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Game Information
- Platform: Windows NT / 98 / 2000 / Me / XP
- PEGI Rating: Ages 12 and Over
- Media: Video Game
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
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Product Description
Product Description
Horizons: Empire of Istaria is the highly-anticipated, massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG). Horizons takes place within the world of Istaria--filled with cities and towns, castles and strongholds, villages and mystical structures--in environments ranging from tropical jungle and arctic tundra to windswept plains and mountainous wilderness. Whether adventuring by themselves or questing with a group of friends, players are free to choose their own path and encouraged to create their own stories. Fierce warriors, arcane spell casters and challenging combat will rule the frontier lands, but skilled craftspeople will play an absolutely critical role in overall character and world development.
Nine playable character races will be available when Horizons launches. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Fiends and yes--Dragons are among them. Each player character can be further customised with a near endless variety of visual tweaks, including gender, ethnicity, age, skin colour, body and facial types, hair styles and colour as well as wings, horns and other exotic alterations associated with select species. Players will also be able to select from a number of base adventuring schools such as, Warrior, Healer, Wizard and Scout as well as base crafting schools, including Blacksmith, Gatherer, Outfitter and Scholar.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
...don't let sour comments from some powerplayers (or munchkins - RPG-term) fool you, this game is great stuff.
A MORPG can never be Baldur's Gate. It cannot have a story that evolves around you the player. A MORPG is about immersing oneself in the world presented; and the world of Horizons is splendid indeed.
I see a lot of people complaining about the graphics, and this annoys me. Some visual flare has been sacrificed, true, but instead you have HUGE landscapes, and LONG view distances. I prefer that to walking around in a bumb mapped haze. It looks GREAT, believe me.
As for gameplay, well, you can play a dragon. Enough said. I've tried a lot of other titles like this (Galaxies, AO, DAoC, ++), and they are all basically the same, limited by the type of gameplay a MORPG can offer. Horizons is somewhat different. Horizons offer something more.
The music is second to none.
A lot of the issues that plagued Horizons has been resolved. It is relatively stable, and you can run it on high setting with any machine above average. Try the free trial...
A MORPG can never be Baldur's Gate. It cannot have a story that evolves around you the player. A MORPG is about immersing oneself in the world presented; and the world of Horizons is splendid indeed.
I see a lot of people complaining about the graphics, and this annoys me. Some visual flare has been sacrificed, true, but instead you have HUGE landscapes, and LONG view distances. I prefer that to walking around in a bumb mapped haze. It looks GREAT, believe me.
As for gameplay, well, you can play a dragon. Enough said. I've tried a lot of other titles like this (Galaxies, AO, DAoC, ++), and they are all basically the same, limited by the type of gameplay a MORPG can offer. Horizons is somewhat different. Horizons offer something more.
The music is second to none.
A lot of the issues that plagued Horizons has been resolved. It is relatively stable, and you can run it on high setting with any machine above average. Try the free trial...
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
As the review states this game could be extremely delicious...,but could have done with another month or so in the proverbial game oven.
To clarify, the game has amazing potential. The game works off a class bases system. You choose a class, buy your equipment and use them and your class’ abilities to fight off the forces of Blight(basically extra planar evil and undead).
Though unlike other such MMORPG style games such as DAoC and EQ you are not "stuck" in your first profession choice. At absolutely anytime you feel you are getting "bored" or "tired" with the aspects of a certain class, all you have to do is zip back to town and choose a new one. It’s just that simple. You also keep the levels you have gained in your previous profession and some of your abilities even transfer over!
A fully armoured warrior marching into combat with healing spells to ease his wounds and the dark arts crackling at his finger tips to cause grief to his foes!
The game also features a fantastic crafting system to rival that of SWG and it is easier to get to grips with. Player property is also available for those with the money in their pockets.
All this aside the game does have its faults.
I am sorry to say but the engine used to power Horizons is not good at all, putting it lightly. My PC is top of the range and I have to have my graphic settings below medium to even be able to have a stable game. The character models are often glitchy and at the beginning, the game had stability problems(the stability issues have since been resolved).
