f13.net

It recently got sold again.  Sort of.  Well, the company that owns it, anyway.  It seems some of the same people who bought it this time were part of the company who sold it to them... err... selves.  Didn't this already happen once?

 Source  (http://community.istaria.com/news/?id=191)   :roll:

How are you always up to date on the crappy games that no one cares about? It is truly amazing  :-D I fully expect a DnL update soon now!

Amazing.

WAP is being mean to me, isn't he?

Not at all. I just find it amusing that those games still have someone who reads the updates they send out! I get DnL emails regularly, but I never read them  :-D

I wouldn't be mean to you. Unless you really had it coming. Or I was cranky.  :evil:

Or he was thirsty, or in a bad mood, which is only like 75% of the time. The rest of the time he's thirsty.

Oh, okay then.  I forgive you.

PS  I find WAP to be a relatively happy man.  Well, compared to... say... Rasix.  (I compare everything to Rasix)

So, is Peter S. Beagle still writing storylines on the foredeck of this Titanic?

Don't tell me you don't have an account.

EI is the publisher, but isn't Tulga still the developer? So techically, wouldn't it be Tulga that "owns" Horizons while it's the publishing partner that got picked up by that MyGameHaven portal thing?

I ask only to understand :)

I don't know what happened to the Peter S. Beagle thingy... I would guess that's over. 

As far as I know, EII bought and took over the whole shebang, including development.  I think Tulga Games is gone, too.  As in defunct.

I don't have an account.  Someone just sent me an email about it.  Even I'm not demented enough to play this disaster.

Please stop tempting me.  I have lots of time on my hands lately.

I wonder if my Adult Dragon still exists on my account.  I quit 3/4 months after it went live, which I don't even recall when that was.

They had adult dragons that soon? I thought it had taken them around six months to patch in that bit of 'fun'. Eh, maybe a week seemed like six months in Horizons.

So you actually played it for 3/4 months? GUARDS!

there must be something good at the bottom of this box of crackerjacks...   :roll:

Horizons had one feature I wish every mmog (and sp rpg) had.   You could open up a terrain map of the world (just a big .jpg) that just had basic terrain, no POI/towns etc.   You could scroll /zoom around it, and the best part: you could put little markers (all different kinds) on the map, and put your own notes with them.    It was an explorers/mappers dream.  The file was kept client-side and was plain text, so it was easy to clean up, backup etc.

Dragons were not that strong, but they had a whole family of quests (mostly weak, but hey) across all the levels up to when they added Adult Dragon quest, after which you could fly.   Also there was dragon crafting (scales for buffs instead of armor).    Once I could fly I visited every nook and cranny of the world.  It was also fun to fly around looking for the mob you want, swoop down, kill it, take off.  (Could not fight flying, darn it).

Also for crafting you could use this 'disk' like a slow cart, to safely store extra stuff before processing it.  Again, I haven't seen that in any other mmog.

I also liked the world itself, large, varied, and true 3D.   Only one town was a lag-fest even empty, which it always was, except for certain quest givers.

The 'community building' was different also.  Where everyone on the server works to open a mine/tunnel or bridge to new zones.  It was fun the first couple of times, then got old. 

If they just added more mobs, and added dungeons or more special areas it would have been good.  I liked it 10x better than SWG (which I played 1.5 mo's, and 2x better than AC2 (2.5 mos).

Oooooo, look. Syphilis!

You are so, SO bad! (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/laugh.gif)

I wasn't the one who put the syphilis in the box.

You got me on that one, you bastard. Peppermint mocha is better swallowed than inhaled.

At least your breath is minty fresh!

I went looking for anything on Dark World Online, Tulga's other game.

Even the official site is dead.

It's probably for the best.

Probably? Probably implies doubt, as in "this game might not be a swirling vortex of suck." Let me disabuse you of that notion.

Nothing Tulga produces, produced or would have produced in the fantasy world where they actually could produce something has even the slightest chance to not suck.

Unless they started making vacuum cleaners.

Those vaccum cleaners would blow outwards.

(http://www.botcollector.com/_images/TFiRL/SpaceballMaid.jpg)

"She's gone from suck to blow!"

http://crusade.qol.com/

Funny, they think they can compete with WoW.

http://crusade.qol.com/images/screenshots/GUIShot1.jpg (http://crusade.qol.com/images/screenshots/GUIShot1.jpg)

Haha


Well, I guess "Patronage Power" is original at least...

They actually call one of the kingdoms "Asheroth"? How on earth do they plan to not get sued into dust?

I'm also a bit fuzzy on what this has to do with Horizons.

I think it's because David Allen was the initial lead designer (and thinker upper) of Horizons. 

That was after his career as front man for Gong, cricket player for England, author, comedian, artist, bassist and producer of some really cool bands. 

