Horizons: The Rant
Ok. So. As per usual, something annoys me enough to drag me outta the woodwork long enough to post about it.
This year ( :P ), it's Horizons ("Hz"). Or, more specifically, its forums and the arse-backwards company - E.I. Interactive - that just bought it.
Firstly, their name: The 'I' in 'E.I.' stands for 'Interactive'. Hence, their full name seems to be "Enhanced Interactive Interactive". Good start, eh? It gets better...
Secondly, please do visit their unbelievably professional website. It's a miracle of cutting-edge technology! Err... ah, crap! I left my sarcasm toggle on. *sigh* Right; it's off again. So. Their website sucks. What you see now is a slightly updated version of what it originally was, when they first bought over Hz. If you browse to their corporate page (via their awesome name-image at the top that looks like it was created by a photoshop virgin with a neon fetish), you'll find their ickle lightbulb mascot that used to have pride of place on the original front page. It sits in its shiny spaceship (originating in the MSPaint Galaxy, I presume) wielding a professional, confidence-inspiring slogan: "Dude! We want to publish your game!". Gah!! Damn toggle.. *smacks it off again* Amazing, eh? I can tell you're amazed. That their management think they can draw crowds of gamers (as opposed to stoners) by the use of "Dude!" speaks volumes about them, truly.
Now, let me chew their content up a bit (the taste in my mouth is already worse than their page, so no worries):
"[E I] is an established publisher of online interactive content products ...". So established a publisher that the only time I've ever heard of them (and I'm in the minority, believe me), is when I came into contact with a game called Savage Eden ("SE"). That contact lasted a couple of hours, max. Why? Well, 'cause the game sucks.
"Bringing quality content to the market," ...like their website?... "managing it well" ...believe it when I see it... "and promoting it effectively" ...witnesses would attest "badly", not "effectively"... "are the three essential cornerstones of the E I business strategy." Besides the fact that I think they tripped over those cornerstones on the way to their actual strategy, SE itself is a joke; the quality is sub-par and their idea of a "live event" is spawning an entity in the middle of a "town" to be dealt with by the players (when any actually turn up). Managing and promotion? Do a google search for Savage Eden. First two links are the game's homepage. After that... a film and books by that name. Oh, oh!! A game forum on Total Format! ....which has no threads and an empty archive. Popular game, eh? Pfft.
Their "The Market" section involves them shining Blizzard's laurels for World of Warcraft. Shiny!
"E I is currently licensing already developed content" ...since they have no dev team... "and reconfiguring the game play" ...with no dev team... "to enhance the players’ experience" ...where by "player" they mean "BattleNet kiddie". In short, they take someone else's hard work and tweak config files or, if I could believe they were competent enough, database values to alter the way things look or act. Hard work, that, and takes pretty much no skill at all, especially since it's not real-time changes. Whoo-ee!
Thirdly, their communication skills - or lack thereof. *snort* Originally, when Hz was owned by Tulga Games, the devs and community rep's would hang out in IRC and talk with the players. They'd actively post on the forums, keep people up to date on issues, discuss content and updates and changes and such and were, generally, very "interactive". I can count on one hand the number of EI forum posts I've seen, can continue to count on the same hand the number of times I've seen them in-game and just barely make it onto both hands if I continue counting how many times I've seen EI rep's on IRC. What's worse is that what staff has shown up and posted (primary one being a self-professed 'gamer' by the alias of "Danu") has been rather disturbingly illiterate. He types worse than some of the BattleNet kiddies I've had the misfortune of conversing with. He even makes "official posts" (on the rare occasions they appear) and, quite obviously, doesn't bother to spell- or grammar-check them; or get anyone else to. This from a company that wants us to think they're entirely professional and are "all about the community".
Last but definitely not least, their latest attempt to "try and keep the community under control" (a community that was starting to foam at the mouth at their current treatment) was an all-out moderation of the official forums (though they managed to half-ass that, too, insofar as you could edit posts that were accepted for posting without said moderation). Legitimate players can't create forum accounts any more (I tried - it failed). They finally (today) posted that new forum rules are in effect and that they're now open for posting again - people have tried to post and were still being moderated (last time I checked). So, it looks like they're also incapable of doing something as simple as working their forum software. This is the sort of nonsense we are all coming to expect from EI. Wonderful, isn't it?
My brain hurts. It hurts from having to deal with this arse-backwards, unprofessional excuse for a game-production company. If I was a long-term Hz player, my arse would probably hurt, too, from the rumming EI'd have given it by now with their inaction.
Me? I've had enough. I'm looking for another game to whet my interest. Currently, I'm looking at Valhyre. The staffie that hangs on out the new Hz IRC channel (which now exists because the old one, from what I'm told, is getting +m'oderated by a sickeningly sycophantic forum-moderator-turn-channel-op any time the previously mentioned staff member, Danu, enters) seems like a really straight-up, friendly guy. Their game has still to enter beta but it has promise.
That said, if anyone has any suggestions for games I might take a look at, please... I'm all (eyes and) ears! (Anything to get me away from this debacle that is EI.)
