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B_Delacroix
04-06-2004, 09:11 AM
I know I'm full of questions. So far my only sources of information is this forum and the marketing dribble from the official site.

Obviously the latter is going to tell me just enough to not actually say anything but enough to make it look good.

My questions are:

How awful is "the grind". I detest grinding, I don't mind going about doing things and having experiencing as a side effect, what I don't like is sitting and camping and killing the same thing over and over because that is the most efficient way to level.

How important are levels? Is it the case that the game is really played at the upper end and you have to level to get there?

About quests, I asked this about EQ, too and was told enough to be interesting, but found the truth of matters later.

In EQ, yes there are quests. I started out like any adventure game and talked to everyone. I began a boat load of quests. Found out that most of them I couldn't do realistically till I was level 40. Found out that getting to 40 takes a lot of grinding - see above. It took a lot of grinding when I started EQ way back in the day. The same days that the goat-hair shirt wearing crowd enjoy so much.

I'm not saying I want to level to whatever the maximum is in one day or even a week. From what I see there are several interesting things that go on and you don't have to be an "oober goober" to enjoy it. I just want confirmation that this is true.

This is why WOW is appealing to me, too.

B_Delacroix
04-06-2004, 09:24 AM
Sorry for the three seperate threads. I am torn between keeping a different topic for each thread and just putting them all in one thread to lower the amount of n00b talk I am espousing.

I am reading that you can purchase land. That in itself isn't extremely interesting, but an idea came to mind and I don't know if its possible. If it is, I might already have a 'goal' in mind.

Is it possible to build, say a tower on the frontier as a personal base to hold back the undead hordes?

I imagine (yea, I'm a paladin, I can't help it, even if such a class doesn't exist in the game) holding a piece of land at the edge of the empire fighting back the Aegis anyway I and my friends can. In addition to getting involved in all the various activities I have seen posted here.

Oldoak
04-06-2004, 08:51 PM
Will try to hit your questions in order but if I miss anything or don't make sense just let me know.

1) How awful is the grind?

That is a bit of a trick question. First some basic facts. Horizons allows (and encourages) multiclassing. Horizons doesn't have a level cap per se, but a soft cap of about 100 or 120 depending on your class. Put those two facts together and the result is that you could be looking at obtaining 150 levels or more as an adventurer to be "capped." (Without getting into the hairy details some game design mechanics prevent you from maxing all the adventure classes you join so you have to plan some).

You can do the same thing again on the crafting side.

That said, it is relatively easy to chug through a level or two in a game session. As you level up you fight harder monsters that give more experience. So leveling isn't particularly hard to do.

People who don't like the game often complain about the leveling process saying there is not enough development in the game play experience as you level. I have not found that to be true, for me. As I level up my strategy adjusts based on what skills and spells I have at that point, and how my armor is relative to the stuff I am fighting. It is also true that different mobs have different dangers. Recently I started fighting monsters called Pale Shamblers (picture fat bastard from Austin Powers). They spit green goo on you that does some hefty damage, and I have to use different strategies when fighting them than when I am fighting a melee oriented werewolf.

2) How important are levels?

Tricky. You don't really NEED to level a lot but I think you would find you would do it just to get access to better spells and armor. From what I have seen on Shadow, most people hosting events try to get people who are level 40 plus or so to go do stuff. You won't really be able to do a ton if you stay low, but I don't feel there is any external pressure to "max level" like I saw in EQ. I could easily see getting to level 80 and just stopping...you could do most stuff at that point.

I myself have been leveling very slowly, focussing on the breadth of my character. So...no big hurries at this point.

3) What about quests?

Like most MMOG's there are a LOT of fedex style quests. In truth, I do feel this is overall an area of weakness for Horizons. Thinking about EQ, I found a lot of the EQ quests completely random...solving them was trial and error and a lot about stumbling across the right drops. I know I used a LOT of spoilers for EQ, and without them most quests would probably never have been solved.

In HZ, the general quests you do are very easy, and you even have a quest log that records exactly what you need to do. "Kill 10 Fyakki." "Get a scroll and bring it to Shears Robuck."

