Recently, AE released the 3D model of the ORC. Everyone was grateful for the new release and thought the model looked excellent,.....with a few modifications. (I'll link to the Orc renditions of Dyamirr, Lorrick, and FarWalker.) You can make your own decisions as to what fits the world best, that's exactly what AE is going to do. The question is, does this feedback make Horizons a better game?

Absolutely! This kind of customer information is desperately needed by AE. Unlike Everquest, AE is counting on race numbers to help out with the balance issues. (I hate to bring up EQ so early in this editorial, but it had to be done.) In EQ, every race, and every class, was balanced individually. If there were 35 Ogre warriors and 1 Dark Elf Necro, it was boring, but it was still balanced. In Horizons, there need to be more than 30 goblins for every dragon or there will be problems. Both with story and with gameplay.

What does that have to do with the Orc? Every time a new piece of concept art was release, the board were aflutter with people saying, "Oh, now I'm going to play an Orc...Now I'm going to play a Goblin." When the Orc model was released, most of the responses were, "No way I'm going to play an Orc if they look like that." Decisions and approvals even this early on can have a dramatic effect on the race balances once the game is released. So, is it better for AE to release the Orc model now when there is time to fix it, or keep it a secret until release and then have a server completely void of Orcs? The answer is obvious, as is the strategy AE needs to employ.

Before I go much farther, I want to point out that the reason I care about Horizons at all is the developer interaction. This game is so much better because of the activity on the message board and the fact the devs are here to read and respond. In this case, if a little is good, more is better.

There are a lot of 'surprises' in single player games. You wouldn't want to show the main boss of a side-scroller beforehand, because most of the thrill of the game is finding that out. However, in a MMOG, the thrill is in the interaction, not the discovery. I don't want to be surprised with what an orc looks like. If I'm going to play one, I'd want to be comfortable with what one looks like.

The same goes for the internal systems of the game. Economic, battle, death, magic, skills, trades...everything. This is a world I am supposed to live in. I need to know how it works, and I want that working to make sense.

Right before final approval on any major system, subsystem, major artwork, or general area design, AE should post that information for the boards to dissect. I'll give some examples.

The street layout of Tazoon. Skarz and the other world builders should design a city with decorations made by Doug and the artists. Scan comes in with the mechanics of the trade skills and economy and they work to have a living and breathing city. Right before Requinix signs off on it, Util should post a map of it to the board, and a couple screenshots. What does this accomplish?

First of all, it will increase your fan base. Recognition is paramount to an MMORPG. You need people, lots and lots of people.

Secondly, never underestimate the knowledge that lurks within the message boards. People will look over the map and be able to tell you there's a bottleneck at the corner of 5th and Main, and sector 7 will never have a PC enter it. EVER! In addition to technical issues, there are artistic issues (like the orc) that can be discussed and improved.

I'm not saying tell us everything. We don't need to dissect and rebuild every mob, and if it's not important, we probably won't. (How many modifications did people make to the Troth?) However, the important things...the 15 player races (or 14, or 16), the inclusion of a second underwater race, the death/loot/resurrect/respawn system, /tell for goodness sake. These kind of things need to be discussed.

And AE does a good job of it. Once a month almost, Scan says there's something that needs to be discussed. Those threads go on forever, and they multiply even. The way it could be better is if we were given more information to work with. Often the discussions get very detailed without the details, and all ideas are based on guesses and assumptions that came before. With just a little guidance, there could be some excellent progress.

And that's what makes good game design. That's what makes a great Orc. In a MMORPG, where the draw of the game has nothing to do with the secrets it holds, community interaction is your absolute best refining tool.
- Marc Hawke