Ok, the NDA has been lifted. The game comes out on the 5th in the UK and the 9th in the U.S.

How many from this board were in beta and what did you think?

I personally can't believe they are releasing the game in the state it is in. Granted this was my first beta test, so maybe they are all like this, but there are major problems with lag and other things that should be ironed out before release :(

The combat system still sucks after several revisions. It needs more work.

The dragon race was totally rewritten in the past week. Those changes have been tested 2 days in beta - broad, massive changes... being released with virtually no testing. Sure, it's been changed to be in line with the original design, but that is not what's been tested in beta. And this is the race that most people are going to be playing at first, just because it's new :(

If you like crafting, you'll probably like Horizons. That's the only way to get armor/weapons/items is through crafting. People who play the game for loot will be sorely disappointed (mobs only drop crafting resources, money and recipes)

I preordered the game a couple months back, and I haven't cancelled the order, but I can't see playing this one very long. And I really wanted to like it too :(

I'm not a loot whore, by any means, but I expect my mobs to drop *something*.

Oh, and I hate tradeskilling. If I wanted to craft something and spend hours doing it, I'd do it in RL and have something real when I'm done.

No Horizons for me I guess!

Here's the review I wrote for my guild:

In my mind, Horizons is a game of failed potential. There are so many amazing things in the game that really make me want to play, but then there are also endless frustrations, unfinished content and bugs. There were many nights where something would impress me and make me think, "Wow, I really want to play this game!" only to log off an hour later because of horrible lag causing me to crawl at less than 2fps through a town.

As far as an MMOG goes, Horizons is truly driving in the right direction. Like many classic RPGs, Horizons focuses on the fact that the world is in turmoil and you have to help save it. Instead of just leveling a character up, you can join in a battle against the undead. Due to the way the servers work, World Masters can actually change things in real time such as growing or shrinking a blighted area that is under attack. It brings a lot to motivate players into actually leveling aside from the typical gaining skills and spells like EverQuest does.

The world and music in Horizons are also very well done. Horizons might not have the biggest game world in the industry, but they utilize it very well. There were times I'd run around and just be amazed by the small details I could find. They also do a great job establishing the feeling of the world. Stepping into a blighted area is just amazing. You can watch the sky slowly turn green, lighting start and a vortex form above head. I imagine it would be even better seeing an area actually turn blighted, but I never got to experience that. While the graphics aren't the best, it is definitely a step up from EverQuest and I didn't really have the complaints that people who play more recent releases had with them. The music was perhaps one of my favorite features in the game. It's constant, varies and truly sets the feeling of the world. The game has 171mbs of mp3s that aren't small, looping songs like EverQuest. I never tired of having my volume up high because the music is just great. It really sets the mood from everything like shopping to tradeskills to being on the battlefield.

The combat in Horizons is less than stellar. One of the big complaints on the beta boards was how boring the combat is, and I have to agree. I had a very hard time motivating myself to level. For one, the progression of power is extremely slow. At level 14, my Mage was still doing less than 80dmg with nukes and only had a little over 200hp. While 14 out of 100 isn't too high of a level, I ran into a few high end mobs that only had a couple thousand hitpoints. For instance, a level 70 mob I found only had 1490hp. Perhaps a slower, smoother progression is something other, more casual players would enjoy though. I just had a hard time setting goals for myself.

Aside from the slow progression, I felt that fighting was too limitless. You can honestly have 10 hotkey banks open with 10 abilities/spells in them. A lot of people complain about only having the ability to use 8 spells or 10 hotkeys in EverQuest, but that is really adds challenge and strategy to the game. Being able to have every ability/spell I had memorized at all times meant I was prepared for everything. In addition to that, the only limit you have to your abilities is the time it takes to refresh. There is no mana bar. There is no feeling of urgency or excitement in the fighting because I never have those, "Oh crap, I wish I did ___ instead!" instances. The only real strategy in the game comes in the form of rock/paper/scissors. As you progress, you gain 3 "stances" which are named Red Scissors, Blue Paper and Green Rock. Just like a normal game of rock/paper/scissors, when a mob assumes one stance, you should go to the superior stance (eg if the mob has a red stance, you should go green). Sadly, this is nothing more than playing a game of Simon. There never has to be any thought between which stances you choose because there are no tradeoffs. Each one is only superior and only weak to one other stance.

