Horizons: Sold: What The Deal Means

Dana

Horizons - as was announced last night - has been sold to EI Interactive. Today, MMORPG.com spoke to EI Interactive owner Ed Andercheck and Tulga Games CEO David Bowman to find out what this means for the game, its fans and the people who built it.

Ed Andercheck’s EI Interactive has purchased Horizons and, as of last Friday, the deal means that nearly everyone who worked for Tulga Games is out of a job. “I’m a gamer and I saw a mature and exciting group of people,” explained Andercheck of why his company decided to purchase Horizons. He added that the culture of the community, the game’s rich potential for storytelling and the way players can grow the world all made Horizons an extremely attractive product for him. Andercheck added that his company has no plans to radically alter the course Tulga Games had laid out and hopes to stay true to the spirit of Horizons.

You can read the full report here.

Copeland

Bye Bye Bowman

I hope you never tarnish our genre again. I think i'll be playing this game a bit as soon as his involvement is completely over.

I think Tulga would find it easier to sell their engine if they fired Bowman as well. [MODERATOR: No personal attacks.]

Parsifal57

I'm still baffled as to what EI think they are going to get out of the deal. Since it sounds like no staff transfers are taking place and settlements was so early that no code had been cut, it would seem than there will be no further investment in the game or development of an expansion (which was going to haev a new engine). The reason i say this is if no staff are being taken on from Tulga (and that seems to include Dev's) who is going to develop addtional content/expansions. If entirely new devs do it look out for very slow/buggy updates

This is a very strange deal, and for it to stand a chance to be at all viable there must be something else going on that is not being made public.

Copeland

[Moderator: Personal attacks are not permitted, nor open to debate.]

Jorev

Put a stake in it already and let it die.

I enjoyed Horizions when I played it and if it weren't for all the original management issues that dampened it's launch, it would have been successful. It's too late to try and revive the game now, it has a negative image and suffers from a low playerbase which is a game killer for a MMOG to me.

nthnaoun

It sounds like a raw deal that benefited the original owners of Horizons only, while the devs and other workers are getting hosed. Horizons is better off without owners like that. I am interested to see if EI Interactive can make Horizons into a better game.

Right now I see the following wrong with the game:

Very outdated graphics

Poor billing system

No phone support

Looks as though the game is Windows based

Wardrop

No pvping
No destroyable cities.I mean why build a little town and not destroy it? I mean what is there to do after you grind to death to build it?
How about a reason to craft. i mean you grind all that time for what? to sell to whom?
No real endgame at all.
blight attacks set off by the developers, its not AI controlled right. so everything is predictable.
The game was made to be a kick ass pvping game by design. instead it was turned into a marshmallow joke that no one really cared for. I mean what really is there that is worth paying a fee for?

The games mechanics are garbage and would need a total overhaul. Even still the game will never recover. Its better to build something competitive to go along with such a nice crafting system.

Jorev

to sell to whom?

Exactly.

I love crafting and Horizons was the best, but I don't craft just to say to  myself, "Good job working on those crafting skills for the last 4 months to become a master craftsman". If there is no one to trade with and nothing to trade for, what is the point?

Username!

Well in that article, it was talking bout the the original idea of having the PvP, hopefully they will bring that, I would definitely play.

holycannoli

[quote]

Andercheck added that his company has no plans to radically alter the course Tulga Games had laid out and hopes to stay true to the spirit of Horizons.[/quote]

Ok, if they want to stay true to the spirit of Horizons and not radically alter it's course, then go back to the ORIGINAL Horizons...you know, the Horizons that was supposed to have Angel PC's vs Demon PC's, lots of PvP, that insect race that's impervious to pain, smaller races able to mount and ride larger races etc.

THAT'S the Horizons I was interested in. They radically altered it into the form we see today, and it's nothing like the original idea. So how about radically altering it back to what it was originally gonna be? After the fiasco that is Dark and Light, and considering that Dark and Light was my last hope in a mmorpg after Horizons was radically altered, I need this! We all need this!

Dana

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Originally posted by holycannoli
[quote]

Andercheck added that his company has no plans to radically alter the course Tulga Games had laid out and hopes to stay true to the spirit of Horizons.[/quote]
Ok, if they want to stay true to the spirit of Horizons and not radically alter it's course, then go back to the ORIGINAL Horizons...you know, the Horizons that was supposed to have Angel PC's vs Demon PC's, lots of PvP, that insect race that's impervious to pain, smaller races able to mount and ride larger races etc.
THAT'S the Horizons I was interested in. They radically altered it into the form we see today, and it's nothing like the original idea. So how about radically altering it back to what it was originally gonna be? After the fiasco that is Dark and Light, and considering that Dark and Light was my last hope in a mmorpg after Horizons was radically altered, I need this! We all need this!

