ONGOING: Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted
Jan. 1st, 2019 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoA little more than two years into gameblogging, and every single report I've made so far have been either COMPLETE or ABANDONED. That's how games normally work, right? I don't play MMOs or any kind of everlasting game like that. Everything I've covered so far has been a singular experience I either beat or decided it's not worth beating and quit.
Because I don't play MMOs, you see.
I don't...
Fuck.
*Sigh* Okay.
So, a very, very long time ago, back in the LiveJournal days, I made a snarky writeup looking back on an old (even at the time) MMO I had played and bounced off of: Horizons: Empire of Istaria. That post is still around somewhere, but I'm not going to link to it. It's old, I'm always ashamed of my own writing, I'm especially ashamed when it's a sassy Zero Punctuation-style takedown of something I've come to appreciate more sincerely with age, and it's full of broken image links that I'm too lazy to fix. Just know that, if you choose to take it upon yourselves to find it, I don't endorse it. There's a reason I'm not making it easy and linking it for you.
Short and sanitized version: Horizons: Empire of Istaria was a fantasy swords and sorcery MMO from 2003. You had your humans and elves and dwarves and stuff, your early-2000s mandated quota of one feline race and one lizard race, and DRAGONS. Horizons attempted to set itself apart from other fantasy MMOs of the day via emphasizing crafting (which is everywhere now, to the point that Horizons' "we have crafting" as a selling point doesn't sound particularly impressive, but the extent they pushed it was a slightly bigger deal back then?) and playable dragons. It also boasted a freely changeable class system for both adventuring and crafting schools--got to level 25 as a Mage and decided you didn't like it? Go talk to a Warrior trainer in any town and you are now a Warrior! Decided that was a mistake? The Mage trainer over there can change you back! No need to reroll entire characters for this! (Unless you're a dragon. Dragons have access to exactly one adventuring class, which is DRAGON. This is part of why I'm not a dragon even in the game where some would argue that being a dragon is kind of the point.)
My ex from two relationships ago and I used to play this game a lot, but it was... rough. There were bugs and issues. Performance was choppy at best, unplayable at worst. The City of Tazoon was a vast, sprawling, beautiful abandoned wasteland because of a bad case of what Final Fantasy XIV fans would know as 1.0 flowerpot syndrome: the city was so poorly optimized and technically demanding due to its size that even just looking at it tended to melt one's hard drive.
Horizons developer Artifact Entertainment eventually folded, but sold the game to a company named Tulga Games, who eventually folded and sold the game to Virtrium, LLC, its current owner. There is strong evidence to suggest that AE and Tulga were the same people in different hats selling assets to themselves to get through bankruptcy law loopholes, and the fact that I can't find anything at all about who in the world is Vitrium LLC (since this is conveniently their only product) is... suspicious. The game itself got renamed along the way, too, becoming Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted. But by then, we already didn't care anymore; having moved on to other, more functional, higher-quality games.
Every now and then, maybe once a year or so, I would get gray mail from them to the effect of, "Hey, former player! I'll bet you're wondering about all the stuff that's new and difference since you last logged on! Ever feel like coming back? :3" It would have been easy to unsubscribe from their mailing list after the first year or so and never think about this wretched game again, but... well. It was very infrequent (I probably would have if they'd have spammed me reguarly, but one newsletter a year is nothing) and maybe a part of me did have fond memories of my old friends in my old guild and the fun we used to have together.
This year, they came at me with a special holiday event they were running, with some neat in-game stuff (double XP and things like that) and the news that all old and players could be welcomed back for free with full paid account features and access for the duration of the promotion. By now I had been getting nostalgic enough to either tromp through this game again just to see or at least makexyzzysqrl do it so she could report, and that offer was the perfect opportunity to jump back in.
You know, to see. Have a look around out of curiosity, see if my old characters still existed, just evaluate things before I put it all away again. I figured I could get just enough of a glimpse to confirm that the game is still forgettable, have my curiosity resolved so those yearly emails would quit making me feel things, and maybe get a good quick ABANDONED entry to fill up a category or two for next year. It's fine, I don't play MMOs and Horizons sucked anyway. *stubbornly fold arms*
Instead, what I found was... Istaria is certainly an old MMO and it shows. If I hadn't told you that every screenshot I posted above this paragraph was from 2004 while this one is from last week, would you have known? This game still has a UI straight out of EverQuest 1, and graphics that are... let's say maybe EverQuest 1 1/2 or so (though I hear they're supposedly thinking about overhauling and working everything into Unreal someday.) There are still... quirks. For email after email bragging about how much has changed, there's still so much that hasn't that... yeah, this is still Istaria all right.
But.
Maybe it's the evolution of my attitude. Maybe the passage of time plus my matured appreciation for things turned its jank from unforgivable to retro and strangely adorable. I was almost going to use my Family Dog icon for this entry, in fact.
