In some ways, it is a new game. At the very least, it is a more finished and polished product. Horizons was released as an, admittedly, unfinished game. Some of the biggest improvements have come to the hardware and software that bring the land to life. One of the big problems in early Horizons was server stability. Frankly, there really wasn't any. Servers going down and booting people was more the rule than the norm. There were even many times where the servers wouldn't necessarily go down, but they would boot everyone anyways. Being frequently kicked off at random times was enough to drive anyone away, but the problem was made worse by the long load times and the queue of 400 people ahead of you trying to log back in. Fortunately, the hardware now seems to be working quite well, and there are no longer the crashes and mass disconnects that there were. Now, the only time I see the servers down is during the weekly maintenance.

The client itself has been tweaked a great deal and now runs quite smoothly. There are more enhancements soon to come as well. One of the issues early in the life of Horizons was the combat lag. Today, combat animations and feedback are almost immediate - which helps out a lot in those close pitched battles - as well as the battles where the monster tends to needs a group to defeat it. One big source of client lag had been the map. Any time a player would teleport into a new area, or switch between different maps as happens when leaving cities, there would be a great deal of lag while the new map loaded. The problem was pretty simple...the map file was huge. Having all of that loaded into the memory didn't help the overall lag of the game either. But, after some adjustments to the map after listening to the ideas of the players, the new map has become easy to use and quick to load. The developers have listened to the player base for other little tweaks to the maps such as it being too bright to be able to read the text on it.

The developers even took seriously the complaint of having to launch the game through the web page. And the players could not just use any web browser, it HAD to be Internet Explorer. Lets be honest here, Microsoft does not have the best security track record, so the complaints were more than well founded. In recent months though, a new stand alone launcher has come out, allowing players to start from their desktops as they could for most any other game. There are still a couple gripes about security with this version, but it is significantly better than the old version.

Through events and due to a huge world merger during the bankruptcy that brought down the number of worlds to 3 (Order for Roleplay, Chaos for normal play, and Unity for European players), the world of Istaria has seen a huge number of changes. One of the biggest changes has been the emergence of 2 new playable races. Since launch, a series of events were released to allow players to free the Satyr race, and another series of events brought the Dryads (pixies) back into the world. Once these races were "freed," they became playable. During the Satyr event, 4 islands were introduced with numerous monsters as well as giant machines that were used to help enslave the race. These islands remain and are now home to numerous high level monsters.

Other islands have emerged as well, ranging from mostly resource gathering, to all-out fighting. The most recent example of this is two new islands inhabited by werewolves. One of which had to have a lighthouse and tunnel built by players to allow access to the gate to the island; the other required the building of 3 huge bridge spans (again, by the players) to reach the island that has the gate. This island oddly enough is shaped much like a "W".

A new continent complete with resources, housing, and monsters appeared to the North of the main continent at the time of the world merge. Unlike most destinations such as the main cities or player towns in Istaria, to be able to get to this continent one either needed to climb one of the towers on an island of ice (a 5 minute climb by itself), or perform a task and be "attuned." Finishing the quests now gives a rather nice experience reward, and there are separate tasks for crafters and adventurers.

The entire land of Istaria was reworked and tiered at the time of the merge. Now, the main "racial" cities have the resources or monsters of a certain range of levels near by. A couple of examples are the Island of Lesser Aradoth, as well as the continent I mentioned above. Lesser Aradoth is geared more towards the newer players, and therefore has animals and resources from the 1-20 level range. This island has seen another overhaul recently and is called the start of the "Beautification of Istaria." The continent I mentioned above is set up towards players in the 40-60 level range with monsters and resources accordingly. The nice part about this is it makes finding what you are looking for easier if you know how the towns are set up.

Other areas have seen a "beautification" through the efforts of the players. For the longest time, the home city of the elves had been taken over. Adventurers were needed to fight through the throngs of monsters. Crafters were needed to construct machines to help clean up the area surrounding the city. Ultimately, the labors of the players paid off and the elves were able to return home. Another example of players getting involved is an event held right before the world merge. The "Withered Aegis," or the ultimate group of bad guys that the players have been battling, had overrun the world. The only way out was to escape to a new world...a clean world. A giant machine had to be created to transport the characters to this new world. Crafters came together and built this huge machine. As the shards were coming down for the merge, the machines were "activated." When all the players awoke, they were either on Order, Chaos, or Unity.

The biggest changes to the game however, have come to dragons. On release, and for months after, dragons could not go past their hatchling form. There was no flying. Dragons were weak, and the hoard they gathered would slowly drain away. Today, dragons soar high above the skies after completing a series of quests called the Rite of Passage. Today, the Ancient Rite of Passage is being worked on with parts of it already on the live servers. Dragon players are becoming anxious as they do not know what is in store for them upon ascension to Ancient other than they will be larger. One of the other changes has been to the hoard. The developers listened to the complaints of the decay system and instead gave dragons three powerful abilities that would use some hoard to use. The armor for dragons which once lagged far behind that of bipeds was beefed up. Breath weapons saw some changes as the fire breath which is so important to a dragon was made usable every 30 seconds instead of every 5 minutes. 2 new breath weapons have been added as well, only attainable after progressing through the Rite of Passage.

Another change for dragons is one that only the new players will see. There used to be one tutorial island for everyone to go through as they first entered the world, and it was very generic. On hearing that dragons were not getting a lot of the information important to them, the developers set out to making new tutorial islands. The first to come out was the dragon one, and it has a great deal of information now. The new tutorial walks players through how to fight and how to craft. There is also an encyclopedia of sorts full of information that new dragons can read through. According to the developers, the tutorial for all of the other players should be coming out in the near future.

Player plots (housing) have seen some changes as well, and it looks like some great changes are on the way as well. It is important to note that in Horizons, housing and all of its design, NPCs, machines, etc. must be built. You only purchase the land to place it upon. Then the real work begins. At the worlds merged, the number of plots skyrocketed, bringing new communities near resources and near the major cities. Guild Plots were also introduced, where if a member of a guild purchased the main plot, only members of his or her guild could buy the plots around it. Some of these guild areas had 20-30 plots. The number of resources that went into creating a number of the "fluff" items like trees and walls was reduced so players would not have to invest so much time in creating these. The biggest change to plots though is soon to come. Up to this point, dragons have had nowhere to call home. For months, the developers have been working on a lair creation system. These lairs are undergoing major internal testing, which includes the creation of one lair so large and complex that the developer that was walking through it got lost and had to teleport out.

Looking back through all the changes that have occurred over the last year and a half, I can see how people returning are seeing it in a whole new way. The changes I have mentioned may account for a little over half of everything that has occurred since launch. The next year and a half looks to be shaping up to continue down the same road. The developers have TONS of ideas that they have been conveying to the players, and ideas of how they would be done. In addition to these plans, they continue to get new ideas from the players as to what else would be good for the game. That really has been one of the great qualities about this game, how much the developers listen to and interact with the players. If that kind of interaction can continue, Horizons will have a long life ahead of it and I hope will likely become one of the more popular games on the market.