Crafting was one of the major touted features of Horizons. It is very evident that it is one of the major focal points of the developement team. Everything in the game is tradeskill made and there are many different schools to choose from. My main complaint with tradeskills isn't a big one. It's just too easy for my taste. There isn't any failure if you have all the items, and from what I saw it wasn't too difficult to get things to make items. I also didn't see much tradeskill interdependancy, but that might be a feature they release later when item customization goes in. For my tailor, he'd basically go out, harvest a ton of flax (a plant), make spools, and then make the final item. I don't have many gripes about the tradeskill system. It is pretty well thought out, but I'm not as wild about it as some are.

The development team for Horizons was pretty good. A lot of people complain about their lack of feedback, but I considered it to be fairly adequate, but I'm coming from EverQuest - the game where if the Devs sneezed it'd be considered excellent feedback. There was almost always at least one dev in the beta chats. They were all friendly and very willing to take criticism. David Bowman (lead guy) is the exception though. He sort of struck me as being very robotic and indifferent to the player base. He also seemed completely oblivious of, not only what his team was doing, but what other MMOGs in general were doing. Many of the queries to him were answered with ambiguous uncertainties. Even two weeks before beta ended, he was still unsure what would or would not make release. His ideas on how to handle a beta were also pretty risky considering many of the lies we've been fed before by other MMOG developers. The entire beta was run under the premise that this would not be the final product and that the internal server had a lot more that we weren't being able to see. While I had no reason to doubt them, after playing EQ for 4 1/2 years I'm pretty skeptical whether this "after release" content (dubbed the "Miracle Build") actually exists or if it is a tactic to get people on the fence to buy the game.

All in all, I wouldn't rank Horizons as a horrible game. It has enough potential that I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it in the future to see how it progresses and if it'll grow to the game it should be. However, I decided against pre-ordering the game because, like every other beta tester, I do not believe this game is ready for release. When an entire facet of the game is revamped less than two weeks before release (Dragons, a rather large drawing point), you have to be very skeptical of what will happen after release and I simply will not spend money to beta test a product after it is pushed out the door by greedy investors. I truly hope Horizons will grow to become a wildly successful game since it has many innovative features that might be written off as a waste if the game is to fail. I guess this is becoming pretty cliche in terms of MMOGs, but the game will likely be good in six months.

S U M M A R Y:
(for those that don't care about my rambling)
- Combat: (C-) - Very little strategy or challenge involved.
- Crafting: (B+) - Could use work, but a lot of people seem to enjoy it.
- Lag: (F) - My fps rarely got above 10 in a town and was worse than when I played Luclin with a computer that was below system specifications. Load times were also horrible for me. I zone faster.
- Music: (A+) - Very, very well done.
- Class System: (D+) - Many classes to choose from, perhaps too many. There really is no niche established for any class.
- World: (B+) - Not huge, but done well. Lots of variety.
- Potential: (A)

- Overall: (C)

Keep in mind, of course, I'm not trying to discourage anyone from trying the game. This is merely based on my experiences in the game. I'm sure some people would have a blast in the game, and I'd honestly love to see and hear how the game progresses after launch, because I haven't completely written it off.

Cantatus, you summed up my feelings for the game, but much better than I did :)

y only differing view from yours is my feeling about the world size. The world is very small IMO. When you get 2500-3000 people playing this game, spread out around the world, it will seem much smaller than it does now I'm sure.

I didn't cancel my preorder for one reason - the claims of David Bowman. He repeatedly said during beta that we were only testing a subset of the game and that much more was being tested by an internal testing group. While this is scary that there was not wide-scale beta on so many of the things he promised, it still holds out hope that the game we buy is much better than the game we beta-tested.

