Horizons: Billing Issues Not Resolved

Szark

Virtrium has announced on the Horizons community forums that they have been unable to resolve lingering billing issues with EI. They have apologized to players, and have prepared a guide for players who need assistance resolving issues.

Well - word has come down on past subscriptions. We are not satisfied with the situation and disappointed that things turned out the way they did. At this point we can provide a definitive path for those who have been asking questions about what to do. Please be aware that because of the delicate nature of this situation, we're going to err on the side of caution (legally) when discussing this matter. We think we've laid out clearly what options are available for you as a consumer and will update this post if needed.

This does nothing to affect Horizons moving forward. It's taken a lot of time, energy and money to reach this point, and it's good that we can now move forward. In fact, we can stop putting energy into this issue and put that effort into Horizons.

We would like to apologize that despite great effort, we were unable to provide an alternative. Please take the time to read the following carefully and take the action that you feel most appropriate.

Get all the details here.

dand3

For those who haven't been following the saga, Virtrium are the new owners of Horizons.  They've grasped the reins firmly and are off to a flying start.   First task was to clean up the billing mess, which they have done.  They now use PayPal, and the subscription system is running cleanly for the first time in a year. The trial subscription is back; and now there's a lower cost limited sub, the old rate for previous players is available (grandfathered), and a slightly higher rate with increased benefits that reflects inflation.

After a year with no bug fixes or game updates, two small updates have now been pushed live; the test server is up again and being used, and some client performance improvements are on the test server. 

Samuraisword

If Horizons is going to make a comeback, they need to launch a new server or wipe the current one. The current server is 4 years old and not too many people are going to be interested in starting on a 4 year old server where the world has already been rebuilt.

Crafting and construction are the highlights of Horizons and to fully enjoy them requires a fresh world. They should launch a new server and promote the hell out of it prior to doing so.

Lobotomist

Horisons should follow AO example , and make froob acces ( free play up to certain level)

did wonders for AO

Airspell

 Thing is AO offers the entire original game minus expansions....Horizons has no expansions right ?  With AO you are offered a full game experience, if you did that for Horizons it would be much less.

  Frankly I don't see too many people who would pay for Horizons anyways. Game has no pvp, as mentioned the game world is 4 years old and everythings built, and its future isn;t exactly looking well.  There is no guarantee this new company won't screw people over just like the old one did just to break even on their investment.

Ozmodan

Anyone trying to put a positive spin on this mess needs to head to the looney bin.

Prime example of a game that should have been long ago shuttered, how long will it be before the new owners take advantage of the playerbase again?

How not to try to resurrect a game in deep trouble, raise the subscription rate lol.  Another clueless company rises to the fore.

dand3

All fact, no spin.  The owners are three of the original developers, and known to the community.  And the first thing they did was put in a robust billing system, so there won't be any of the previous nonsense.

Why Horizons?  Some features are still unique.  Play a dragon, fly. 

Building is not limited to server projects like mines, and bridges, but also building functioning shops, pawnbrokers, and houses on your own, non-instanced plot. 

Horizons provided continuous improvement, and expansion rather than set large expansions that cost extra. New continent Trandalar was added for example, no cost. And of course new players have access to all the content. Some cleanup is being done; after that new content.  Although two small content updates have gone live already.

There is a slightly limited rate that's lower than the old rates, a rate that's the same as the old rates if you played before, and a slightly increased rate with slightly more features for new players.  Sounds fair to me.

And look at some of the posters here; reflexively negative.  Just think, they won't be in the game!  Part of the reason Hz is routinely lauded for having the best community.

Oakleif

Just a quick note:  the Horizons data on MMORPG.com needs to be updated so that it doesn't list EI Interactive as the developers any more.  As of July 18, 2007, the developers became Vitrium.

Flummoxed

I played Horizons when it first came out and found it to be one of the most unique mmogs around. 

Construction is one of the central features of the game, players working together can slowly re-build ancient ruined bridges for example and by doing so open up new territory for ALL the players on that server, re-build ruined walls around cities to keep out marauding monsters, excavate caves and unlock new races and open up new parts of the story arc, build entire non-instanced player towns and guild buildings, etc. etc.  And this construction is NOT trivial - you need to gather the raw resources, refine them, make the parts, then actually construct each building from the parts.  It took our guild many weekends of non-stop teamwork to build our buildings. 

Also unique were the Events - some of the story arc quests were global, sort of like in Asheron's Call where the whole world was affected by some monthly GM directed Event .  These were great fun and gave a sense that you were actually living in a DYNAMIC WORLD.  Some events were major like the world wide plague that required players to solve a quest to get the antidote, some Events were minor, like you'd be mining or crafting or whatever and you'd get a /tell from a guildmate telling you someplace was under attack from (gm run) monsters and to get over there NOW to help out!  Exciting!

Again, of the many mmogs i've played this is one of the few that was Different from the standard "static world" mmog.

Airspell

Originally posted by dand3


All fact, no spin.  The owners are three of the original developers, and known to the community.  And the first thing they did was put in a robust billing system, so there won't be any of the previous nonsense.
Why Horizons?  Some features are still unique.  Play a dragon, fly. 
Building is not limited to server projects like mines, and bridges, but also building functioning shops, pawnbrokers, and houses on your own, non-instanced plot. 
Horizons provided continuous improvement, and expansion rather than set large expansions that cost extra. New continent Trandalar was added for example, no cost. And of course new players have access to all the content. Some cleanup is being done; after that new content.  Although two small content updates have gone live already.
There is a slightly limited rate that's lower than the old rates, a rate that's the same as the old rates if you played before, and a slightly increased rate with slightly more features for new players.  Sounds fair to me.
And look at some of the posters here; reflexively negative.  Just think, they won't be in the game!  Part of the reason Hz is routinely lauded for having the best community.

The word fanboy gets thrown around alot these days

It has been proven that no matter how horrible of a game or product there will always be someone who just loves it for some insane reason (britney spears)  , you guys think there is something wrong with their meds or they just feel superior playing a game everyone hates ?