I could live with these slight defects quite easily with the exception of one problem. Loading times on character models. Character models of other players and NPC's will sometimes take up to 5 minutes to load. You could be standing right next to an NPC or player you wish to talk to and they wouldn’t even appear on your screen. You could walk right past them 10 times and not see them. This leads to large amounts of frustration and is the only real major let down I feel the game has.
Its faults aside this game is alot of fun and I would recommend it to any gamer who has played MMO's before if they don’t mind a bit of "buggy ness".I’m not sure inexperienced MMO gamers would enjoy the experience to its full potential as it might put them off. Though if you would really like to try this game out I would say you have made a good choice.
Good luck to you in the Empire of Istaria
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Conclusion first. Good graphics (lanscapes) and great music. All the elements are essentially borrowed from all the other mmorpgs out there - but in the case of Horizons they are all (or nearly all) done better. Two important examples are crafting and combat. The former has been well thought out and is complex/involving, has to be since the economy is player driven- IMO better than SWG. Combat is also up on a par with other current mmorpgs- lots of abilities to use, mobs have very good AI (unique in this genre i'd say), pretty solid. No PvP - so look elsewhere if this is what you want.
The great thing about this game and which makes it potentially epic are the world events. For example very recently in the game, players had been working to free a subjugated race, which was done by constructing various mines. In the midst of this, the undead launched an attack against players constructing the mines! If this kind of content keeps being added in this game will be long-lasting and engrossing.
Few tech issues: bit of lag (no excuse - needs to be improved), character models take a long time to be drawn/appear (unacceptable).
IMO this is not the next gen of mmorpg. I want to see real-time combat and maybe something different from standard lvling. This is the best of the current crop if you dont want PvP.
The great thing about this game and which makes it potentially epic are the world events. For example very recently in the game, players had been working to free a subjugated race, which was done by constructing various mines. In the midst of this, the undead launched an attack against players constructing the mines! If this kind of content keeps being added in this game will be long-lasting and engrossing.
Few tech issues: bit of lag (no excuse - needs to be improved), character models take a long time to be drawn/appear (unacceptable).
IMO this is not the next gen of mmorpg. I want to see real-time combat and maybe something different from standard lvling. This is the best of the current crop if you dont want PvP.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
improving all the time, great game!
Since the running of Horizons was taken over by some of the original team, we have seen patches, and game development. Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2008 by S. Paine
Updatet review
...I write this updated review because the game has just undergone a major re-patching, and we are now faced with a different game entirely.
New content have been added. Read more
New content have been added. Read more
Published on 23 July 2004 by Ole Mo
Endless possibilities
I bought the game after reading about it on the internet, and although it was a bit complicated in the begining once you get the hang of it, it is great lots to do and different... Read more
Published on 7 July 2004 by Wayne A Smith
Amazing Potential
The sad thing about this game is its history of development. After 2 years of ideas the dev team had conjured ideas to fit 3 seperate games, but the development team had not... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2004
hmmm not what I thought it would be like
I played this game from the start.. first month was hectic, the game was down, you had terrible lag if and when you did get in and as for customer surpport it was no-exsitent. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2004
Nothing new over the horizon
Well this game had potential.
However it fails to deliver on every single one of its key features and all its major selling points. Read more
Published on 4 Mar 2004 by "wibblah"
Horizons: Empire of istaria.
As already commented, Horizons has huge potential but is still very 'new' and Artifact has many imbalances to iron out. Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2004 by "willshirew"
Bad start, sad future
I dont care if people here say they were beta players or not. One thing is sure, at the release Horizons sure looks like a beta game.
The best things in game? Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2004 by D. Q. RAMOS
This is a joke !!!!
Im sorry but i have to say this game is beyond help,the graphic are very poor not up to today's standard's. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2004 by a.dethridge
Very public beta state
I cannot believe that this game was released in this state, and can only assume it was so that they could cash in on the Christmas sales effect. Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2004
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