I'm also hoping a lot of the lag in beta was caused from running a debug build most of the time on the test servers. Hopefully the release version will be more optimized. Connection-wise, Horizons was surprisingly stable. The video/database lag surely will be better in release.

I know, it's probably foolish to hold out those hopes, and I've been burned by games before, but I don't mind spending $50 on Horizons in the hopes that Bowman is right; I spent $50 each on Shadowbane and Eve and never got either of them to even run, so another 50$ wasted won't break me :)

To sum it up, I won't be buying Horizons.

I haven't participated in the Beta for a while, simply because it was damned boring.

Fights were not exciting and the difficulty of advancing your adventuring line was being made more and more difficult, frustratingly so. The only loot that dropped was random crafting recipes and cash or cash loot. I liked the crafting system relative to EQ, but it was still boring.

I also couldn't shake the feeling that much of the time I was running through unpopulated wasteland.

The game had/has potential, but I'm content to wait for WoW.

:(

I think they probably have to send these things lives before their time so they get money to continue development.

I'm going to wait and read the reviews. I was in beta, but couldn't stay interested. It looked really pretty, I liked the classes, the races, and the 'schools'. Combat was only ok. Framerate absolutely killed me though, and I usually ended up giving up and camping in utter frustration. I want to love this game, but I don't. as always, ymmv

I really liked HZ. But not everyone will. Rather than writing my own summary I will point to a pretty thorough write up from someone who feels positive about the game that I more or less agree with.

Who knows...beta players only saw a portion of the live game content, and I did enjoy what I saw. I did have ocassinal FPS issues (particularly during events). But on the whole, I found the game very refreshing. But part of that too is that I am really just kind of burnt out on EQ so I am ready for something new.

For those that want to read a more thorough write up that I feel is pretty balanced for being positive, look at hte link below.

http://forums2.warcry.com/flat_read.phtml?f=54&id=74954&thread=74954

PS Incidentally, just one reply to one of Aidon's points. There was a lot of content being added throughout beta and will be more in retail. I was in beta for the last 6-8 weeks of it and even in that time the number of active monster areas increased tremendously. It did feel a bit bare when I started but I really do believe they were holding back some of the content.

Edit:

Also, for chuckles, here is my much more cursory post to my guild about the game....definitely not for everyone but just kind of did a key points list for those who might not know the game.

*********************

At some point I will get up a page (or maybe I will lol it means taking the time to do it) about my beta experiences, with screen shots and all.

But anyway, I thought I would give the quick 10 things any EQ player should know about HZ. Some of this stuff may scare you! Be brave heh.

1 - Mobs don't drop treasure. It is all player made. Mobs DO drop components used to tech (technique) player made items and make them better. So, you can make a spell called lighting bolt as a spell crafter, but with the right drops, you can add varying degrees of damage, add a debuff proc, add piercing, crushing, or slashing damage, add range, etc (generally only one of those at a time at least at early levels). They also drop stat gems you can put in socketed armor. The end game is really more about liberating captured cities and fighting back undead armies than it is about breaking Time and getting loot. It just plays a lot different, and for those of us who enjoy the competitiveness of EQ I just don't expect to see much of it in HZ.

2 - There is absolutely no PVP in HZ. You can't even do it in an arena. The developers said basically do it right or don't do it at all, and putting both in the same game can create balancing issues and muddled class definitions.

3 - Death penalties are light. No experience loss or gear loss. No Corpse Runs. You get a death point for each death, and as you accumulate active death points they affect your stats for longer and longer periods of time.

4 - The game design is built around an overarching story of a war against the undead (known as the Withered Aegis). Mob AI causes mobs to group up on named mobs, and (in live release) will cause undead armies to attack and overwhelm cities.

5 - Crafting is amazing and omnipresent. It is the best crafting system I have seen. To make a leather BP, first you kill some animals, then skin them, then make hide strips, then make the BP. To make a house, you quarry stone, mine for metal, harvest materials to make cloth, etc.

6 - Any race can be any class, other than dragons that can only be dragons.

7 - You can play a dragon, and it will eventually (with a lot of time spent and effort on your part) grow up to adult and then ancient stage, fly, use breath weapons etc.