The better quests in Horizons are parts of the weekly events. The latest event is about introducting Dryads into the game (really pixies but lets not quibble). There is a collaborative effort on the game boards to solve the quest, which involves collecting wands and spells and doing things in a certain order around a giant tree. And of course first people had to build this neato rainbow bridge out to an island where the tree is. Those quests are pretty meaty, but they are not the kind of thing you just go do yourself.

There are some weekly events with single player quests too, but they have not really created single player quests yet that are deeply engaging. They ARE worth doing. The lore in them can be satisfying. But they are not huge challenges.

One druid only quest I did at level 20 was multi-part, starting with giving the quest giver a cedar cudgel, then proceeded with killing a lot of skeletal clerics and collecting 10 skulls. At the end I got a nifty little 1hb that boosts my healing ability a hair.

Truthfully, one of the things I have liked about it is that I can solve the quests myself without resorting to a spoiler, and it isn't terribly frustrating. But I do think they need more depth. At some point, I hope they will have everquest epic like quests.

4) Land purchase.

PLayer housing is all constructed. You have to buy a plot, and plots are found in towns (player towns or racial towns). Basically they are found at specific places in the world.

LONG TERM...they are supposed to implement castles and other defensive structures. Right now, devensive structures don't really work since the collision detection doesn't really prevent a mob from walking through a wall to get you ; ).

More to the point though the towns are not where the monsters are, unless there is an attack event. The player towns ARE nearer the end game content, and building the towns up to have more access to tradeskill resources and monster regions is important to the overall game.

One fair criticism is that currently player housing doesn't DO anything. THat isn't entirely true. You can build stores with shopkeepers, you can build tradeskill facilities that have machines you can use in them. But it is true that a HOUSE doesn't do anything right now. They are trying to enhance that part of the game but it is still a ways off. Right now, housing is mostly a vanity thing.

Sometime in the next few weeks the functionality of storage silos will go live. Those will add some storage room which can be very important if you are a tradeskiller. I busted my hump this past weekend to finish my silo thinknig it would go live in Monday's patch, but no love (yet) ; ).

The neatest thing about the housing is its customizeability. The problem is that it needs to have more of a function than simply making a town feel complete.

5) Paladins

They do exist in game ; ). THey are what is called a prestige class, which means you have to work to become one. You need to spend some time as a cleric, and ideally some time as a warrior. When you have enough skill in the right areas you can become a Paladin.

Paladins are a very strong class in the game. One thing that I have found extremely important in HZ is armor class, and paladins with their access to healing spells, and strong melee and armor class, are a very popular class to play.

I like the warcry site for class info. It might not all make sense to you without playing but the Paladin info is here:

http://hz.warcry.com/index.php/content/compendium/schools/?page=49&per_page=1&

Oldoak
04-06-2004, 08:56 PM
Just to give you a bit more of a sense, this is my current class info in Horizons (they call em schools in horizons but same difference)...

Adventurer: Druid 37, Spiritist 30, Healer 25, Cleric 20, Mage 8, Warrior 2
Crafter: Spellcrafter 35, Mason 20, Jewelcrafter 17, Gatherer 15, Fitter 14, Enchanter 11, Outfitter 9, Carpenter 8, Weaver 5, Miner 2, Alchemist 2, Blacksmith 2, Tinker 2, Confectioner 1


"Eventually" I will get to about 115 druid, 80 healer, and 50 spiritist on the adventure side, and 120 spellcrafter / 120 tailor on the crafting side (notice I haven't even started Tailor yet heh).

But I am in no hurry...it will take me 9 more months at least to do that. No pressure to it, which is something I really love about Horizons.

Lowger
04-06-2004, 09:44 PM
I'm not really sure why i'm even replying to this since it would be damn hard to add anything useful that Oldoak hasn't already covered but.....

I played Horizons for the first week or two and I have to tell you that I have never seena game that had more potential than it did. The Crafting Engine gave me goose-pumples (yes, I meant to type pumples), the questing was fun, the community seemed fairly strong and it was relatively bug free for me.

