Gallahan - Welcome to tonight's Horizons House of Commons chat!
Gallahan - Our guests today will be Steve Snow, and David Bowman.
David_Bowman - Hi, glad to be here.
Gallahan - To ask a question to the developers /msg or /query [QT]Lyle, [QT]Nelson, or [QT]Rhayde
Gallahan - Logs of this chat will be posted shortly on http://hz.stratics.com!
Steve_Snow - Hi there, thanks for stopping by everyone. The folks at AE greatly appreciate your time!
Gallahan - A quick reminder: You may chat freely amongst yourselves during and after the chat in #horizons
Steve_Snow - I work as the Producer for Horizons.
David_Bowman - and I'm the Creative Director and co-President

Gallahan - *Roscott* What can we expect in the way of dungeons? EQ style? DAOC style? AC style? What can we expect in the way of dungeons? EQ style? DAOC style? AC style? What can we expect in the way of dungeons? EQ style? DAOC style? AC style?
Steve_Snow - In terms of a dungeon experience we have always viewed it as the high stakes table in terms of gameplay. The prime goal we have is to create the high stakes table that you go to when you want to gamble a little higher with your gameplay experience. As per an actual dungeon experience we are focusing on the surface area gameplay first and foremost.
Steve_Snow - We don't want to launch with partly finished underground gameplay. So for you guys what you'll see first is high stakes poker tables on the surface world. Then when we feel we have that nailed down we will move on to the underground experience and the timing of that is still undetermined.

Gallahan - *Fridlekh* Can you explain "weapon bonding" and why this was chosen instead of, for example, power of items being relative to skill as a means of twink control?
David_Bowman - Horizons is a world that is player directed, and that includes the crafting of items in the world. Since Istaria is a heavily magic based world, it makes sense for us to use magic in the creation of our items. The crafters of those items gain no benefit if the beginning player can receive a powerful item from a friend and use it for the life of the character.

Gallahan - *Submitted Question* When can we Pre-order Horizons, and what sorts of bonus material will we get when we do?
David_Bowman - Pre-order information should be available soon. Atari is establishing the retail relationships for pre-orders to occur. What specific benefits that entails will be worked out between Atari and the specific retailers.
Steve_Snow - Just so folks know, the Creative Director oversees the design of the product and I oversee the schedule and organization of the product.

Gallahan - *Stukov* Will crafters be able to just craft? In games like DAoC, you had to hunt to get money to support yourself. I want to see it possible to just craft and not worry about that
Steve_Snow - That's the prime goal of the crafting system. You gather your own resources if you want to. Therefore you basically support yourself by obtaining all the raw materials you need as opposed to throwing money at your skill points.

Gallahan - *Tigam* Hello! Can you go into a little more detail about how attributes work? We know the basics Strength, Power, Dexterity, Focus, and Health... But are Str. and Pow. the same thing, just called something different depending on school? What exactly does Focus do for a mage, and what does it do for a fighter?
David_Bowman - Strength relates to physical prowess (damage dealing as an example)
David_Bowman - Power relates to the magical strength; the ability to create scope of magic.
David_Bowman - Dexterity is the attribute of physical movement; (chance of evading for example)

Gallahan - *Kingdino* How advanced is the AI, will it be advanced with some kind of tatics involved, or will monsters act pretty simplistic?
David_Bowman - Focus is the magical ability of expressing your magical will against an opponent.
Steve_Snow - AI is very important to the gameplay experience in a product like this. But there is also a fine line that we have to maintain to make sure that we remain challenging and fun at the same time.
Steve_Snow - True AI wouldn't be too much fun if it just went after the softies like casters first. So we are constantly seeking to find that balance between creating tactical gameplay that doesn't exploit the player abilities.
Steve_Snow - So in closing, our beta testers will be the lynch pin for making this work right.

Gallahan - *Ulairi* Can AE change the content, land, rules, etc. in real time?
Steve_Snow - We can change a great deal of the gameworld on the fly. But the biggest thing is that players can alter aspects of the gamespace through community building as well. In terms of game rules, thats really easy for us to update. We don't have to bring the servers down then up for a majorty of our system changes.