8 - You can change classes at any time. The game is built around multiclassing. ie, a druid can cast the rez spell, but in order to do so, would have to have leveled as a cleric for long enough to have the skill to cast the spell. I have been playing a gnome druid-spiritist(kind of like a necro but not really)-cleric-mage and have on the tradeskill side done spellcrafter-scholar-outfitter-tailor-mason-blacksmith-tinker-jewelcrafter. As you might gather, I didn't get to level very far in just a month that way ; ).

9 - Player construction is actually well integrated into the game. Player towns will become the focus of the end game, since they have the best access to high end materials and high level monster regions. You can also reconstruct destroyed bridges and other public works. Some islands in the game cannot be reached without this construction being completed.

10 - The world graphics are very impressive, though the character models still could use a little work. However, the engine is supposed to support easy implementation of those changes. Indeed, the engine is supposed to support patching without taking the servers down (at least most patching...big changes will be just like in EQ).

11 - The game is very skill based. No "no drop" issues for gear - just skill and level requirements. So no twinking. If you are a level 10 character you will not have the armor skill or level needed to wear level 100 armor (and as I gather there are up to 100 levels and you can get up to level 100 in any and all of your classes - err schools).

I will tell you there is a strong group of beta testers who really hated the game, and you will probably see some of their posts. But for me, well I know where I will be at least for a while. Be aware that beta testers were supposedly seeing only about 10-20% of the real game content, so a lot of what I think I know may indeed change.

EDIT OOPS forgot number 12 in my list of 10. NO DUNGEONS. Not yet. Apparantly there was a collision detection problem at some point in the mob AI and they do not have them yet, but will later. Kind of a biggie I know, and one that honestly bugs me some. But then, blight areas are very cool in their own right.

What a looker!


http://oldietree.com/horizons/images/oldoak%20markthree.jpg

A little eye candy of my own :)

Here is Kerech Shadowbane showing off a couple druidly spells. The first one (http://members.cox.net/rodburns/hzshot1.jpg) calls a shower of rocks down on your opponent:

This one (http://members.cox.net/rodburns/hzshot2.jpg) shows some lightning (since all us druids love lightning spells :))

I had a few really nice portrait shots of my characters, but one patch went through and deleted all extraneous files (including screenshots ) so I lost them :(

*edit* made pics into links

I didn't played it for long. I played my cleric to level 5 and quit before they moved the euro server. kinda boring for me. A friend also play it and he really like it. Good thing about horions is the fact you can combine classes and no death risk etc.. When you get lost, just recall. Yes like pervious posters said. The Combat system is kinda boringish heh. I stopped at level 5 and did some tradeskiling.

That is the one thing I would really disagree with that I see a lot of posters say. It is entirely a matter of taste, of course, but I really enjoy the combat in HZ compared to EQ.

Part of that of course is that after years of playing EQ it is very rote...in a group cast this spell, then wait a 3 count, then this spell, then wait till it is at 60% to start casting this, etc.

Then of course there is the grind of root rotting and quadding.

I can't really speak competently about a melee'ers exp of EQ OR HZ. But as a druid playing the game, I found it a lot more exciting.

Combat in HZ is toe to toe. There basically are not any effective techniques you can use to kite or root rot like in EQ. The snare spell breaks when you damage a mob. But there are no spell interrupts, so it is ok. The gist of it is that as you are fighting a mob it is right in front of you trying to pummel the hell out of you.

Casters get automatically repeating spells. For druids, it is the lightning bolt line Kerech showed above. That is kind of like turning on attack. On a low level mob, it is enough to deal with a fight on its own. On an even con mob or above, you will die and die fast if you don't do more.

In addition to the repeater, you get some higher damage spells that have additional effects. Maybe just a big boom, but maybe an AOE spell (lightning storm) that you want to use when more than one mob is on you. A stunning DD. etc You also have your heals.

