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Remember this? The one with the dragons? And the crafting? No? Nevermind.

Thought Horizons had coughed out its last, dying gasp? Not so, thanks to Virtrium LLC. Gamersinfo.net has the interview with Rick Simmons to give you all the details.

MMORPG.com reports on the "EI Catastrophe"...

Following the mid-June buyout of Horizons: Empire of Istaria by EI Interactive from Tulga Games, players feared the worst. A transfer of virtual property never goes smoothly, and Horizons has never quite been the product that players, technical types, and even the developers hoped it would be. It turns out that players' worst fears are starting to come to fruition:

Predictably, players flooded the community sites with new threads and posts - many angry, many concerned, many inflammatory, all seeking communication from EI and resolution of the problem. Forum moderators tried to stem the flood but as they are player volunteers, were not successful without an official statement from EI Interactive. EI's reaction was to delete threads and eventually locked down the forums, requiring each entry to be approved by moderators before they were posted on the forums.

More sad Horizons news in this incisive Carolyn Koh article at MMORPG.com.

BUTTE, MT - (July 20, 2006)

EI Interactive (EI) has acquired the game Horizons: Empire of Istaria from Tulga Games effective July 21, 2006. Horizons is an online role-playing game originally published in 2003 by Atari, Inc. and winner of multiple game show awards. Horizons has gone through a genesis, emerging today as a world class MMORPG providing a very stable and intrinsically interactive persistent universe for play.

The quality of the Horizons community and the potential of the Istaria world defines this game as a flagship property. EI is committed to maintaining the integrity of the Horizons way of gaming and will continue the Horizons support in a new Phoenix, Arizona office.

“The magic of Horizons is not only in its uniquely supportive community, but also in the deep potential this game has for a player’s participation in building the environment and growing the storyline”, said EI Chairman Edward C. Andercheck, “the success EI has had in building the Savage Eden community is a great testimony to our in-game event team’s efforts, we look forward to the same experience in Horizons”

EI Interactive is a Butte, Montana division of EI Communications Corp., an established publisher of online content, including MMORPGames, casual games, web based game portals and information sites. EI Interactive combines an intense customer service culture, broad gaming experience and in-depth technology skills to provide a uniquely strong platform for a superior customer experience.

Peter Beagle Tells Us More About Working On Horizons

RPG Vault posted the second in their series of logs by reknown author Peter S. Beagle who is working on Horizons.

First published in 1968, Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn is a classic work of fantasy literature that can be enjoyed as a children's tale or for its deeper nuances of meaning. Living alone in her forest, the titular creature overhears a remark indicating she is the last of her kind. When this assertion is repeated by a butterfly that has visited distant lands, she sets out to learn if it's true. Joining her on this quest are Schmendrick, a magician of rather questionable skills, and Molly Grue, a middle-aged woman seeking reaffirmation of her belief in the legendary animals.

Last year, Peter S. Beagle joined the team working on Tulga Games' Horizons: Empire of Istaria, the persistent state offering in which another celebrated mythical beast, the Dragon, is featured as a playable race. At the time, it was announced that he would work on enhancing the lore, contribute to in-game events and write quests. In the latter area, players can now experience the first fruit of his labor and talent. Thanks to the company, we have the chance to enjoy it in a different manner, through the eyes of various individuals who contributed to it, starting with the author.

Get clicking and check out this addition to the logs from Peter S. Beagle. Don't forget to return here to Ten Ton Hammer and let us know what you think in our forums.

To begin a multi-part series, celebrated author Peter S. Beagle's thoughts on his first quest for Tulga's online world

RPG Vault continues their series of peeks at Horizons: Empire of Istaria. This sneak peek features reknown author Peter S. Beagle.

But I've never gone into strange new country in as total a state of ignorance as I did with Horizons. To begin with, I've never even played Pac-Man, Donkey Kong or Super Mario, let alone Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider or pretty much any computer game known to the mass gaming audience. Indeed, the only one I'd ever played in my life, prior to Horizons, was a PC-based solitaire baseball game employing teams from different eras. I admit to having been vaguely aware of MMORPGs, but the operative word is vaguely. The Horizons creators couldn't have found a greener horn to gaming if they'd advertised.

Read more of this journal by Peter S. Beagle and then let us know what you think in the forums here at Ten Ton Hammer.

Tier 6, Loot Revamp and Elder Play

A Letter to the Players regarding Tier 6 (Elder Play) design philosophies was posted for debate yesterday at Horizon's official site. Want to know more? Keep reading...

Recently, we have been monitoring those topics that appear to be paramount to our Elder Players and hope that we can enlighten you as to the direction we are heading - without giving too much away. Please, understand, these are in no way promises of what is to come, but more a "design philosophy" - our hopes of what the game will be.

Head over and read the full letter and then return to Ten Ton Hammer and let us know what you think!

Indepth Interview With David Bowman at Skotos

Shannon Appelcline had a chance to sit down with CEO and Creative Director for Tulga Games, David Bowman.

Shannon Appelcline: Tell me a bit about your background in the online gaming industry.

David Bowman: I started with Bungie as a designer for Myth II. When Microsoft started conversations with Bungie about acquisition I went to Turbine. Asheron's Call had just launched and they were hiring designers. MMOs are the next great evolution in entertainment and I knew where I wanted to be working. I became the Vice President of Production at Turbine and led the AC live team until July of 2001. Artifact Entertainment hired me then and I've been with Horizons: Empire of Istaria through the launch and Tulga Games' acquisition of the project and team.