The reason I quit? Well i'm not entirely certain. Part of it was that I didn't have ANY friends there to share the experience with, I didn't even run into any ex-EQ'ers with whom i could relate to, I joined a guild WAY to soon and although they were fine people, very helpful and quite organized I just didn't have any personal connections to them and didn't stick around long enough to develop any. When i quit i was the servers' 2nd ranking Carpenter and was enjoying the crafting side of the game quite a lot but the adventure side was just more soloing for me...there didn't seem to be a lot of folks grouping up and i've spent almost 5 years of EQ and various other MMO's soloing...I'm tired of it. The one aspect of crafting that I didn't like was, being a Carpenter I was working...yes this is a game and i was WORKING...too damn much on the guild plot buildings only to find out that when we were done, they had NO purpose. I worked on the guild plot Silo for 3 days straight for 10 hours each day to get its' Wooden needs taken care of and then was told that we wouldn't be able to store anything in them....I was very disappointed.

Overall, I've been seriously considering trying Horizons again and would certainly recommmend it to other people to give it a chance...it's a solid game and has a lot of extremely fun elements to it!

I hope you give it a whirl, find a great bunch of folks to experience it with and have a blast!!

Oldoak
04-07-2004, 03:45 AM
To give you a little more substance on quests, here is a screen of my current quest window.

The first expanded task is your typical "kill a lot of these" quest. It has a decent experience reward, and has you kill stuff you would be killing for leveling anyway.

The second expanded task is part of the process of getting the formula for the druid Dark Cyclone spell. You have to do a number of these quests to earn tokens that let you buy the formula (and I think there is some stuff after that too). FYI, those skeletons are seriously harder than other equivalent level mobs...it will be a while before I can kill em ; ).

The third open task is a partially complete special event task, from when werewolves were attacking the human town of Dalimond. I was not online the day Shadow wiped out the menace so I can never complete the quest, but it is a typical event quest. The "something special" you need to find is a drop from the now extinct werewolves.

Find Bolger is a quest that I am not tough enough to do since it involves level 80 monsters (killing a fair number of them). Since you apparently have to find 5 pieces, I don't think Bolger made it. It is a quest that gives a pretty decent crystal, which is an item you can put in a socket in your armor for additional stat buffs.

Some of the non-expanded quests show you the normal mix of other stuff you can do. There are some more substantial quests around, but there are a fair number of "gather x of item y" or "kill z of mob w" type quests that you do.

The real reward most of the time is good experience. I did a quest the other day that gave me 14,000 experience in one shot, or about hmm 1/6th of a level.

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

B_Delacroix
04-07-2004, 08:56 AM
I went with the 7 day free trial thing and downloaded the entire 1g+ install. Following is an accounting of my experiences. I played with my wife, ah, emm, no I mean in the game, to share the new experience. I've played all of one character for one evening so far, so this isn't a full review or anything. Quite literally, its a first impression.

Graphically, I was impressed. Little details are what tells me the people who made the game really cared about what they were doing and not so much just chucking out polygons to make money. The lighting was done right if not a little dark. Adjusting the brightness control did nothing that I could see. Its not all that dark, but some days my vision is dimmer than others and sometimes I may not be able to get around at night.

As I was saying, I was impressed with the details. The tufts of long gras that flowed in the wind. It made me almost feel the breeze. The subtle shafts of light pointing out things like the binding shrines and your current target didn't lag out the machine. Hills appreared rounded rather than jagged collections of triangles. The clip plane didn't look like an artificial fog bank.

I had to change the movement and camera keys right away. I just couldn't train my hands to do it their way. Its a little odd at first getting used to that. So far, I know of no way to put it into first person view. Finding the recenter key helped greatly, though.

The music was good. It wasn't overbearing but some of it is quite nice.

Character customization offers a huge variety in appearances. While some settings set to extremes make one look comical, if you use them in moderation you can have quite a collection of tall, short, fat, skinny, muscular, wirey players. Not all elves look like the rest. As a side note, I found it amusing how the characters keep examining themselves while you alter their appearance. They seem to approve no matter what you make them look like.