And with multiclassing, you get spells from the other classes you can play. A druid can cast spiritist spells and cleric spells, so I multiclassed those classes and had life taps and a cleric big boom spell, and cleric heals etc that I needed to work in. You may even have more than one auto casting spell that you can choose from, and some are better than others.

On top of that you can tech your spells. At the end of beta I had two active versions of lightning bolt - one did extra damage, and the other procced a debuff of nature resistance. Knowing which to use is something you need to keep an eye on since the mobs had different resistance levels, and sometimes the resist debuff spell did more damage than the extra damage version.

And beyond that there are the skills. You get them about every 1.5 levels, and you get different ones in each class. Some carry over from one class to another. So as a druid-spiritist-cleric, I ahd about 30 abilities by level 22 that I could choose from. Some were very powerful (instant heal for instance), and otehrs were less so. But these can also (and sometimes MUST also) be chained in while you fight.

And finally there were the combat stances. Using the right ones increased DPS by up to 20%. All based on rock-paper-scissors. If a mob is in scissorst stance, you go into rock. You being in rock will make the mob change to paper. So then you go to scissors. You can of course just not use stances, but the increase in your damage is pretty material (and that applies to casting and melee).

So at 21 I could kill a level 25 mob, maybe a 26, but it was a challenge. Figuring out which spells to use in which order is going to be the art of this game for me. And knowing just how much players have done with the relatively limited tools of EQ, I know it will be a complex process for each individual player.

Now that glowingly positive stuff said (heh I realize my bias), I will agree that multiclassing also means that clear roles in a group will be a muddled affair. A 10 person HZ group will not play like a 6 person EQ one, where you have to work harder to balance your resources and people have to be very task oriented ot make the group succed (this person slows, this person heals, this person does damage, this person tanks, etc).

But at this stage I look forward to that open endedness. In time, the tactical issues (I hope) will become clearer, and the game will evolve to support that just as EQ has.

But then, heh, I have already switched games so it is not so surprising that I am saying that, either.

So at 21 I could kill a level 25 mob, maybe a 26, but it was a challenge.

They must ramp up the damage at 20? I tried scout, druid, and mage and by level 10 I was having problems with each killing level 7-8 mobs. I heard lots of people complaining in the beta forums about people in the teens having similar problems. Never got above 12 with the char wipes, so can't say for sure.

The problem I have with the combat (as a primarily caster player) is that it's just as boring and repetitive as EQ. You mentioned casting a spell, waiting 3 seconds, casting another, etc. That's what I found myself doing in HZ. Make sure all spell timers had reset, cast pulling spell, cast repeating damage spell (lightning, fire bolt, whatever), nuke, enter melee for a swing between casts once in a while, wait for nuke to ungrey so I could hit it again, etc.

It got so bad at one point in the beta that I could kill a flame beetle by hitting 3-2-1-2-1-2 and then resting a few seconds. People were macroing combat in the beta and leveling overnight while AFK. That's not a good sign in any combat system :)

I never had a problem at any level killing even cons or higher.

It is about the judicious use of secondary spells and abilities, and a lot about multiclassing.

I also did the quests that help boost your casting states (nature quest, etc), and skills matter for damage.

Before they adjusted the healing line at the end of beta I was basically only hunting things that were at least 3 levels above my own. After the change I switched to around even con, with the ocassional higher con mob when all my special abliites were reset.

I generally had no problem killing 2 mobs at once when they were 2 levels below me. So I could kill 2 level 20's at once most of the time when I was 22, if at least they were the right classes.

Another big part of all that is that in HZ your AC stat really, really matters, so being sure you have hte best armor possible for your level is key to being able to take on harder monsters.

The macroing thing is deeply troubling to me, but then I remember the afk mage/pet tricks from EQ, and at least this issue is evenly distributed among the classes ; ).

Over time I honestly think they are going to need to make the game harder and the leveling slower, but the beta crew always whined a lot whenever anything changed and I think distorted the reality of the game challenge. I do think it needs to be tightened there, but hell, that could still be said of EQ and it is now 5 years old.

