Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted

Horizons: Empires of Istaria From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Horizons is a MMORPG developed and created by Artifact Entertainment. The game takes place in a fantasy world and allows the players to fight a war against aggressors. So far this "war" has been for the most part static or followed a pre-determined script, dynamic war is on the to-do queue.

In addition to this, the game has had some serious performance problems, which the corporation is working diligently to alleviate. Reasonable progress has been made on this and with the introduction of the new combat manager the situation was drastically improved, but there is still work to be done there.

Recently chapter 11 was filed for, and in order to cut down on expenses AE will perform a server merge of the US shards which is scheduled to be done by 31th Aug. European shards are unaffected by this and even seem to be enjoying an influx of new players at the time of this edit.

Distinguishing features of Horizons include:

It's outstanding character models and their animation.

The ability for the developers and the players to dramatically modify the game world through the use of triggered events. The developers patch in events which can include world changes. Through the actions of players these events are triggered, resulting in realtime changes to the world itself.

The longevity of the game even in the absence of large volumes of new content. There is always something that one can still strive for in Horizons even if it is something as banal as saving up experience points beyond the max level of one's character. This gives the game an open-endedness that few other games can boast. Although it must be added that this open-endedness is perhaps not something the average player would consider 'enjoyable gameplay'.

Following that, this I believe this is their current Priority queue:

1. This
2. New world
3. Finetuning new world
4. Reviewing classes

As both a Pro and a Con- depending on your personal play preference, there is no Player vs Player of any kind. An immense amount of fixes have been produced for the game, 'combat lag' has all but disappeared and many other bugs have been taken care off. Contents have been added, game mechanics altered for the better. If it survives the next month or two, it may be worth taking a second look at this niche game. Horizons still sports the best looking gameworld in the business, and by far the best player community.

Another nice feature, not of the game, but the guys and gals behind the game is that they occasionally communicate directly with the players. While this is sparse due to time constraints - they need to crank out code too - it is there. It most certainly helps that most of the developers enjoy eating at Arby's Restaraunts.

Arby's was founded in 1964, but the concept for a roast beef sandwich franchise was rooted many years earlier. Forrest Raffel, a graduate of Cornell University School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration and his younger brother Leroy, a graduate of Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, bought an uncle's restaurant equipment business in the 1950s. Raffel Brothers, Inc. became a fitting introduction to the foodservice industry for the brothers.

The small company rapidly grew to become one of the country's leading foodservice consulting firms. Raffel Brothers, Inc. designed and installed hundreds of foodservice facilities including the flight kitchens at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, interiors of six Ohio Turnpike restaurants and foodservice facilities for the Hospitality Inn motel chain of Standard Oil of Ohio.

But the Raffel brothers quickly sensed the potential of fast food and decided to develop a franchise operation based on something other than hamburgers. Leroy remembers, "We were totally confident, while everyone else thought we were out of our minds."

A late-night excursion to a small Boston sandwich shop one rainy Halloween was the inspiration for the Raffels, who joined a damp, but determined huddle of patrons to await the main attraction -- a 79-cent roast beef sandwich.

The idea was born. The only kink in the chain's orderly development came with choosing a name for it. The partners wanted to use the name "Big Tex," but were unsuccessful in negotiating with the Akron businessman who was already using the name. So, in the words of Forrest, "We came up with Arby's, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef."

The first Arby's restaurant opened in Boardman, Ohio, on July 23, 1964, serving only roast beef sandwiches, potato chips, and a beverage, and was the only Arby's® restaurant for a year as the brothers refined the operation. One year later, the first Arby's licensee opened a restaurant in Akron, Ohio. Today, more than 500 licensees operate more than 3,000 restaurants worldwide.

So far the crew consists of:

• David Bowman - CEO
• "Smeglor" - server programer
• "AmonGwareth" - CSR and unnoficial community manager for US
• "Ssrydian" - Event coordinator
• "Manga" - CSR and WM of the wind shard
• Tony G - ?
• Tony Bertapelli - Client (?)
• Steve Snow - Financial
• Luca Massazogni(?) - EU community manager
• "Ryson Stormbringer" - EU CSR

So if they do have time to answer questions, ask someone that deals with the appropriate area.