I loved the tutorial thing. It could have explained better about how to do tradeskills, as was pointed out earlier in this thread. My wife and I spend probably an hour or two just trying to figure out why we couldn't gather the sandstones in the training area. It kept saying we needed some other equipment. Finally, she found the chat channels and asked and people seemed friendly enough. We got enough of an answer to find out how to do it.

Let me splain something at this point. See, I thought being a dragon would be trendy and so planned to avoid it. Then, for some reason, it just came over me that it might be different and fun. So, my character is a dragon. I realize that this eliminates a lot of the game play that the bipedal races have to go through such as classes and equipping items, but it is different. I will make a bipedal probably if I stick with this game for an extended time.

Young Chrysamere (http://www.redstone-atlas.net/young_chrysamere.png)

Ah, back to my review....

When we finally got finished with the tutorial, it was off to the practice field where I quickly got tired of tutorialing and wanted to get started in earnest. So I took the transporter ring to one of the first four islands.

So, there we were, not lagging running around in a beautiful land. One thing I noted was there wasn't much chatter. Probably because I'm not into that a lot or maybe because I have only really run around the newbie areas. That is an aspect I'll have to explore more. Without it the game will seem very empty.

For the first evening we tried out some of the little quests from the two schools available to us, adventure and crafter. I made a mistake and thought I needed 50 bricks of sandstone instead of just 50 slabs. Well it gave me enough to make 2 sandstone chest scales.

The newbie areas had few in it. In fact, we ended up at the island of new brun something. A nice grassy area. We had to go to Dralk at one point for her fire beetles. We were grouped and unlike EQ, you don't suck xp away from each other just for being grouped. You have to actually participate in the kill to get any credit. That's a good thing, to me. No reward for leeching. One thing we didn't know was that monsters of the same shape and name have different levels. We figured out the 'con' system AFTER running down the road and finding a maggot that beat us both handily.

Resources for both newbie mobs and raw crafting materials were in sufficient supply. I could imagine with a crowded server that all the newbie mobs would be 'camped' or that all the tin piles would be used up. That wasn't the case, but the servers aren't crowded yet either.

I have a theory on why, being that we've only been to the starter towns, things may be very different outside in the "real" world. The world seems huge. There was a monster list of places to teleport to and the place I would call the main town has two teleport destinations for just itself. I went there, but it was very empty. It seems it was made to be a place much like POK is in EQ. I can imagine it a bustling place if this game stays around a few years and picks up more players. I was supposed to find a lore master at one point but never did. I ran out of time.

The game has a 'bazaar' system for those interested in it. Every town I went to had a consigner. That's someone you give items to to sell for you. They keep them for a week, so the consignment person said. Never did find anything to buy from the consigner or the pawn broker.

Being a dragon, I haven't gotten to play with the class system. At least I am assuming I get no classes. Dragon is a class in itself I think. I can cast spells and fight with claw, tooth and tail. I think I may need to actually find a dragon racial city somewhere for some more in-depth quests related to being a dragon. Right now, we are just doing the generic gather items/make items quests.

As a dragon, we couldn't find a way to gather any flax. I am thinking this is one area where we will have to interact with other people, which in-the-end is really what these games are about. Interacting with other real people in the game.

The game has a HUGE amount of information in it about your character. It was rather wieldy to finally find the abilities list and spells list. Also, the inventory icons are so tiny. You can change to listed view, though.

So far, I'm having fun. I need to wait for the newness to wear off to give it a real evaluation. I like that there isn't any pressure to level just to get a chance at having fun. I like the idea of huge multiplayer effort events. From what you describe I think this pixe thing with the tree must have something to do with the blurb about natures gate I saw on the log in.

I originally had some trouble getting started. My graphics were 16 color and ugly. I found out that the March 15 drivers were replaced with April 2 drivers and that fixed it.

I look forward to exploring more of the world and getting involved in some of these major events. I like that if I miss an event I'm not essentially removed from the game (IE, if I can't get a chance to kill say Mithaniel Marr in EQ I'm essentially out of the rest of the game and all because I can't log on 24/7). This game seems built around the idea of mutual cooperation rather than player competition and I'd like to see it thrive because I don't believe it is necessary to directly compete with other real players just to have fun.