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You did read the part about evaluating the possibility of a race war server, right?

holycannoli

Ooh no I didn't. Race war server is a good start.

But it's only a start, since the current Horizons still doesn't even resemble the beloved Horizons I used to read about years ago, when it was still in it's planning stages.

MrBoots

The headline should have been "No Name Company buys trash bin MMO"

Manmadegod

Basically it means the turd is still a turd. 

Agent_X7

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Originally posted by Parsifal57
I'm still baffled as to what EI think they are going to get out of the deal. Since it sounds like no staff transfers are taking place and settlements was so early that no code had been cut, it would seem than there will be no further investment in the game or development of an expansion (which was going to haev a new engine). The reason i say this is if no staff are being taken on from Tulga (and that seems to include Dev's) who is going to develop addtional content/expansions. If entirely new devs do it look out for very slow/buggy updates

This is a very strange deal, and for it to stand a chance to be at all viable there must be something else going on that is not being made public.

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Read the whole article. EI makes it clear they will be interviewing the staff of Tulga for positions, and Bowman encouraged them to hire the whole staff.

Mysk

This has the potential to be very good.  Especially if the title is sans one individual in particular, and even more so if the new owner's leaders have smart heads on their shoulders.  Some great things could be done with the setting, you just need a little imagination.

"We'll see", as usual, but it's the first time in a very long time that the game could have a real future.

Ahotare

Also note that He Who Shall Not Be Named is in fact staying on.

The bad publicity  this game has can prove a boon if the devs can turn it around, the "Ugly Duckling" principle at work.

However, from what people say about this game, that is a big "IF".  I honestly don't know if EI has the knowhow and/or resources to pull off such a feat, especially in the increasingly competitive post-WoW MMO market.

trixz01

The race wars server would be neat i must say, but it shouldnt be required.  in a way thats probably one of the only interesting things about WoWs design.  they can have that all out attack style on the other side but its entirely voluntary, well less they enter a main city, but the idea that you have to flag your self for PvP and attacking other races is a good idea.  that way it allows for a stable world where people can PvP at times when they want that total chaos state, but it prevents griefers.  you know all those people who talk nothing but leet speak and think their big and bad because they beat up this newbie, but i do look forward to seeing what happens to the game.  in all honesty this is by far one of my most loved, but i get bored so fast with it.  they really need to fix the combat so its not so bleeping boring...coolest combat system ive seen so far was DDO, but man that entirely quest based system was annoying, not to mention inability to solo anything sucked

but all in all the craft system is the best ive seen and this game holds soo much potential for roleplaying its not even funny.    i wouldnt be surprised that if things were different we wouldnt be seeing construction companies running around (throws a timber at the forman)  oops sorry boss it slipped out of my claws

ciid

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Originally posted by Mysk
This has the potential to be very good.  Especially if the title is sans one individual in particular, and even more so if the new owner's leaders have smart heads on their shoulders.  Some great things could be done with the setting, you just need a little imagination.

"We'll see", as usual, but it's the first time in a very long time that the game could have a real future.

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http://www.eiinteractive.com/

check out the website for the company buying this heap then talk about the future. Its funny like "clown car on fire" funny.Front page 4.0 for the win yo.

http://www.eiinteractive.com/contact.htm

Theres some of the new team.Two people that look like theve bean chaseing ambulances for the last 20 years and a stoner.Check out there one pimp ass office at the bottom that looks like i worn down strip mall.vegas wouldnt even take odds on this game lasting another year.

God people let it die already!

MW2K

Give Bowman some credit guys; if the "other Dave" was left in charge, Horizons would still be dreamy vapourware in search of funding, like virtually everything else the "other Dave" has thought up.

I feel sorry for HZ's close knit community though, I really do.