Gallahan - *Fridlekh* In the FAQ it says that "Players can teleport to their home towns at any time". Will there be restrictions on that use (such as when actively aggroed on) and how will this affect trade routes (or lack thereof?)
David_Bowman - There are rules governing the use of the travel gates and the recall ability. For example: if you are using a caravan disk, you cannot recall or use the travel gates without disengaging your caravan disk. Disengaging from combat through recall will be balanced against monster AI (I'll leaved it at that for now) . Trade routes are about mass movements of goods, and that should be uneffected by the transporation system

Gallahan - *IronClaw* Hio, Im IronClaw from Templar Gaming. My Question: Do you plan to add forums to istaria.com and when can we expect to see game guides to be added..for example trade skill guides etc ?
Steve_Snow - As far as game information goes we are all on board with supporting the playerbase with relivent information that lets them make intelligent decisions as opposed to just guessing and then discovering later that something doesn't work the way they thought. Paul and Shawn have talked a great deal about making a lot of the design information available for players to support this. So in terms of forums not really, the information will be more focused t

Gallahan - *rscott* How is beta going and when can we expect the next round of admissions to happen?
Steve_Snow - Our beta is progression really well, especially with the help from Atari. We are getting a good amount of core data to help us. We will be rolling more and more beta testers into the processes as we go. We will be sure to let those selected know when they get in. Keep an eye out over the next few months!

Gallahan - *Shrack* Current MMORPGS are beginning to feel the same and none really have anything unique to them. How will Horizons be unique?
David_Bowman - Horizons has a very unique aspect, it has a goal greater than just single player progression. You can change the world not just your character.
David_Bowman - Winning back the lands from the undead will take time, effort and coordination.
David_Bowman - Rebuilding the land is in the hands of the players.
David_Bowman - oh, and of course, player dragons and other diverse player character experiences.

Gallahan - *Tynan_Black* Are you going to be releasing in depth lore for Horizon in the near future? The in depth lore aspect is often the most important thing for me usually in deciding whether or not to play a game.
Steve_Snow - We want to release a lot of backstory for everyone to read, we have a ton of story written so far. But we also want to save a few things for the game. As we go forward look for more and more posted to the website. Most likely you start to see a flow of it over the summer.

Gallahan - *drago* Will there be pvp aspects involved in the finished product?
David_Bowman - Horizons is not a player vs. player centric product. We will continue to experiment with voluntary systems of player vs player combat such as guild wars and duels, but they are not central to the game.

Gallahan - *Ratbreath* Question: What role do clerics and or deity-based magic play now? Also, is there anything like the old piety system?
David_Bowman - There is a prestige school for clerics. It relies upon the same school/system as other schools, but the spells and special abilities are related specifically to dieties.

Gallahan - *Alayni* How much diversity is being planned for each school? For example, will two characters who stayed in the same school their whole career be almost identical in skills? Or will they have the ability to diversify from each other?
Steve_Snow - Think of schools more as wrappers for skills. So if you stay with a school you will get everything that school has to offer. Diversity comes in terms of what schools you have progressed in, also in terms of what quests you do and what you choose to wear. Whether that is scout or warrior. They both have unique things to offer that one of the schools simply does not offer. Not to mention that race and equipment also apply to diversity.

Gallahan - *Ulairi* Will Horizons have true property in the world? What I mean can we: build our own house, choose where on our property we can build, the style, the orientation of the structure, and have multiple structures? Could a guild only allow members in?
David_Bowman - Horizons has real property. The players can buy plots of land that allow for dramatic customization, including the ability to orient structures however you'd like within the constraints of the size of the structures and the size of the plot. So, yes, you can build more than one structure on a plot.
David_Bowman - A guild could allow for only members to use the structures.
David_Bowman - but that would be up to the property owner

Gallahan - *Lianna* David bowman might appreciate this one... for real... Here is my question: Why does arizona have such strict out of state alchohol shipping regulations? *smile*
Steve_Snow - David and I wish we knew! But rest assured that anyone who was responsible for confiscating that shipment is banned from Horizons. :) LOL
David_Bowman - Truth, truth... so sad. (We do not promote the use of alcohol..)