B_Delacroix
04-07-2004, 08:58 AM
Oh, one concern that I have. When my 7 days runs out, and if I decide to continue beyond it (by beginning to pay the subscription), I wonder if I have to start over again. I'd like to just continue my characters but on the other side of things, it might be a good thing not to be so attached to one's character.

Oh, and both her and I are on Twilight.

Kerech
04-07-2004, 12:08 PM
You are supposed to be able to just buy a CD and apply the CD key to your existing trial account. I haven't done it, since the trial came out long after I'd already bought it, but it's supposed to work that way.

We were grouped and unlike EQ, you don't suck xp away from each other just for being grouped. You have to actually participate in the kill to get any credit.

This isn't always the case for some reason. I two-box in Horizons sometimes and the other day I was leveling my Cleric/miner alt (so he can wear better cargo armor :)) by grouping him with my Reaver main. The Reaver did all the killing and healing, etc. The Cleric was just on /follow and would pop a heal once in a great while, but usually not. But he got xp for every single kill whether he healed or not and he never participated directly in battle.

There was a patch message that said they were fixing this to work only if you participate, but it still doesn't seem to be that way.

Lowger
04-07-2004, 07:14 PM
BD,

You mention in the first post in this thread about info and having a hard time finding it. I'm sure Old and Kerech are a wealth of info but if you ever have any questions that you need immediate answers to, you could try Tazoon (http://www.tazoon.com/).

It's a pretty good site for info....kinda cluttered but not bad.

Oldoak
04-07-2004, 07:45 PM
Be sure to go to specific forums rather than general on tazoon. All the horizons boards are a bit ... hmm ... fiery? General can be bad...rants avoid at all costs.

Tazoon has a great quest forum, and very useful class forums. General can be good but if you go too often it will probably spoil the game for you. Better to experience it for yourself and then go in.

Lowger
04-07-2004, 08:17 PM
Couldn't agree with that more. Since i've been thinking of starting Horizons again I've gone back to Taz Boards and made the mistake of looking in General...almost didn't renew my account. Very negative in there to say the least.

Gonna pop on to Shadow and see how things are there since you guys seem pleasant folks. I know none of you know me but I like the idea of being on a server where there are at least a couple intelligent ex-EQ'ers like ya'll.

Don't worry I'm not a stalker or anything just prefer like minded people is all ;)

Waiting for patch to finish...not sure what i'll make but will prolly go straight to Jewelry making...love diggin gems out of the ground!

Oldoak
04-07-2004, 09:05 PM
No fear of stalking here ; ).

I am happy to help out in any way. These days I will admit I play pretty late. Most weekdays I log in 11pm PST.

Part of what i am enjoying in HZ is just not being in a guild and not dealing with politics. In beta, I had joined a guild right away and regreted it. It wasn't that they weren't nice people - they were - but I was in a very raid focussed, high intensity guild in EQ, and even small things made me feel like my collar was too tight. Add to that that the beta guild I was in seemed to evaporate after one of the server wipes, and I decided I would not take any part in guild life in Horizons for the first six months or so...build my character some, explore the game.

It is a handicap in some areas, and I am missing grouping (pickup groups are rare in Horizons but they can happen, though less so late night). But I will help anyone who needs me and I pitch in on other stuff from time to time.

Eventually my personality will draw me to a guild...I will miss "doing the big stuff" too much, even if in Horizons the big stuff is only 1-2 group type things. Events you can just show up for a lot of the time.

Oh but wait ; ) I see you are on 7th. I was in Fires Within there. I love the guild and had a lot of fun, met a lot of people ... but the raiding every night after work/before dinner was getting to be too much for me.

Lowger
04-07-2004, 11:07 PM
I thought your name looked familiar!

No I wouldn't be bothering you. More than anything it's just a comfort element knowing that there are other EQ'ers around. I suppose it sounds stupid but it gives a point of reference when exploring new games and it was something that I sorely missed when I played Horizons the first time. Most everyone seemed to come from AC and a smattering of DAoC people and I just didn't have much to talk to them about. Like you I think I joined my guild too early...very nice folks, very community oriented but just wasn't a good fit for me....I think they weren't weird enough or something LOL.

