'Horizons' changes names to 'Istaria'

[Nonentity]

http://www.istaria.com/news.php?nws_id=22

Renaming shit doesn't make it not shit, it just makes it shit with a different name.

All I remember about this game is the bad beta, and when I tried the trial again a few years later, I had a floating mining cart that looked like a fish.

[Yegolev]

''We've always felt that it made more sense to have a name that reflected what the game was about,''

Well try again, fuckers.

[Nevermore]

A rose by any other name....

[Valmorian]

How is this game still able to be active?!

[HaemishM]

MMOG's are harder to kill than Elder Vampires.

[Murgos]

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't Horizons Istaria: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't Horizons Istaria: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't Horizons Istaria: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't Horizons Istaria: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

[Koyasha]

When they make an MMOG museum, will the '<- Monsters' sign be there?  Also, did anyone ever figure out what Empire they were talking about?  I sure didn't play long enough to.

[tazelbain]

That's what they should renamed the game to.

[Aez]

That's what they should renamed the game to.

What?  Stone Death?

[Signe]

I stopped caring about Horizons when all the Davids left and there was no one to mock for a job poorly done anymore.

[Sunbury]

<green> At least Horizons has a large open world where one didn't f-ing zone every f-ing step or run into invisible walls every f-ing where, or look out over an open empty plain and walk toward it only to f-ing zone and BAM I'm in a forest...  (I'm looking at you: EQ1, AO, PotBS, CoX, DDO, Guild Wars, DAOC, ....) </green>

I always wish someone would buy the Horizons world, and the Horizons UI where you could annotate your own map (in game) and add a game to it.

[WindupAtheist]

''We've always felt that it made more sense to have a name that reflected what the game was about,''

So what, they're renaming it Cockstabs Online?

[Righ]

Probably the most interesting things in that game were the organizational mechanics behind opening up new content - the management of teams of people to gather, craft and carry the stuff needed to build tunnels to new lands or enable housing areas. So essentially a meta-game thing. The game itself was lousy, particularly combat and character development, which are the main attractions in traditional MMORPGs.

Also, it was apparent that the reason that David Bowman was a "creative director" was that he was creating stories about upcoming content that bore no relation to reality.

[Venkman]

This thread wins on having "nonentity" and "Horizons" in the same line.

[Dren]

All I know about this game was that many of the core people from my UO guild moved to Horizons when it first launched.  They all really liked the crafting and open sand box feel of UO, but wanted something new.

I'm pretty sure they all quit and never went on to any other MMO.  To my mind, Horizons is the exact opposite of WoW.  One brought tons of people into the MMO industry while the other killed a few.

[Triforcer]

I wish I had saved a copy of the first David Allen design doc they released.  The original "features" for this game rivaled Dawn in their crack-fueled idiocy. 

[Chenghiz]

I remember having to turn off character textures to have more than 1/20 fps in a town. Whee Horizons beta!

[DarkSign]

I was on a conference call with these guys right after Horizons launched and failed. They were complete a-clowns.

[Koyasha]

The original features for the original Horizons were pretty damn cool, actually.  They were way too much to tackle, of course, even if you had a budget the size of WoW, and that's why the project became what it eventually became, but the ideas were pretty good and weren't as insanely ridiculous as Dawn.  As I recall, it was supposed to have about 14 races, including dragons, vampires, angels, and demons, each with a slew of classes, and it was a PvP game throughout.  They never went to the absurd degree that Dawn claimed, where you would be able to do 'anything'.  As I recall there was supposed to be a complex faction system so you could switch sides if you wanted a character of one race allied with another.  Taken separately, most of the mechanics they spoke of were reasonable goals, it was only the huge number of things they wanted to do at once that doomed them.

It actually might have worked if they'd done it a little bit at a time, starting out with 2-4 races and adding the rest in via expansion packs.  Of course, as a full-PvP game it would still have been niche even if they had done it well, but it may have been profitable and a reasonably sized success.

Somewhere on my backup CD's, I think I have some saved maps and race charts they had way back then, but I doubt I'll be arsed to look them up.  Never saved the entire description they gave, though.

[Righ]

It actually might have worked if they'd done it a little bit at a time, starting out with 2-4 races and adding the rest in via expansion packs.

That's what David Allen is doing with his new game Alganon. If it doesn't work out, he'll go to the country to help his sick friend Banbury.

[Koyasha]

Wow.  A lot of that sounds like the same ideas from the original Horizons, tackled in small, bite-size chunks.  The plans for 4 more races in the first expansion, and 2 more in the second...  On the other hand, it looks like they're arranging their races on two 'sides', rather than having each one be an independent group who's alliances can shift depending on the collected faction work of the players.  Whatever they do with it, it's gonna be interesting to take a look at, if this game makes it as far as release.

[Signe]

[Simond]

Wow.  A lot of that sounds like the same ideas from the original Horizons, tackled in small, bite-size chunks.  The plans for 4 more races in the first expansion, and 2 more in the second...  On the other hand, it looks like they're arranging their races on two 'sides', rather than having each one be an independent group who's alliances can shift depending on the collected faction work of the players.  Whatever they do with it, it's gonna be interesting to take a look at, if this game makes it as far as release.

Aside from the "It's obviously vapourware", there's also the minor detail that it'd get stomped flat by Blactivizzard's lawyers for copyright infringement, and not necessarily because of the UI/artwork/etc. Take a look at the world map of A(z/sh)eroth and see if you can spot the volcano named "Black Rock", for example. 

Also: The jungle valleys of Tanglevine, the (no doubt trollish) region of Zul'nak, the town of Karr'gath, Shatterhand, and (oooh, subtlety!) Ixonya.

[tmp]

That's what David Allen is doing with his new game Alganon. If it doesn't work out, he'll go to the country to help his sick friend Banbury.

Lookiing on the screenshots i can't see how it'd ever not work out. It has 10 mil subscribers and moneyhats written all over it.

edit: snickers aside though, makes one wonder if they could get away with (chunks of) it given it's hardly different from how WoW was 'created' in the first place?

[HaemishM]

That's what David Allen is doing with his new game Alganon. If it doesn't work out, he'll go to the country to help his sick friend Banbury.

Lookiing on the screenshots i can't see how it'd ever not work out. It has 10 mil subscribers and moneyhats written all over it.

BUT IT HAS SPROGS! WINNAR!

[Sky]

I wish I had saved a copy of the first David Allen design doc they released.  The original "features" for this game rivaled Dawn in their crack-fueled idiocy. 

Dawn is still in development. I think. You know how that goes. Late alpha!

http://www.glitchless.com/dawn.html
http://www.glitchless.com/dawnfaq.html

How does the Dawn spawning system work?

There is no spawning. All creatures procreate via sexual reproduction. There will, however, be no sexual animations or any type. It’s more like a Sims type feature that allows for incredible role-play opportunities considering there will be REAL PC family structures. You won’t have to pretend to be so-and-so’s brother anymore because you actually will be.

Yeah.

[HaemishM]

God, I miss having Dawn and DA-era Horizons to mock in future tense.