It'll be interesting to see where this outfit takes HZ.

vengeful85

 I agree with those that have stated they hope the new company stays true to the vision TG has laid out for Horizons, the player base they have nearly demands it if infact the game is to survive. The expansion that was planned could be back burnered for a while but they really should look at trying to stay true to that too as most if not all of the veteran players need some new content to help keep the game fresh and fun(and worth paying for).  Hope springs eternal!

graill

to the moderator, its hard NOT make personal attacks on david bowman, the individual (with assistance) ran a promising game into the ground, some of the comments by bowman on the boards about horizons is simple proof that his vision and no one elses was going to be it and everyone else be damned, i played horizons for about 7 months, its a fine example of not even wanting to try and listen to the customer base. something a dev should never do, delete posts on ideas, though i posted one or two times, reference lag in game (as i was currently happy with gameplay) tons of "new" posts were promptly deleted, they cant take critisism? the boards turned into a warzone, more so than the wow boards, only instead of help, the only thing the player base received was silence.

the customer service in the game was abysmal, the PAYMENT FIASCO, double and triple billings while normal billing occurred, continued billings for months after the game was cancelled and bowman simply claimed it wasnt horizons fault, it was the "seperate billing department" this one thing drove hundreds, if not thousands away as they were billed multiple times with no refunds. i am one example of a cancelled account, a deployment to iraq, and i come back and find i was billed the whole time i was over in iraq. david bowman and devs answers? you never cancelled, the email quite matter of factly stated. despite my showing the cancellation email. this happened so often everytime another request hit the forum boards it was promptly deleted. the folks at tulga are not to be trusted, neither is david bowman, personal attacks aside he simply cant be trusted.

and i am sorry if my personal feelings get in the way of typing this forum reply, i truly hope bowman and crew never find work again.

Eisdrache

I played Hz vor almost 3 years on the european "Unity"-Shard. I do not know wether Bowman was involved in anything, but what I cant truly say is: There wasn't any support in europe, and that was the reason I cancelled my account.
I cant understand why people call the graphics outdated. As most roleplaying people I know havent that high end first-person-shooter optimized machines, it is still one of the most beautiful looking games out there, especially if you havent the hardware to max all graphic options.
I just hope EI will listen to the community and fire the european team. Or better: Merge all servers (except blight) to create a richer player base and start a new raise. If so, I will be back and my teeth and claws will again strike back the blight.

Rugster

No personal attacks eh... we wish..

Goodbye Mr Bowman.


Longlive flying dragons and true crafting in mmo gaming.

Horizons was probably the best idea to ever hit mmo gaming.. it was utterly ruined by the one person we're not allowed to make personal attacks against. And as a result 99% of all the players quit the game.

I remember seeing guilds organising with each other to help release the Satyrs, lines of players running from forests and mines with supplies of matierials for builders to craft into the tunnels to begin the rescue of the satyrs.  Teams of fighters to hold back any attackers... organisation to build the towns and cities.. awesome game. Build you own house.. have a dragon which could grow and finally after a long long wait fly.. but even by then they game was dying rapidly.. and it was obvious in the end that they just wanted everyone to quit so they could pack it up and forget it.

But some never did leave.

There were some oddities to the game... and the total lack of pvp really did ruin it ultimately.. it was the lack of communications between the devs and the players, the lack in content, the broken promises then changes to gameplay without warning..

dragons were supposed to be mountable, the were supposed to be more of the great events, but the 2nd main event to release the elves or whatever it was we were doing in the jungly bit rapidly grew boring...building those things to push back the green plague stuff... so long ago now.

horizons is a could have, that could truely have been great in proportions even wow cannot reach. But one man got in the way and trashed the game. Changed almost everything in every way. Forced one of the best leading devs to quit the company and lied continuously to everyone.  But we're not allowed to make personal attacks so i won't mention names.

Still...

bye bye mr bowman.. hope you find happyness somewhere else.  I'd like to make suggestions...but i better not.

Sincerely.. Lochy Connel (Crafter extrodinaire)

Rugster

Originally posted by Ulujain

Give Bowman some credit guys; if the "other Dave" was left in charge, Horizons would still be dreamy vapourware in search of funding, like virtually everything else the "other Dave" has thought up.
I feel sorry for HZ's close knit community though, I really do.
It'll be interesting to see where this outfit takes HZ.

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I don't want to start an argument here. But the "other dave" was the visionary, if they'd followed his ideas... horisons would still be playing packed servers today.   When he left..or was pretty much forced to leave, horisons went through the floor.   The dreamy vapourweave you talk of was the idea that horisons came from.

Okay theres no denying that horizons might have been released about 6 months later than it did.. but be honest.. on release.. horizons still needed 6 months more work put into it.  Dragon 'housing' and other ideas which should have been in release were trashed and the game released months ahead of schedule.  Remember the posts about people needing to get paid.. and them running out of money? Which was the reason for early release.. remember the posts about playing and paying for a beta?

The wrong dave left. And as a consequence.. 'what could have been' become a 'no chance of ever being'.

flabair

tell me when david bowman has nothing to do with the game ot company what so ever and i might think about going back to horizons