for days to create an account and all I get is this rather generic message:
----
An error occurred processing your billing information. For detailed information on this error, please send an email to horizons@ibill.com. Your email will be answered within 24 hours or less.

It is important that you contact customer service before you attempt to make a payment again. Repeated attempts to submit this credit card may result in a temporary freeze of funds on your account.
----

Doesn't really explain anything, does it? I tried contacting their billing support but only got an automated response. So far nothing has worked. Even tried different credit cards but got the same message.

I really can't rate it higher than one if I can't even manage to get in.

They obviously have organization issues. I suggest all looking into buying this game hold out for at least a few months while they resolve their problems.

WARNING: This game is a RIP-OFF

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 31
Date: January 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After you buy the game, you MUST purchase a separate license to play on-line - or you simply can't play the game. That's BS, in my opinion. Basically, if you spend the $50 odd dollars on the game but elect not to give your credit card number to purchase the right to play on line, you end up with a useless, $50, piece of plastic (i.e., the CD itself). It's worthless.

It also made me real nervous that the game connected to it's own server right after I installed it and my firewall software (Norton's) didn't detect it as an unknown program trying to access the Internet. This is bad news. I have never known my firewall to miss a program before, which leads me to believe this software somehow 'spoofs' the firewall into believing it's trusted software. Needless to say, it's not trusted by me, and I uninstalled it immediately. I can only hope it didn't install some nefarious spy-ware program on my system that's still on there.

Buy this game if you don't mind having to continually pay for the right to play it - and if you don't mind spending beaucoup $ up front. Don't buy this game if you have a brain and value your privacy on-line.

Didn't play it because I couldn't play it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: February 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I downloaded the seven day free trial for this game and it made me put in my credit number. That's the most idiotic thing ever and the very first time that I saw a free downloadable trial of a game that made you put in your credit card. They probably make you put it in so they won't tell you when your seven day trial is over but instead, charge you after it's over without notice. I'm giving it one star just for this reason, it shows that the company is greedy and like to give a lot of BS.

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