But that's not fair to this game. Throughout my time in their free promotion, my attitude has evolved from the "lol Horizons sucks" of the Before times to "pff okay this is awesome XD" to "okay but seriously this is actually not bad." For every issue I've had, the support team has been fast, responsive, and friendly to the point of practically rolling out the red carpet for me. The graphics... it's like why I will argue with people that Mario 64 actually has good graphics. They're certainly dated, but if you take the capabilities of your current platform, work them into a style, and makes something that looks good for what it is, then there's a certain timelessness to it. From the smoldering volcanic doom of the Char region to the deadly yet beautiful frozen northern mountains, Istaria's Aradoth is a scenic world. In that sense, it's not even so-bad-it's-good; it's just good.
Those performance issues on PCs of the time? This thing can run on a potato now. Even Tazoon is buttery smooth. (It's still empty, but shh.) It's nice to roam around in, especially now that I can.
Oh, and I could still get conspiratorial over the links between Artifact, Tulga, and Virtrium, but... unless you're one of their creditors, does it really matter who they are? They're putting out a good product that's fun to play. At least Artifact didn't sell Horizons to NCSoft.
In the past couple weeks, I've been all around a digital world, exploring questlines and locations that are both comfortingly familiar yet new and open to be explored. I've made new friends who have welcomed me into their fold. I witnessed a dragon from my newfound circle finish her deeply ceremonial ritual rite of passage to become an adult, and felt more things than I have at some RL cousins' weddings.
I... am going to keep playing this. In a world where $10 a month could get you, I don't know, FFXIV or ESO or whatever new real MMOs kids are playing these days, I'm going to subscribe--not ironically, but proudly--to this one. Not out of hipsterism, or Family Dog appreciation, but out of a genuine heartfelt feeling that this is a good experience and I want to keep experiencing it.
If the polish comes off and I stop having fun someday? Then maybe I'll cancel at that point. I'm not entering a binding contract that gives them my soul until the heat death of the universe or anything. It's a monthly subscription I can turn off if I ever stop having fun. But for now? I like this game, and it feels good to be back.
---
Sara adds:
I normally dislike when Celine falls so hard into an all-consuming game that she starts slipping on chores/bedtime/etc., but good heavens I've never seen these parts of her mind light up like this. This is delightful.
I mean she still needs to quit typing this and go take a shower.
But man, she's just... she's happy and I'm really feeling it too.
Because I don't play MMOs, you see.
I don't...
Fuck.
*Sigh* Okay.
So, a very, very long time ago, back in the LiveJournal days, I made a snarky writeup looking back on an old (even at the time) MMO I had played and bounced off of: Horizons: Empire of Istaria. That post is still around somewhere, but I'm not going to link to it. It's old, I'm always ashamed of my own writing, I'm especially ashamed when it's a sassy Zero Punctuation-style takedown of something I've come to appreciate more sincerely with age, and it's full of broken image links that I'm too lazy to fix. Just know that, if you choose to take it upon yourselves to find it, I don't endorse it. There's a reason I'm not making it easy and linking it for you.
Short and sanitized version: Horizons: Empire of Istaria was a fantasy swords and sorcery MMO from 2003. You had your humans and elves and dwarves and stuff, your early-2000s mandated quota of one feline race and one lizard race, and DRAGONS. Horizons attempted to set itself apart from other fantasy MMOs of the day via emphasizing crafting (which is everywhere now, to the point that Horizons' "we have crafting" as a selling point doesn't sound particularly impressive, but the extent they pushed it was a slightly bigger deal back then?) and playable dragons. It also boasted a freely changeable class system for both adventuring and crafting schools--got to level 25 as a Mage and decided you didn't like it? Go talk to a Warrior trainer in any town and you are now a Warrior! Decided that was a mistake? The Mage trainer over there can change you back! No need to reroll entire characters for this! (Unless you're a dragon. Dragons have access to exactly one adventuring class, which is DRAGON. This is part of why I'm not a dragon even in the game where some would argue that being a dragon is kind of the point.)
My ex from two relationships ago and I used to play this game a lot, but it was... rough. There were bugs and issues. Performance was choppy at best, unplayable at worst. The City of Tazoon was a vast, sprawling, beautiful abandoned wasteland because of a bad case of what Final Fantasy XIV fans would know as 1.0 flowerpot syndrome: the city was so poorly optimized and technically demanding due to its size that even just looking at it tended to melt one's hard drive.
Horizons developer Artifact Entertainment eventually folded, but sold the game to a company named Tulga Games, who eventually folded and sold the game to Virtrium, LLC, its current owner. There is strong evidence to suggest that AE and Tulga were the same people in different hats selling assets to themselves to get through bankruptcy law loopholes, and the fact that I can't find anything at all about who in the world is Vitrium LLC (since this is conveniently their only product) is... suspicious. The game itself got renamed along the way, too, becoming Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted. But by then, we already didn't care anymore; having moved on to other, more functional, higher-quality games.