This year ( :P ), it's Horizons ("Hz"). Or, more specifically, its forums and the arse-backwards company - E.I. Interactive - that just bought it.
Firstly, their name: The 'I' in 'E.I.' stands for 'Interactive'. Hence, their full name seems to be "Enhanced Interactive Interactive". Good start, eh? It gets better...
Secondly, please do visit their unbelievably professional website. It's a miracle of cutting-edge technology! Err... ah, crap! I left my sarcasm toggle on. *sigh* Right; it's off again. So. Their website sucks. What you see now is a slightly updated version of what it originally was, when they first bought over Hz. If you browse to their corporate page (via their awesome name-image at the top that looks like it was created by a photoshop virgin with a neon fetish), you'll find their ickle lightbulb mascot that used to have pride of place on the original front page. It sits in its shiny spaceship (originating in the MSPaint Galaxy, I presume) wielding a professional, confidence-inspiring slogan: "Dude! We want to publish your game!". Gah!! Damn toggle.. *smacks it off again* Amazing, eh? I can tell you're amazed. That their management think they can draw crowds of gamers (as opposed to stoners) by the use of "Dude!" speaks volumes about them, truly.
Now, let me chew their content up a bit (the taste in my mouth is already worse than their page, so no worries):
"[E I] is an established publisher of online interactive content products ...". So established a publisher that the only time I've ever heard of them (and I'm in the minority, believe me), is when I came into contact with a game called Savage Eden ("SE"). That contact lasted a couple of hours, max. Why? Well, 'cause the game sucks.
"Bringing quality content to the market," ...like their website?... "managing it well" ...believe it when I see it... "and promoting it effectively" ...witnesses would attest "badly", not "effectively"... "are the three essential cornerstones of the E I business strategy." Besides the fact that I think they tripped over those cornerstones on the way to their actual strategy, SE itself is a joke; the quality is sub-par and their idea of a "live event" is spawning an entity in the middle of a "town" to be dealt with by the players (when any actually turn up). Managing and promotion? Do a google search for Savage Eden. First two links are the game's homepage. After that... a film and books by that name. Oh, oh!! A game forum on Total Format! ....which has no threads and an empty archive. Popular game, eh? Pfft.
Their "The Market" section involves them shining Blizzard's laurels for World of Warcraft. Shiny!
"E I is currently licensing already developed content" ...since they have no dev team... "and reconfiguring the game play" ...with no dev team... "to enhance the players’ experience" ...where by "player" they mean "BattleNet kiddie". In short, they take someone else's hard work and tweak config files or, if I could believe they were competent enough, database values to alter the way things look or act. Hard work, that, and takes pretty much no skill at all, especially since it's not real-time changes. Whoo-ee!
Thirdly, their communication skills - or lack thereof. *snort* Originally, when Hz was owned by Tulga Games, the devs and community rep's would hang out in IRC and talk with the players. They'd actively post on the forums, keep people up to date on issues, discuss content and updates and changes and such and were, generally, very "interactive". I can count on one hand the number of EI forum posts I've seen, can continue to count on the same hand the number of times I've seen them in-game and just barely make it onto both hands if I continue counting how many times I've seen EI rep's on IRC. What's worse is that what staff has shown up and posted (primary one being a self-professed 'gamer' by the alias of "Danu") has been rather disturbingly illiterate. He types worse than some of the BattleNet kiddies I've had the misfortune of conversing with. He even makes "official posts" (on the rare occasions they appear) and, quite obviously, doesn't bother to spell- or grammar-check them; or get anyone else to. This from a company that wants us to think they're entirely professional and are "all about the community".
Last but definitely not least, their latest attempt to "try and keep the community under control" (a community that was starting to foam at the mouth at their current treatment) was an all-out moderation of the official forums (though they managed to half-ass that, too, insofar as you could edit posts that were accepted for posting without said moderation). Legitimate players can't create forum accounts any more (I tried - it failed). They finally (today) posted that new forum rules are in effect and that they're now open for posting again - people have tried to post and were still being moderated (last time I checked). So, it looks like they're also incapable of doing something as simple as working their forum software. This is the sort of nonsense we are all coming to expect from EI. Wonderful, isn't it?
My brain hurts. It hurts from having to deal with this arse-backwards, unprofessional excuse for a game-production company. If I was a long-term Hz player, my arse would probably hurt, too, from the rumming EI'd have given it by now with their inaction.
Me? I've had enough. I'm looking for another game to whet my interest. Currently, I'm looking at Valhyre. The staffie that hangs on out the new Hz IRC channel (which now exists because the old one, from what I'm told, is getting +m'oderated by a sickeningly sycophantic forum-moderator-turn-channel-op any time the previously mentioned staff member, Danu, enters) seems like a really straight-up, friendly guy. Their game has still to enter beta but it has promise.
That said, if anyone has any suggestions for games I might take a look at, please... I'm all (eyes and) ears! (Anything to get me away from this debacle that is EI.)