Cheap Horizons: Empire of Istaria (Software) (Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Me) Price

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Customer Reviews of Horizons: Empire of Istaria

The good:
- Graphics, visuals, even in such low detail level (for good performance) Istaria looks amazing.
- Sound, best music for MMORPG by far.
- Tradeskills are OK (better than other MMORPGs)
- Fighting is fun, got some skills to use and make a difference
- Can really be unique with so many races available and then so many features that can be customized (height, head shape, etc)
- Can actually multiclass and it really works.
- No exp penalty on death, no corpse runs to get gear (allows you to take risks and have more fun)

The bad:
- The web interface login.
- not enough servers for the demand.
- Loading times are ridiculous if server is highly populated
- Gathering resources for TSkills is difficult cause so many ppl doing the same (if same place).
- Unless someone is selling what you want (spell or gear) you cannot buy it.
- Not enough information anywhere about the schools and skills, didn't even know Druid was a choice from start until read about it somewhere.
- It seems to have several bugs including very nasty memory leaks (game gets real slow after a while)
- Casters are not working very well ATM
- Warrior types always take Cleric to lvl10 for heals
- NO PETS in game, huge drawback for me
- Huge BUG when abilities go grey for no apparent reason thus becoming unavailable until you log (loggin in takes quite some time).
- Lacking dungeons which I think are great fun.

Can be the real next generation MMORPG if several issues are addressed (I'm sure all problems will be fixed eventually).

very confusing and complicated account creation
After you shell out a couple of dozen bucks on CD, you need to pay additional dozen bucks a month to keep online account. Horizons account creation is absolutely the worst I have ever experienced (and I played quite a few games online).
It requires patches that themselves require administrator privileges. After installation, launching the account gave me a puzzling message that the game is not installed. If you ever felt the worst features that Microsoft has - big, complex, buggy - that is the feeling that Horizons leaves.
Extremely disappointed..

This is good stuff...
...don't let sour comments from some powerplayers (or munchkins - RPG-term) fool you, this game is great stuff.
A MORPG can never be Baldur's Gate. It cannot have a story that evolves around you the player. A MORPG is about immersing oneself in the world presented; and the world of Horizons is splendid indeed.
I see a lot of people complaining about the graphics, and this annoys me. Some visual flare has been sacrificed, true, but instead you have HUGE landscapes, and LONG view distances. I prefer that to walking around in a bumb mapped haze. It looks GREAT, believe me.
As for gameplay, well, you can play a dragon. Enough said. I've tried a lot of other titles like this (Galaxies, AO, DAoC, ++), and they are all basically the same, limited by the type of gameplay a MORPG can offer. Horizons is somewhat different. Horizons offer something more.
The music is second to none.
A lot of the issues that plagued Horizons has been resolved. It is relatively stable, and you can run it on high setting with any machine above average. Try the free trial...