Every now and then, maybe once a year or so, I would get gray mail from them to the effect of, "Hey, former player! I'll bet you're wondering about all the stuff that's new and difference since you last logged on! Ever feel like coming back? :3" It would have been easy to unsubscribe from their mailing list after the first year or so and never think about this wretched game again, but... well. It was very infrequent (I probably would have if they'd have spammed me reguarly, but one newsletter a year is nothing) and maybe a part of me did have fond memories of my old friends in my old guild and the fun we used to have together.
This year, they came at me with a special holiday event they were running, with some neat in-game stuff (double XP and things like that) and the news that all old and players could be welcomed back for free with full paid account features and access for the duration of the promotion. By now I had been getting nostalgic enough to either tromp through this game again just to see or at least make
xyzzysqrl do it so she could report, and that offer was the perfect opportunity to jump back in.You know, to see. Have a look around out of curiosity, see if my old characters still existed, just evaluate things before I put it all away again. I figured I could get just enough of a glimpse to confirm that the game is still forgettable, have my curiosity resolved so those yearly emails would quit making me feel things, and maybe get a good quick ABANDONED entry to fill up a category or two for next year. It's fine, I don't play MMOs and Horizons sucked anyway. *stubbornly fold arms*
Instead, what I found was... Istaria is certainly an old MMO and it shows. If I hadn't told you that every screenshot I posted above this paragraph was from 2004 while this one is from last week, would you have known? This game still has a UI straight out of EverQuest 1, and graphics that are... let's say maybe EverQuest 1 1/2 or so (though I hear they're supposedly thinking about overhauling and working everything into Unreal someday.) There are still... quirks. For email after email bragging about how much has changed, there's still so much that hasn't that... yeah, this is still Istaria all right.
But.
Maybe it's the evolution of my attitude. Maybe the passage of time plus my matured appreciation for things turned its jank from unforgivable to retro and strangely adorable. I was almost going to use my Family Dog icon for this entry, in fact.
But that's not fair to this game. Throughout my time in their free promotion, my attitude has evolved from the "lol Horizons sucks" of the Before times to "pff okay this is awesome XD" to "okay but seriously this is actually not bad." For every issue I've had, the support team has been fast, responsive, and friendly to the point of practically rolling out the red carpet for me. The graphics... it's like why I will argue with people that Mario 64 actually has good graphics. They're certainly dated, but if you take the capabilities of your current platform, work them into a style, and makes something that looks good for what it is, then there's a certain timelessness to it. From the smoldering volcanic doom of the Char region to the deadly yet beautiful frozen northern mountains, Istaria's Aradoth is a scenic world. In that sense, it's not even so-bad-it's-good; it's just good.
Those performance issues on PCs of the time? This thing can run on a potato now. Even Tazoon is buttery smooth. (It's still empty, but shh.) It's nice to roam around in, especially now that I can.
Oh, and I could still get conspiratorial over the links between Artifact, Tulga, and Virtrium, but... unless you're one of their creditors, does it really matter who they are? They're putting out a good product that's fun to play. At least Artifact didn't sell Horizons to NCSoft.
In the past couple weeks, I've been all around a digital world, exploring questlines and locations that are both comfortingly familiar yet new and open to be explored. I've made new friends who have welcomed me into their fold. I witnessed a dragon from my newfound circle finish her deeply ceremonial ritual rite of passage to become an adult, and felt more things than I have at some RL cousins' weddings.
I... am going to keep playing this. In a world where $10 a month could get you, I don't know, FFXIV or ESO or whatever new real MMOs kids are playing these days, I'm going to subscribe--not ironically, but proudly--to this one. Not out of hipsterism, or Family Dog appreciation, but out of a genuine heartfelt feeling that this is a good experience and I want to keep experiencing it.
If the polish comes off and I stop having fun someday? Then maybe I'll cancel at that point. I'm not entering a binding contract that gives them my soul until the heat death of the universe or anything. It's a monthly subscription I can turn off if I ever stop having fun. But for now? I like this game, and it feels good to be back.
---
Sara adds:
I normally dislike when Celine falls so hard into an all-consuming game that she starts slipping on chores/bedtime/etc., but good heavens I've never seen these parts of her mind light up like this. This is delightful.
I mean she still needs to quit typing this and go take a shower.
But man, she's just... she's happy and I'm really feeling it too.
hi I just landed here from dreadlord I think
Date: 2019-01-13 03:11 pm (UTC)Re: hi I just landed here from dreadlord I think
Date: 2019-01-13 07:49 pm (UTC)Keep an eye out for me if you're online and I'm around! I have two characters on Order--Syrahlia Feathercaster is my main and Ahrashace Bladescales is a lesser-used alt. I also have one named Lisira Hawk on Chaos but she's used even less often than Shace.