Horizons: Empire of Istaria

by Atari

Product Features

• Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
• Adventure through dynamic quests as a dwarf, elf, gnome, fiend--even a dragon
• Dynamic world enables you to explore an ever-changing frontier and create custom strongholds
• Open-ended skill system allows you to switch character roles
• Note: this online game requires a monthly fee payable by credit card

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009MGU9
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches ; 5 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: December 9, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,767 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Horizons is the next-generation online,epic adventure. You can meet tens of thousands of people and explore the seamless world of Istaria with beautiful vistas, incredible geology and diverse environments. You are able to take on many different traditional fantasy roles; Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Fiends and Dragons are just some of the choices.

Your character can be further personalized by choosing to be male or female, fat, muscular, thin, young or old. At any moment you can choose to pursue wealth as a prospector or get paid for building communities where your friends create, buy and sell the thousands of items that are available in the world. You can learn powerful magic that can be used to fight, heal or grow, become adept at fighting or spend time chatting with your friends.

Horizons delivers an unparalleled experience to online players. Never before has an online product delivered so many opportunities for exploration, growth, friendships and creation. You can explore new lands and settle property. You can then develop the property in cooperation with other players to contain homes, gardens, stores, schools and many other improvements that give you a way of expressing your will in the world of Istaria. The combat action in Horizons expresses a cinematic quality through the wide variety of attacks, throws and feints. Exciting animations carefully choreographed show a spectacle of precision action and reaction battle.

The world within Horizons will continue to expand to provide you with the chance to discover and explore new lands, where new adventures and new opportunities await. The lure of the new frontier will entice players to leave the mostly tame, settled lands to search out new territory and make new friends. Artifact Entertainment has created powerful world editing tools that allow our creative talent to constantly build new content for the world, and insert that content while our servers remain live. You are able to play in the world while Artifact Entertainment sets up the next live event or details the undiscovered continent.

Product Description

Horizons: Empires Of Istaria is a world of legend and lore, where the next generation of online role-playing begins. Tales of the ancient world come to life as you forge a life for yourself in this unique, interactive online world. Many challenges are waiting in the untamed frontiers of Horizons -- from facing legion of undead to simply finding your place in a community. Create a vision for yourself in a new world!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of potential - still unfinished, December 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Horizons: Empire of Istaria (CD-ROM)

I've got the game this weekend. Installed, setup account, created a Lizard cleric, no problems. Web interface (idea) is real bad. Also IE takes a lot of memory so I suggest you close the IE while the game engine is loading. (Still it may take a few minutes until XP drops the IE libraries)

The good:
- Graphics, visuals, even in such low detail level (for good performance) Istaria looks amazing.
- Sound, best music for MMORPG by far.
- Tradeskills are OK (better than other MMORPGs)
- Fighting is fun, got some skills to use and make a difference
- Can really be unique with so many races available and then so many features that can be customized (height, head shape, etc)
- Can actually multiclass and it really works.
- No exp penalty on death, no corpse runs to get gear (allows you to take risks and have more fun)

The bad:
- The web interface login.
- not enough servers for the demand.
- Loading times are ridiculous if server is highly populated
- Gathering resources for TSkills is difficult cause so many ppl doing the same (if same place).
- Unless someone is selling what you want (spell or gear) you cannot buy it.
- Not enough information anywhere about the schools and skills, didn't even know Druid was a choice from start until read about it somewhere.
- It seems to have several bugs including very nasty memory leaks (game gets real slow after a while)
- Casters are not working very well ATM
- Warrior types always take Cleric to lvl10 for heals
- NO PETS in game, huge drawback for me
- Huge BUG when abilities go grey for no apparent reason thus becoming unavailable until you log (loggin in takes quite some time).
- Lacking dungeons which I think are great fun.

Can be the real next generation MMORPG if several issues are addressed (I'm sure all problems will be fixed eventually).

64 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just About Everything You Wanted in a MMORPG, September 22, 2003

By 

Kore Breach (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Horizons: Empire of Istaria (CD-ROM)

True, the MMORPG scene is very very crowded. So, why Horizons?

