Quite an interesting article on why horizons changed from an awesome concept to a mediocre game(ok.....that parts opinion)

This article pretty much made me decide I'm not spending ANY money with Artifact Entertainment.

http://www.gamemethod.com/archive/394.php

Not here too!

Bear in mind if you read this that there is only one side of the story being presented.

The tale of this guy at Horizons is a storied one. While there are few official comments on his time there, what he is NOT saying in this story is...

* There wasn't actually a working game engine while he was there. I tend to distrust the implications in there that there was...getting a game engine and sticking with it was one of the first changes after he left.

* That Horizons was vaporware while that guy was there. THey frequently put out concept art, and spoke with gamers and interviewers about "all the things that would be neat to have in Horizons." But none of it was actually being built.

* The board of directors pushed this guy out. I doubt they did it for the reasons stated. People want to make money when they invest. Nothing was happening at David Allen's Horizons that would lead to that.

WHatever you do, if you are reading the article, take it with a grain of salt. It is entirely one sided, and this guy has a major axe to grind, and has been grinding it for years now.


Here is a quote (and the only one I know of) from David Bowman, who currently heads up Horizons, on what happened ... or at least you can infer what happened from it...the post was made in September during the beta of Horizons.

Quote:

Artifact Entertainment was started in November 1999 to create massively multiplayer games. The founders created a great deal of writing that they shared on the Internet and called the design for Horizons. They secured funding and attempted to turn that set of ideas into a game. They hired many talented people. They worked for two years and were unable to even come close to creating a game. No working server, no working client, no playable game, but many, many conversations on the boards and lots of very interesting art with no massively multiplayer engine within which it would function. That team is no longer with the company and the company has changed. We have server technology, a working client and a playable game. It is not done yet, but will be and will be fun. If that scares you, then I cannot help you. If you don’t recognize what we’ve accomplished and the importance to massively multiplayer gaming of the capabilities that have been put together at Artifact Entertainment then you should go elsewhere, quickly.

IF this quote is true
He sent me documents, contacts and emails explicitly showing me that what he told me over the phone was the truth. I followed that up by interviewing the contacts in addition to attempting to talk with people from Artifact Entertainment and outsiders. What I can show you will be linked in the rest of this article.

It makes it more believable.

I've kinda followed this guy from his initial Horizons announcement all the way up through his closing down his new company Pharaoh Productions on Tuesday and hes been pretty consistant with his statements.

*shrug* doesn't matter really. I quit playing horizons due to Dragon issues.

I find myself hesitating to play Horizons now. That's a pretty bad thing to do to David Allen. Had James been removed as DA wanted, Horizons could have been something entirely different than what it is today, but still been released. I'd say the lack of progress, if the article is true, was more James' fault than DA's.

* The board of directors pushed this guy out. I doubt they did it for the reasons stated. People want to make money when they invest. Nothing was happening at David Allen's Horizons that would lead to that.

Which, again, if the article is true, was partly the fault of James and his connections to the Series A investors.

The sad part is, whatever the cause, the Horizons we got was not anything like the Horizons originally dreamed of. :(

To me, that is a good thing. I wouldn't have played the original Horizons. It was entirely about PVP, and I think it was built on a lot of bad permises and would have been horribly unbalanced. Kind of a DAOC mark 2. I also (you will probably gather) don't really believe that David Allen would ever have gotten a completed game. I tend to believe that he was removed because he was ineffective in moving the game forward, and was sucking the money from the investors while he talked up vaporware.

Horizons is instead a spiritual child of Asheron's Call, which is where David Bowman was from.

As far as the documentation stuff...

- You don't really know the background of the writer. Everyone has a bias, and there are some people out there who are rabid on this issue.

- The guy acknowledges that he never got to interview the AE staff, so you ONLY have David Allen's point of view, or those who agreed to speak on DA's behalf.

- The documents he saw are going to have been selected and provided by DA. What he chose to share, what he chose to hold back....can't be determined.

- The nature of the documents is undisclosed. So, lets say DA shows him an email to the board saying he wants to remove James Jones. Ok, so such an email was sent. What does it actually mean about the validity of his point of view? SHOULD he have been removed is a seperate question.