Well, it was very boring for my cleric. all I do this run to the mob, say hi, attack it, press the heal button, press more heal buttons, hope they refresh and I get a heal before I die, go melee more. I had problems kiling mobs that are same level as me also. Though I never multiclassed, only played Cleric.

With a cleric the best thing to do is multiclass spiritist imho (more than druid). Spiritist gets some great damage spells, and other than when youare leveling the spirit class you get all the benefits of cleric gear.

Clerics in HZ are if anything a bit overpowered since they get the full heal progression, and with the heals you can do jsut about anything. Weak in damage spells as you would expect, but that is what the multiclassing is for.

Going way back up to Cantatus's post, I read it again and I thought that was a great summary. I agree wholeheartedly about the potential, but enjoy it more than you did in its current form. I hope it lives up to my hopes, but /shrug time will tell.

One thing I did want to say though is that mob power does ramp up some...this is a screen from the end of beta event. Sorry for the crappy quality but I had my setting turned way down and well he came to visit with me all sudden like...

Note his hit point count. I did 6 damage on him at this point in the fight. I assure you I won...yep...don't let my zero hp count or his million plus fool you...


Edit... Hmm better link that puppy instead, sorry...

http://oldietree.com/horizons/images/finalevent5.jpg

I missed the final event - I thought 12 AM on the 4th meant midnight the night of the 4th, not the 3rd :(

Anyway...

How'd you get 2 hotbars open? That would be quite handy :)

You just right click on one of them and click "New Hotbar" or something like that.

You just right click on one of them and click "New Hotbar" or something like that.

Oh, that's too easy :) Thanks.

BTW, I found this over on the Horizons boards - someone is getting an early start:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3064433716&category=4596

The thing I found most amazing about Horizons after release is that most of the people who let it rip when the NDA dropped HAD to be playing a different game.

Half the stuff people complained is not even true. It has been a sureal experience.

I think I'll have to check this one out. I'm hearing really good things about it from people playing after it has gone live. Maybe it'll be my xmas present to myself.

I'm still enjoying it so far. It's a grind like EQ, but so far it's fresh enough to keep me interested. :)

I am still loving it, but it is a game that seems to be either loved or hated.

Panamah, if you do decide to play, and decide to play a rogue, be aware that it is as yet unsolved how you can become a rogue.

The devs have repeatedly refused to comment on whether there is a rogue class in game, but ROG show up on gear as a class that can use a given item, etc.

What they have said is if there were a rogue class in game you certainly wouldn't wander into town and find a trainer to become one.

Don't think it has been cracked yet, but there is an NPC named Sly Loki in a windmill near Dalimond that appears to be involved in the quest.

Generally with the school based system you need to have minimum stats to join special prestige schools, and this one may require say 150 in piercing skill or something. In which case, it might be best to start out as a warrior. I think the warrior is the most likely beginning point for rogue.

Is there a good website for Horizons? I don't want spoilers necessarily but I'd like to know how to move from town to town and I can't find info anywhere. I went through the tutorial and all it told me was how to move and how to craft items kill mobs. There is no in game information or support, and the primary website is pretty pictures. I wanted to play a druid can't find a druid adventure trainer finally found some info on a website saying there's a nature trainer in Mygra? but I'm not in that town :( and running down roads seem to get me to either dead ends or cliffs where I drown and spend 5 mins staring at the screen till I figure which button to push (tutorial didn't cover death either!). I've greeted all the npc's I can find and only thing I end up with are quests that need me to travel to other towns which I have no clue how to get to :) I saw something about teleporters but haven't seen one in the game.

So far my reaction to Horizons isn't favorable due to 1) clunky UI and 2) I'm more confused at the onset of this game than I have been at the onset of any other mmo.

Well...all the websites can be a bit of a morass on the message boards. There is a lot of love or hate to Horizons.