I can't do this game justice in the allowed 1000 words, but here are some of the (publicly-available) highlights:

- EVERYTHING in the game can be crafted. Start with the necessary weapons, armor, tools. Add structures, communities, castles, machines, bridges, portals, hedges, statues, etc. etc.
- CHARACTER GROWTH - Not locked into any "job". Change schools to advance different skills. MANY different schools, including "prestige" schools with prerequisites for membership. No level caps! Tons of skills.
- MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the world - Help reclaim lands from the enemy. Free subjugated races (so they add to the nine playable races available at launch). Build houses & communities. Build "empire structures" and "artifacts" that help your community or everyone.
- HIGHLY DETAILED CRAFTING SYSTEM - Wow! Obtain formulas, acquire the proper skills, harvest over 100 different types of resources, (Wood, sap, flax, essence, carrots, iron, silver, wheat...) Obtain the proper tools, Use the proper machinery, make the item. Enhance the item. Now sell it, consign it, build with it, trade it, etc.
- CHALLENGING REAL-TIME COMBAT - Not just "click and wait until the random-number generator decides on a victor". Learn special combat skills and use them at the proper time in combat.
- STUNNING VISUALS - Real weather. Layered textures. Fluid cloth motion. Spellcasters can create jaw-dropping weather affects seen by all players. Player-dragons can take flight to reach floating cities. Huge surface world with areas in the sky and below ground. Hundreds of animations per player race.
- AMAZING SOUND - Rich cinematic score. Impressive sound effects. Combat, race, and town-specific scores.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definately the mixed bag..., December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Horizons: Empire of Istaria (CD-ROM)

Horizons, as you might have guessed from the posts here, is a jumbled bag of many different attributes, both good and bad. I'll try to cover much of each, in as fair and objective manner as possible.

As a beta tester since September, with a top of the line rig, the graphics engine is a memory hog, with major loss of frames per second in a scene drawn of any complexity. While some spell effects are indeed quite nicely done, other graphics, such as characters themselves, are rather lack luster at best. The world environment itself is drawn quite well, with but just a few unrealistic detractions that pop up every so often. Combat animation is very reasonable, while casting animations (seperate from the actual drawn spell effect) can be quite repetative.

Races are many, but their variety is mostly in their looks. While there are differing "stats" per race, the amount of that difference very quickly proves inconsequential after 10 levels. Races also have abilities, some of which are quite potent, and lends some viability to the different races, while others are lackluster at best.

The exception here is dragons. The dragon race is uniquely done in comparison to the other races, with the promised ability to fly once becoming of age. Dragons are the only race with aging (three progressive steps), have their own classed (one each for adventuring and crafting) with its quest based advancement system, and a hoard which needs attention to keep a dragon viable in combat and effects the aging process. However enticing a Dragon seems from the start, however, they are weak when young, are significantly more difficult to play and level with, and sadly, have very few options for "distinguishing" themselves from other dragons, other than by looks alone. There is also likely to be many dragons at the release of the game, until the glamour of the race begins to wear thin, when those who are looking for achievement see that this is far easier to accomplish with a normal race.

The classes of all other races are available freely amongst each race. The classes, as is normal in a new product like this, range from potent to lackluster in capability ... some, at this point, lack any viability at all in the eyes of their testers. However, it can be expected that given time, these sorts of problems will be addressed, as is the nature of MMORPGS.

Multiclassing is not only possible, but quite rewarding in Horizons. The system is done very well, for example allowing you to be primarily a ranger, but with some mage like spells if you wish, with little impact. Those who go for balanced combinations will find their path a bit more difficult, as their level "rating" is raised by due to their increased abilities. Note, while any class can technically be mated to another, same combinations are far more effective, while others are a waste of time. Usually classes that share similarities are the more rewarding ones, while combinations which are vastly different from each other, such as a warrior/mage combo, will wind up disabling nearly all of the abilities and spells of the non-current "primary class." (A multiclass character must always have one single class selected for adventuring or crafting each, and that current class is the one that gains experience, and likewise limits the other classes from their full potential)

Prestige classes are also possible in this game... one need not be simply a warrior/mage combo, but instead might chose the prestige class of Chaoswarrior, using the abilities they have gained to apply towards a single class that uniquely combines the two, once they have reached the necessary prerequisite skills by leveling to a certain point in those two classes.