I will say the stuff about the income I found a little disturbing, but to be blunt, it has no impact on me and it isn't my problem to worry about. I will never know the "truth" of it, and it really isn't any of my business. More importantly, it has nothing at all to do with the game I play.

The simplest answer that explains all the facts is usually the right one, and that answer was that David Allen was incompetent, or running Artifact incompetently. I tend to believe that before I believe a network of forces nefariously manipulated every angle the could to seize control of a company that had no assets or income stream.

But it is all kind of irrelevant to me...David Allen didn't figure into my decision to play the game and he still doesn't.

The simplest answer that explains all the facts is usually the right one, and that answer was that David Allen was incompetent, or running Artifact incompetently.

It's hard to run a business effectively when someone else is underminding your authority and reputation with the employees and investors. I'm kinda glad I didn't jump into horizons now. That article left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It has a ring of truth to it that nags at me.

The thing I really resent about this thread and the billions like it started by followers of David Allen is that the simply muck up an area meant to be about discussion the game.

The cloak and dagger conspiracy stuff of who said who did what at AE years before the game I play was really created is irrelevant to me. I respect I suppose that people want to take a moral stance and refuse to do business with a company on principle, but from my perspective nothing someone says to somenoe else and gets posted on a website is credible.

It may be true...I doubt it myself. I find it hard to believe that investors who in some cases were game companies themselves could be gulled by simple office politics. It happens...I work in the real world. But the fact of the matter is the burden of proof is against DA and crew in my opinion.

The truth is, in the business world, 90% of the time people are willing to overlook your failings if you are doing good work for them overall. At least until they don't need you anymore. DA was booted at what should have been a critical time in the game's life, and while there was only 2 years after he left and 2 years before he left, it is the 2 years after that created a game that made it to retail.

The thing that really troubles me about this is that the promulgation of the story about DA is little better than slander against AE and its current administration, and it is generally taken as fact because it is written down.

But of course, I long ago decided that I simply don't really give a damn about the truth of it. Had I heard this story about someone I would be sad for them, and in general I am sad for David Allen. The unending way in which he seems to push to have this story dredged up again just seems kind of sad to me.

If I had heard while I was playing EQ that John Smedley was pressganging hundreds of llamas into sweatshop work in South America, it simply would have had no impact on my decision to play EQ.

But anyway...my last post in this thread...the story is like a weed that keeps getting replanted, and I simply refuse to participate in it again here. Enough of David Allen for me! Away with him! Shoo!

You can't win, Oldoak. People just like to see things blow up. They like to beleive the worst about any situation. Its called drama and people thrive on it.

I still enjoy Horizons.

Speaking of which, I am seeing something that is disturbing me. What is with the red titles of "I enjoy complaining about EQ" and the long signitures about how they enjoy complaining about it? Was all that set up by the actual person or is it something a board administrator did?

Speaking of which, I am seeing something that is disturbing me. What is with the red titles of "I enjoy complaining about EQ" and the long signitures about how they enjoy complaining about it? Was all that set up by the actual person or is it something a board administrator did?

Well one of the mods decided to single me out and change my title so I figured I might as well go the whole nine yards and add a signature as well that more clearly states the reasons behind my dissatisfaction with EQ and any game that follows a similar gameplay style.

Concerning the actual topic however, I am more inclined to believe the author of the article since proof was presented that backs up David Allen's claims. Had I been in his shoes, I would never have signed any agreement with the investors trying to remove me and sued them for what was rightly mine. Unfortunately David was naive in the business world and how the political bullcrap worked and got reamed for it. Unless someone can provide me with incontrevertible proof that James was not mucking things up in the company before the blackout, I'm going to take DA's side.

While I might agree with DA, I don't have to support any jackassery or asshattery from him concerning AE, but I will support his rights to his property, severence compensation, and what not. AE really should have changed the name of Horizons after the blackout and just been done with it. It is nearly a completely different game from the original vision.

I feel sorry for DA. Being naive and ignorant in the business world just isn't a good thing. Like blood in the water.