It's too early for you to be this high, Signe.

Yeah, I noticed that GUI is umm..very familiar. Heh. I bet Blizzard is just banking on them not being worth the time to sue.

Stop bringing me down, man.

I'm surprised you guys didn't know about this.  I say we start a new Crusade specific thread.  It's gold Jerry, pure gold.

Let me just add something for those that don't know.


Originally, Horizons sounded like 'THEE' shit. What it is now, and what it was supposed to be (now) are very different than what is was supposed to be THEN. About two years in development, DA's investors mutinied and forced him out of the project he created.  If you search around the net, you can find a full account of the proceedings.  Then, DA started Pharoah Productions, working on a game for XBox/PS2 called Dominion, and a MMO called UNIVERSE.  This game studio was promptly shut down like a year later by DA, citing a lack of passion and disgust for the business side of things for leaving the game industry behind.  Now, he's back. If you search around the new site for CRUSADE, the concept art with the T-Rex spewing laser/fire is from the concept art for UNIVERSE.


The whole thing is only slightly more credible than DAWN.  Funny thing is, when Horizons was first announced, I followed it religously because I was A) in highschool and B) a total newb about life in general and MMO's specifically.  I wised up fairly quickly.

The saga of David Allen has been discussed a few times here.  I think the final consensus was that, although he might not be a crook, he is insane.

I should visit him at home and ask? Confirm/Deny.

Like he's going to tell YOU if he's insane!

Judging by the run animations, I think they made a floating disk because they couldn't get a packhorse to look right.

The graphical representation wasn't the point, is there any MMORPG out there that has the equivalent functionality?  (External movable storage that survives login/logout and doesn't teleport with you, you can leave it set up somewhere, go do something else, and come back to it).

EVE has that.

UO had it 9 years ago.

Apples and oranges.  EVE jetcans and anchorable containers are stationary.  The sleds from Horizons were meant to serve as kind of simple pack animal.  The closest thing for EVE would be towable jetcans or cargo delivery drones.



Actually, I thought it was ripping of DnD and the now-renamed "Floating Disk" spell.  http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/SpellsF-G.rtf (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/SpellsF-G.rtf)

Horizon's external storage wasn't stationary? UO's was (you drop or you pick up, it doesn't move on its own).

You could drop stuff into the game world of EQ1 too, but I think it despawned after a short period (not tied to logging in/out). Would need someone who remembers better than I though.

And vehicles and droids (which could carry data storage) would persist in the world in SWG... if you crashed out :)

Yes you could.

They nerf that a while back, but you used to be able to scurry into a sekrit hidden place, dump coin on the ground, log out, log back in with your alt, and snap up the coin before the despawn timer passed. This was before the shared coin slot.

I did that in UO more times than I can remember. The 5k starting gold prompted a lot of insta-deleted alting :)

I remember EQ1 nerfing the coin drops. Did they ever shut down the item-passing one? Before they had the ingame compass, I used to use that to find true north (because swords always dropped into the world pointing north).

Yeah, people dropping stuff on the ground turned into a measurable source of petitions later in EQ's life.  Half were petitioned as accidental drops ("your broken game ate my X!"), and for the other half the only answer was to make one of two people really unhappy.  (Either the guy who dropped it gets told "sorry," or the guy who picked it up gets it taken from him.)

It acted as a cart.  If attached your character moved more slowly, or you could unattach it to run about.  It could also be put in inventory if empty.
Probably.  I thought the same thing.  The spells are only renamed in the d20 free rules.  All the Greyhawk names are proprietary.

Oh, so like a SWG droid, except it could carry goods too. Cool.

Hehe, I can quite imagine.

You know what I'd love to see someday: CSR headaches caused by game design features (since dropping into the world was a feature). :)

I never played UO, I didn't start MMOGing until mid 1999.  I always wanted to try it, but I really hate isometric, it just seems weird not to be able to 'look up' to the horizon.  I played D1 and didn't mind, becase that was the era, but when D2 was still isometric I was pissed (I still bought it and finished it, but pissed the whole time, esp when crap 'off screen' shot shit at me).


Until housing was added in AC1, 'ground muling' was the only way to transfer stuff between characters on the same account (without help from a friend).

You put the stuff on the ground (even a pack full of stuff), logged out, logged in your mule (character on same account just used to store stuff), and picked it up.

If the server crashes, you loose con, or someone wanders by, you lose the item.

I actually didnt mind this!  It added excitment to the game.

I always tried to find a good 'mule spot' for my chars, not far from a recall point, but far enough, not in the path random people would run by, etc.   Again, was a fun mini-game.

Housing added chests, and all chars can share the chest and house, and recall to the house, so its safe now.  I'll still ground-mule inside my house if my chest is full.