EQ guild is a strange mix of folks who mesh together well and I just didn't have that feeling with the Bounty server guild I was in.

I logged on to Shadow tonight and started diggin in the dirt for gems but the resource spot I remembered from release was bugged or something. Didn't spawn anything but Tourquoise and not very often. Kinda strange.

Oldoak
04-08-2004, 03:44 AM
Resource regions have varying richnesses...some spawn more slowly than others.

Trick is learning which is which.

Also...there are often two linked resource fields. If you are clearing one over time the nodes will all be popping in the other, and you won't see them. Be on the lookout for another nearby region of the same types of resources....and switch back and forth ; ).

B_Delacroix
04-08-2004, 08:32 AM
Last night was my second evening playing Horizons. Like OldOak, I am enjoying not being in a guild and not being pressured with politics. There is some tension at home, though, as my wife decided that she just didn't want to stay away from EQ because all of her friends are there. That's fine with me, really, but she wants me to also go back to EQ. When I don't, its "because I just don't like to play with her". Oh well, we'll work it out.

I started off just wanting to talk to the other NPC dragons and see what might be involved in the Rite of Passage quests. I began to wish I could walk a little faster. I ended up getting sucked into the lore finding quest in Tazoon then a teleport speed test, then I found several other things I got my claws into. In the end I figured out I needed to at least be level 10 to really get into anything, so I returned to the newbie town I started at.

I was going to "ugh" grind my way to 10, swapping between crafting and adventuring to lessen the doldrum of the grind. Then a funny thing happened. I was randomly invited to a group. I figured, "ok, lets see how it goes." It was me and a female feind spiritist 2 levels above me. Well, our ability to explore went up 2 fold. Yes, we got in over our heads, but we weren't forced to actually sit in one spot and grind away, we actually followed the road around till we saw something interesting.

Found a burnt out structure of some kind, no clue what happened. Ended up stumbling onto a camp (as in tents and stuff, not strictly a spawn point) of zombie warriors. A hummie warrior was fighting stuff there looking for fingers. So we grouped up with him and helped him get fingers. During that time another dragon joined our group.

We returned to town, lost the warrior because he decided he needed to make some armor and so the rest of us ran down the road to see what we could see. We ran into dwarf skeletons (social buggers), bigger maggots, zombies and a tunnel.

I was suprised about the tunnel because I had been reading that there are NO dungeons in this game. Apparently the potential exists to have them. This tunnel was dark, narrow and torchlit. Fully enclosed.

Out the other side we ran into a patch of blighted land. Nasty green gaseous emmissions from the ground and zombies all around. We joined up with a lone satyr cleric, I think she was a satyr. I had to go to bed about the time we came across some buildings glowing green.

Grouping increases your exploration survivability 10x. It also seems that "respawn" is set up as to reward killing and moving on rather than waiting for respawn. I love to explore and so this suited me just fine.

I did cringe when the fiend started to say hatchlings are the weakest class in the game. In EQ that's usually followed by suggestions of making <fill in current popular class>. She didn't do that, though.

Oh, and last night a bunch of people were trying to recruit anyone they could to free the Dryads. I have that on my quest list because I talked to the druid emmissaries, but I figure I probably have to be about 40 or more before I can meaningfully contribute.

I think next I need to work my crafting and make something better. I have a sandstone chest scale and that's it. I'll probably push on to level 10, though, so I can really get into the quests. Currently I am 8 adv/ 4 craft.

Oldoak
04-08-2004, 01:25 PM
On underground, the engine does underground just fine. There are some really well done mines and such. The reason there are no dungeons is related to monster collision detection. Basically, if a monster "sees" you in its radius, right now it would walk throug solid stone to get to you (though you can't do the same). I think there is more to it, and the developers don't quite say. Collision detection certainly exists since you can't walk through things, but there is some reason it doesn't quite work as intended for monsters.