The best resources are:

www.tazoon.com The beta forums were there...a lot of experience players, and some good web based tools. Message boards are the best of a weak lot. Wear your teflon, and head directly for the Q&A and topic specific areas if you want answers. Druid section of the message board is pretty good actually.

http://hz.warcry.com/ Some of the very best web tools. low activity message board but a great source for info, particularly their game database.

http://horizonsvault.ign.com/ Home of the official message boards. Ok resources, horrible message board (both for tone and horrifically bad interface). Better off at Tazoon for most stuff, but the home page at the Vault is usually worth stopping in on. Also where they post a lot of dev chats.

http://hz.stratics.com/ They host some good interviews. Message boards kind of quiet iirc. Decent tools there too.

http://www.hzdruids.com/ The new-born horizons druids site

Now...answers to your questions...

Druid Trainer: Found in the city of Dalimond. Use the port ring to get there, and run down the hill toward the water. The location of any NPC in game can be found using the HGD tool at Tazoon. The druid trainer is located at: 22707.60, 22707.90 She is outside the cleric building there so be sure to look under the tree.

Druid Trainer (http://oldietree.com/horizons/images/druidtrainer.jpg)

The teleport rings are big circular things that look hmm like stargates from the TV series. Image here:

http://hovault.ign.com/thegame/screenshots/large/86.jpg

The disc part is always the most identifiable. Just walk up the ramp or right click on it and you will get a destination window to pop up. Select the town you want to go to and you are on your way.

In the starter towns the rings are all real close to the village. What town are you in? I can let you know where the ring is (but usually if you ask around someone can point it out).

On the UI, you can drag, drop or add just about anything you want to, so move it around a bit. I find the Horizons UI is the best I have used because it has the flexibility of customizeable EQ UI's but it is all done by drag and drop. People can come up with very varried layouts.

I found the trickiest learning step for horizons for me was figuring out how to use the crafting system. Best to start out like in any game really just bashing a few easy things and seeing what is what.

I would be happy to help any way I can. If you happen to be on Shadow, feel free to shoot me tells in game. Or post here ; ).

The Horizons boards can be pretty helpful if you don't get caught up in the flame wars in the general forums heh.

So... how would Horizons appeal to a truly casual player?

Can I log in and play for 1-2 hours and get anything accomplished?

Is it possible to solo as any class?

Does it feel like grinding away at goals, or is it adventurous sort of play?

Good questions panamah.

And they are hotly debated among Horizons players.

Is it possible to solo as any class?

Yes indeed. All classes are able to solo at all levels. Some classes are still being tweaked (read they were overpowered ; ) ) but the gist of it is:

As a melee, the fast regen of the game and importance of AC means that you can ably solo. Trick is more about working out your pull technique so you get singles. You can also multischool a little in cleric to give yourself some basic heals, even as a warrior.

As a priest, you heal yourself continuously throughout the fight and deal your damage.

As a mage type caster you dish out a lot of damage and have mezz like abilities and slow type abilities to reduce the monster's damage output.

In Horizons, your armor stat is very very important. Always have the best gear you can get.

Can I log in and play for 1-2 hours and get anything accomplished?

Short answer, yes. I have found value in playing in increments of as little as a half hour. Horizons gives you a variety of outlets for your effort, so you can always select a specific goal for a short play session. You can for instance adventure for a while, or try to farm up some crafting reagents, or do a few quests, or do some crafting, or visit the vendors to replenish your wares, or work on construction projects.

Construction generally is better for long play sessions...it takes some time to make components and run them to where you need to install them. Adventuring is VERY easy to do in short stints. Quests too, though the quests can be somewhat repettiive. You get good experience for quests in Horizons so they can be a decent way to spend short sessions. However, the more frequently you repeat a specific quest, the less experience it is worth each time you do it.

Does it feel like grinding away at goals, or is it adventurous sort of play?

EDIT: One point to make first. Leveling is VERY fast in Horizons compared to EQ. The thing is with multiclassing, you can end up doing a lot of different leveling in different craft and adventure schools. But you can get a new level - even several new levels - in a single night. I got a level last night in about an hour (level 26). Bear in mind that depending on the school in question, the soft cap for levels in Horizons is either 100 or 120.