Gallahan - *Wolfgang* What are the current playable Races that will make it to release?
Steve_Snow - Offically: Humans, Fiends, Dwarves, Dragons, and Elves. But keep your ears and eyes open!
Steve_Snow - Keep in mind the Horizons website is always the offical place for this kind of information.
Steve_Snow - http://www.istaria.com

Gallahan - *Arthyron* Approximately how many people do you think it would take to build a castle, just speaking of a group of peole that pool their money together
David_Bowman - One very, very, persistent player... or many of his or her friends.
David_Bowman - The construction draws upon many skills and resources
David_Bowman - but if many people cooperated, it could be done fairly quickly. Like an old fashioned barn raising.

Gallahan - *Wolfgang* Can you tell us a bit about what role dragons will play in Horizons? Will they be hunted by other races, and so forth?
David_Bowman - Dragons are a proud race, with two major factions. The history describes their role-playing traditions. Other living races no longer hunt them, but there are opponents of the players that are as fearsome as any Ancient Dragon.

Gallahan - *Tigam* Will armor that someone is wearing effect the ability to cast spells? Or only certain types of armor can be worn in order to cast?
Steve_Snow - This just in from Paul Peterson and Adrian LaVallee! Access to armor or spells is dependant on your current school. So some schools will preclude one or the other in terms of spells and armor.

Gallahan - *Teflon* will there be any trade skill for Dragon players?
David_Bowman - Yes, but they are dragon specific. Dragons do not make items for other races. Though other races may learn the ability to make dragon specific items if they study long.

Gallahan - *Durin* What unique features will guilds have in Horizons?
Steve_Snow - We have a lot of the standard stuff right now, such as a point system, a GUI on everything and a calendar. We are also implementing a way so that you can set rank permissions and customize those permissions all the way across the board. The system while not unique in terms of features today is more customizable than other comparisons.

Gallahan - *Fridlekh* How hard will Horizons push current technology with all the bells and whistles of the client turned up to maximum?
David_Bowman - It would not be possible to run the client with all the bells and whistles on for a minimum spec machine, but a present-day, good system will handle most of the features turned on. They scale though, so it would be possible to push beyond the limit of even the best that today's machines and cards are capable. But game play is smooth on all of the systems we've tested so far.

Gallahan - *Znwo* Horizons has been built around your 'evolution engine' you seem to have speant a good deal of the time creating this engine. Can you cover briefly how it has allowed you to quickly develop horizons as a game (without going into what has already been covered by the dev journals)
David_Bowman - The tool set that is the Evolution Engine is the most powerful development tool for persistent worlds that I've ever worked with. It lets our team collaboratively develop concurrently, live on a production server. There is no recompiling and exporting to a different format before seeing the results of your work.
David_Bowman - It is more important in that we can continue to grow the world dramatically as we go forward.

Gallahan - *Kyranfox* If players are to determine the fate of the "subjugated races," and Istaria itself for that matter, does this mean different servers will end up with different stories? Will different server shards "unlock" a particular playble race at different times? How will this effect major events?
Steve_Snow - We really want to support unique worlds, but we also don't want a world rush when one server unlocks a race for the first time. We are implementing checks and balances to help with this problem. So worlds will have different histories, and that will be influenced by players' actions.

Gallahan - *Nelson* Thanks for joining us for the Horizons House of Commons, when can we expect the next House of Commons?
David_Bowman - After E3's chaos we'd be happy to come back. You've been great and we know there are more questions yet to be answered.
David_Bowman - I'll consult with Eski to see what the marketing folks have planned for us, and then we'll come back.
David_Bowman - Thanks everyone, we need to get back to finishing the world...

Gallahan - Thanks for attending tonight's House of Commons!
Gallahan - Logs will be posted on http://hz.stratics.com shortly!
Steve_Snow - We really appreciate your guys time for this!
Gallahan - If you decide to publish your own log, we request that you indicate clearly that this was a Stratics House of Commons Discussion and link to http://hz.stratics.com!
Steve_Snow - Thanks much.
Gallahan - Thanks Once Again!
Gallahan - You can head over to #horizons for free chat!

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