The other thing is that the game monsters currently all wander. Dungeons are geared to static spawns with some wanderers, and I don't know if the devs are ready or able to deal with some of those issues. A dungeon is a very constructed experience, and in HZ, the mob killing experience is mostly centered around agro issues. Beyond chain agro, the big deal is that monsters form actual groups - typically centered on a named but not always. If you leave a named mob up long enough, it can collect quite a following (yes, non linked mobs "join up" with a group spontaneously). I have seen nameds with clusters of 15 or more followers, and you have to be careful to scout a region before you start pulling anything to see if the monsters are behaving like a group (they move around together but don't all move at once so you have to watch for a while).

I suspect the mob grouping thing would be another issue, since if you had mobs in a dungeon even without a named, over time I think they would tend to form a vast single group which would be basically unplayable.

Overall HZ has a much higher sky and lower ground than EQ. I believe the air column goes up 2000 or 4000 feet, and I think underground goes down for about 2000 feet. Since it is a zoneless game that is kind of important...dungeons, mines and tunnels have to actually go underground and there needs to be room for them to go there.

As far as helping on events, one thing that someone of any level can do (and particularly dragons) is carry resources to construction projects. It is just not the most fun part ; ).

And on movement speed, remember to use roads whenever possible. They give a hefty movement bonus. You can also get scales that are teched to give you a speed buff (which is great). There are speed buffing spells for bipeds (I am not sure about dragons) but overall they are not that great - nothing like sow. Mostly useful to have sprint up in case you need to run from something.

Your biggest movement benefit as a dragon though is eventually being able to fly. Simply being able to go straight from A to B without trying to climb hills in between or follow the winding roads is a tremendous movement benefit.

B_Delacroix
04-09-2004, 12:29 PM
Day 3 of 7.

I'm posting these now so anyone considering possibly playing Horizons, coming from EQ, has yet another viewpoint of a Horizon n00bs experiences.

I'm still having fun but there was a little bit of the "grind" feeling last night. I decided to make it to level 10 because, well apparently you have to really start to do stuff. You can do the quests before that, the ones with gather 50 sandstones or kill some maggots or go hail this guy in city x and come back to me or even one where I delivered a note to a quartermaster. Anyway, its all fedx and kill/gather x stuff so far. Which isn't unexpected of an automated system.

The game still feels very much like it is intended to promote cooperativism rather than direct competition.

I had to "solo" my way from 8 to 10 but I keep forgetting to take on the task officer quests. Without those quests, it is a grind, with them, you grind but your doing something else at the same time and somehow it doesn't feel as much like a grind. Don't flippin watch that xp bar, get a task to do and go about doing it and the xp bar will fill itself. Besides that, you get even more xp for doing the task in the first place.

I am also finding that there just seems to be an overwhelming number of things to make. I do not have a feel for prices yet so I don't know if the stuff on the consignment people is overpriced or not. Being a dragon, I don't know that I have anything that I need to buy, particularly <10 level. I make my own scales and can make spells.

My wife came back to play and this time made a cleric hummie. She seemed to enjoy it a little more. The people I grouped with the night before all made it over the level 10 hurdle and so were busy engaging in the various quests that occur at that point. Not a big deal, you aren't completely handicapped if you can't get a group (like another game is for certain classes). This may, also, be a product of the lower levels.

As I was saying above the last paragraph, I have some money and no sense of what the prices should be. My wife's cleric needed something better than a trainer club and her brown shirt. So we found a scalemale hat, a "a winner is you" t-shirt and some bright green pants. Its all that was for sale that she could actually wear. Everything else was limited to level 11 or more.

Combat in this game is different from EQ. You don't have to just stand there, hit A and fall asleep. In fact, if things get dicey, you can't even run to a zone. You can, however, get away from the creatures if you use sprint or if they are just slow. At our level, monsters are starting to aggro if you stay near them long enough. Three level 9 zombies with a level 10 dragon and a level 6 cleric can exact a bit of a toll.

I still think I am missing a huge aspect of the game. There are just so many crafting recipes I don't know where to begin. I received some spell forumlae from tokens, can't use any myself, but just going through the list of formulae I already have is almost daunting. Its not that I don't like a lot of choice, I am just overwhelmed with the choices. I'll work it out.

Just got a first wing ability, so I need to run off to Chiconis or Dralk and see about making a scale for it. Hmm, wait, I don't think I have a formula for a first wing anything.