I'm now the CEO and Creative Director for Tulga Games. Because we have a small team focused on Horizons, I wear multiple hats in addition to those titles. I provide the Live team with world building, quest creation and data entry whenever it's needed. It can make for long weeks, but for a small company it's essential that the leader of the company understand the product, service and audience.

Read the rest of the interview at Skotos.

Here's the live update for all Horizons life shards.

Pref File Overhaul:
The Pref file system has been overhauled with this update. This means that your pref files will be reset in order to take advantage of some house-cleaning, new features, and optimizations. This is a one-time only change.

* Restructured the pref files for ease of use - this will RESET current prefs.
* Added two new prefs for character texture LOD: charTextureLOD and charTextureLODdist to support character texture LOD. Adjust the texture detail slider in the option window to see varying levels of detail.
* When resetting your prefs to the defaults, your key bindings will no longer be reset. Your key bindings can now be reset directly from the “Key Bindings” screen on the Options window.
* Chat logs can be enabled or disabled through the Options window (Options tab) without requiring full debug logging enabled.

Sound and Music Fixes/Changes:

* Update to sound system to support newer sound cards and fix sound play issues, such as looping combat sounds, or no music playing.
* Duplicate sounds / music will no longer overlap.
* Direct sound will now be used for all audio instead of wave output.

Other Fixes/Changes:

* Improved memory performance when teleporting.
* If a player search would have returned more than 50 results, a message will be displayed stating that the results were truncated.
* Particle effects associated with spells will now scale based on the character's skill level.
* Dragging multiple items from a storage structure into the player's inventory will work when the inventories are in list view rather than grid view.
* Support for drag and drop technique kits on spells that are already scribed.
* Right-click "Take..." will work properly on quest generated loot.
* Fixed issue with quest links not being correctly underlined.
* Fixed the issue where the Notepad window would save an extra space after each line, each time you saved.
* Your character's head will now turn when you have “free look” mode enabled.

Happy Playing!

Some lucky players caught David Bowman wandering through the market on the Chaos server. Needless to say, chaos commenced.

A few days back, David was visiting Chaos and said "Hello" in the Marketplace. Heh, mistake! Or not for those lucky enough to grab his attention and time for a bit. The topic, the upcoming expansion of course! A little clarification here and there. Read on for a little Q&A.

Starna: David, if you don’t mind answering an expansion question? Are there any plans for 'generic' new-style buildings for current plots to make use of the new furniture/machine code? As opposed to just the new racial buildings (which will need their own plot types)?

David: Starna: the new racial structures will be able to be built on any plot that doesn't restrict them.

Starna: Ok, was my understanding that only Dryad and Dwarf were going in racially speaking, and that they needed special plots? Personally, I’m going pixie-tree :) but I’m asking more for the benefit of others, so I understand the plan as it stands.

You can read the rest here.

Here are some new updates for Horizons.

The following changes, fixes and additions were made to the Live shards on Tuesday, June 6, 2006:

Peter S. Beagle Wedding Quest

* A new Gnome Community named Pajalsti has been constructed near the community of Genevia.
* Several Gnomes (related to the Peter S Beagle wedding quest) from around Istaria have moved to Genevia Island. Among them are:
o Besoya Shum moved from Dalimond to Pajalsti.
o Lamorak Dree moved from Parsinia to Pajalsti.
o Basiliak Krebs moved from Dalimond to Pajalsti.
o Mabrouk Mar moved from Kirasanct to a new house near Cedar Cove.
o Eliahu Krik moved from Feladan to a house near Istara's Loom.
* Williwaw will now block entry into the Wedding Grounds until players speak with him.
* Fixed the directions to Mabrouk Mar in the quest "Secure a lock of Elioncha's hair and bring it to Oriskaly"

You can find more updates here at the Official Site.

More Horizons news.

The Horizons House of Commons chat logs are now available for your viewing pleasure. This time around they talked mostly of the upcoming expansion. I say cheers that these guys get to do something good to this old game.

Find the logs right here.

Find more Horizons news right here.

This just in from the official Istaria Community site -

Tonight! May 25th at 5pm PST, please join David Bowman (Producer) Amon Gwareth (Lead Design), Smeglor (Simulation Programmer and Guru), Illyist (QA Lead) and Jason Eubanks (Client Programmer) for a one hour chat about recent changes including the ARoP, Lairs, Confectioner, PSB Quest and the upcoming Expansion.

Futher information regarding how to connect to the Stratics IRC channel can be found at Horizons Stratics or below. See ya then!

From Stratics Central:

Please join us on Thursday, May 25th, for a House of Commons with the developers of Horizons at 5pm PsT / 8pm EsT in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC.

Topic will be on recent changes (staff, ARoP, Lairs, Confectioner, PSB Quest, etc). and the Expansion.

You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or whichever server is closest to you:

stratics.frws.com port 6668, USA - Coloradoirc.glowfish.de port 6668, EU - Germanystratics.afraidyet.net 6668, USA - Atlantairc.epaxsys.net port 6668, USA - Colorado

You may also connect through our handy Java link which may be found right here. You must have Java installed to use this which can be downloaded from the Java homepage.

General chat relating to Horizons will take place before, during, and after the chat in room #horizons. We hope to see you there!

Find out all about the new expansion and then tell me what you think!