A Brighter Horizon
Interviews

Over the past few months, there have been a series of events that lead to this interview and article. While we would have wished for a better occasion to publish an article about Horizons: Empire of Istaria, let us jump back in time and see what lead up to the situation that Artifact Entertainment and Horizons is in right now.

The Downfall

If you have not been following Horizons since it has been first announced years back, you probably don't know that Horizons was supposed to be a whole other game. The game was originally started by David Allen, and taken over by David Bowman later on. David Allen's vision included 15 playable races, Empires, families and most mourned by the fans of the original concept: race wars. In 2001, David Bowman was hired, and after a series of events that I will not detail here, as we focus on the current product that Horizons is, David Allen left Artifact Entertainment (and later on the industry). A blackout on the development of Horizons struck the community, which was ended by the announcement of the corporate changes and changes to the design of Horizons. Now, Horizons was going to be the completely different game that it is today. Horizons would not have any Player versus Player combat, 9 playable races at launch – one of them being the Dragons. A lot of promises have been made by David Bowman, Steve Snow and others during the development process in several interviews and developer chats, also partly attended or organized by myself. The game had found a new following, despite the fact that most of the original concept has changed. I was following the game closely, and the idea was not as revolutionary as Allen's concept at that time, but still enough to arouse the interest of thousands of fans. Unfortunately, most of the features that were clearly promised did not make it into the release of Horizons, and a good portion of them are still missing as of today. Examples being the ability of players to affect weather with spells, the ability to fly for races other than Dragon by magical means (availability of both answered to in a developer chat with a simple “yes" by David Bowman), or the most interesting feature that has yet to see the light of day in any current or future game: true Artificial Intelligence. They described, in detail, how groups of monsters would wander the land and band together to attack player settlements, or build structures of their own to deploy more of their undead kind. The single most important feature that was lacking even months after release however, has been the ability for Dragons to become Adult or Ancient, in order to gain the ability to fly.

Chapter 11, for a new start

Much has changed since, though. Dragons can now fly and Artifact Entertainment has filed Chapter 11 for bankruptcy protection. Wait a second, they have what? This announcement has probably been the bolt of flame that all followers of David Allen have been waiting for since the release end of 2003. We remember Artifact Entertainment going through a lot of financial trouble during the years, nearly everyone in the company has sacrificed their private money for the project, after NC Soft left the ship, Atari saved it, and so on. And here we are, today: the Chapter 11 filing, and the recent announcement of a company called Tulga Games to purchase all Horizons assets has aroused the suspicion of many hobby attorneys throughout the community. Since Tulga Games is owned by a former consultant of Artifact Entertainment and has been founded just a few days before Artifact Entertainment filed for Chapter 11, discussions are taking place everywhere about the legality of this purchase. The purchase is still pending court approval to the writing of this article.

Back up the Steep Hill

If you have read as far as here, and have not directly skipped to the interview yet, you might want to know the reason I am pointing out the negative things that happened first. It is relatively simple: to emphasize the good things that are happening, and that have happened since release.

Horizons has been moving a lot since release, and will continue to move. There is a myriad of new content and features that make the game worthwhile. Two new races have been freed, the Satyrs: a goat-like humanoid race, and the Dryads: fairy-like floating creatures. Both are available to players now, which makes a total of 11 playable races. As noted above, the Adult Right of Passage was implemented, allowing Dragons to grow in size and take flight. Events that involve the Withered Aegis (Non-player forces that the players unite against) occupying parts of the land and more are taking place on a regular basis. More land is being introduced all the time.

Horizons is nowhere near being a perfect game, nor is the customer support, nor is the community. But it can turn out to be a good experience, and the majority of people that still play, say so too. If you have a week of free time on your hands, you should give the 7-Day Trial a chance, and see if the game does it for you. If you're from Europe, there is a seperate European website and european 7-Day Trial hosted by our friends at GamersHell.com.

So much for an introduction, continue to the next page to read David Bowmans answers to our questions.

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