That is a harder question than you probably realized. I love the game and I really don't feel I am grinding away most of the time. There are sessions of course where you try to level up more and that can feel like a grind. For instance if you are crafting at all some sessions you will make and deconstruct items again and again purely for experience. That can have a zen-like feeling to it, but it can get boring if you don't give yourself some variety.

How "adventurous" the game feels overall is very debated. The play itself allows a great deal of richness in tactics because of extensive ability lists and differing class strengths. There is a lot of cool and interesting scenery you can stumble across as you work your way around the world. I genuinely find the combat very, very engaging and active compared to EQ, but as a druid in EQ combat was very repetitive (root/rot, quad, or group, you basically do the same things in the same order again and again and again most of the time). HZ druids fight a mob toe to toe so you have to deal with healing yourself in combat etc. Much more active.

PLayers who dislike the game often criticize two facets of it. First, the lack of mob drops can make some players feel that the adventuring side fo the game is anticlimatic and pointless. I have not really seen it that way since it has been years since I have given a damn about experience group drops in EQ, and I played in POP for a year with basically no loot drops (not even platinum). I do find that since I both craft and adventure that I feel very rewarded when I hunt monsters that drop craft components that I need. Not all feel that way.

The other criticism players level at the game is that it is a bit too easy overall. There are very light death penalties (you can return to your bind point with a death point and all your gear or you can wait for a rez...no lost experience, no corpse runs). You can solo as just about any class. You can kill mobs over your level most of the time. etc. That is very casual friendly, but it can mean that some players won't find the game exciting. I do, however. For me the challenge is very eq-druidish. Outdoor zones, wandering mobs, avoiding adds, etc.

I definitely think the game is casual friendly, but how much you like the game will depend a lot on what sort of challenges you want, and what you are willing to not have in the game.

For me, the hardest thing to overcome has acutally been the absence of dungeons. I am sure they will come in time, but there are none at the moment ; ).

I think ease of recovery in a game is a good thing actually. It lets you try silly things that give big adrenaline rushes . For instance in Morrowind. You walk into an area not knowing what is there, you get attacked and die. Oops. No bigger, you restore. You try again, this time you have a clue and you need a tactic to deal with it. If you knew you'd have to deal with an hour of CR, you'd play the game exactly the same conservative way all the time because the penalty for dying is too harsh.

But if you can recover easily, you try new stuff and I think that keeps the game fresher.

Anyway, it sounds like Horizons might be a good option for me. What servers do you guys play on?

Kerech and I are both on Shadow, but there are some indications that they are not letting more people on it at the moment (at least maybe not through the trial).

Shadow is a non-role play server. Role play servers are not really that different but in theory the name system is supposed to be more policed on role play servers than it is on the others.

Shadow is a very good server imho. Feels like a lot of EQ people. Strangest thing about HZ is that it seems to be drawing more people from DAOC, AC1 and UO than it does from EQ, so people come to the game with very different expectations.

Do they allow you to switch servers at all?

NOt currently.

The free trial is just 7 free days to get a feel for the game, so it isn't really a huge loss of time invested if you start on a different server after you buy the game.

They have talked about server switch stuff but at this point it isn't available.

Chances are it would take most of the week to just figure out the basic mechanics and try a few things. You might find that you want to reroll anyway just to try to head for a different class or prestige class.

If you try it out and you want to keep the characters you make you might want to throw them on Blight if you can't get on Shadow (and want to be on Shadow). Blight is the test server and even if you never level your characters up farther it is still interesting to be able to log in and see the latest changes before they are live.

Chances are, you could easily spend a week just trying out a few things - play a dragon for a bit and see how that feels, then try some melee, or a caster, or a priest...learn how to craft.

I had the luxury of doing that during beta when I knew my trial characters would be purged anyway (and yes they were 3 times heh). It is mostly familiar to an EQ player but a few things work pretty differently.

They're not letting new people on Shadow? Wonder why... our population is only 'moderate' during prime time the last few weeks. I haven't seen 'dense' or 'full' since about the time everyone's free month ran out.

Actually Gale said it was a bug (Gale is the community manager for Horizons FYI). So, you should be able to set up the trial accounts with characters on Shadow or anywhere.