Crafting in this game... from my point of view, is done extremely well. If you like crafting classes, you will love Horizons, no doubt. While not as complex as in Star Wars:Galaxies, there is challenge, and a massive amount of variety, as well as the individual tasks of gathering resources, pre-processing them, and finalizing the product. Currently, there is little in the way of customizing a product visually, or in a more complex manner than by just adding a few statistics, but at least some of this has been promised to be added some time close after the release.

Monsters in the world, from the beta testers eyes, are the same models with different paint over them. However, on the final eve of beta, a few models "hidden" from even beta tester eyes were introduced, and promises of more waiting when the servers go live are heavily rumored. All models tend to be animated very well, and they usually are every bit, often more so, capable as characters. The AI has shown a tendency of severe repetition, anther feature proportedly "hidden" from beta testers eyes. However, a few observed instances, such as other monster healers attending to engaged mobs, rather than just themselves, does bode well for the game.

The weather effects of Horizons, by near to every testers judgement, are just astounding in visuals and sounds. Blinding blizards exist, that arent just swirls and a blanketed snow fog that limits your visability... but instead variating with snatches of visability just as one would have in driving windswept snow. Area's known as "blighted" can have terrific miasma's of green fog, or torrential rain with awesomely well drawn and powerfully thunderous bolts of lightening. Some particularly unique creatures in game can even "carry pockets of blight" with them, causing the weather and landscape to change as they wander about their way. Hands down, I have not played a game with better weather effects, and currently could only complain that the "natural" weather always seemed to be consistant and localized in beta. IE, if you picked a spot, and it was a clear day there, it was always a clear day there. If it was a blizard at another spot, it was always a blizard there. Again, developers of the game claim that this will not be the truth upon release.

While the sounds from weather are great, often the rest of the games sounds are quite repeating at best. They are done fine, with nothing sticking out as incongrous, but again, its quite lackluster. Additionally, ambient sound has yet to be seen ... er ... heard implemented.

Like any MMORPG, music, particularly combat music, is dreadfully repetative. I believe it as simply the nature of most computer games. There will never be enough music in a single game to add enough variety to it, and at some point, again especially combat music, it begins to get annoying.

However... what music there is, is done very, very well. Some of the music is just mind blowing in how wonderful it is; its obvious that they put a lot of effort to get a handle on an issue that plagues computer games. There are multiple scores for combat, but still far too few to sucessfully address that issue. Otherwise, the music is thematically placed, and for example, lends a strong feeling of the culture of the city you are in. I literally have gone to cities just to sit there and listen to the music run through, and then ported to another city to listen to it's score. Some cities even have multiple scores, another attempt to add to the variety. While I speak ill of music in computer games in general, by comparison Horizons does extremely well at it, easily placing as one of my top three games with regards to its music.

As for the User Interface, it's quite modifiable and easy to use. Visually, its merely acceptable; funtionally it is quite nice. Text from chat and game information is adjustable in size and color, as are the background of all the windows, to your preference of the level of opacity. Multiple banks of hotkeys are displayable at once, with the ability to select the primary hotkey bar for keystroke use, while keeping other hotkeys visually acessable and activated by a single mouse click.

My only gripes with the User Interface is that the area in which you type in order to chat with others or issue a command is not adjustable in size, which can make for extremely small text at higher resolutions. Also, there is an issue with the text "cropping" or having parts of it dissapear preceeding your curser as you type, making a very difficult situation for those who are not expert typists such as myself, leading to games of "guess where your typo is in the missing text." Finally, the size of hotkeys are not adjustable, again leading to issues of tiny sizes at higher resolutions.

Horizons, overall, is a darn good game, with it's own bag of issues. The nature of MMORPG's lends that this is normal upon release, and will get better as development of the game progresses. For me personally, I had no qualms ordering this game, as it fits my needs. However, others, particularly those who must have an element of Player vs Player, may see the game quite differently. The best suggestion I could make is to read as many reviews as possible, or better yet, see if you can look at the game first hand with a friends assistance.

Good luck, and I hope to see you in the world of Istaria, should you decide this game is for you.