Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted

Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted
Studio	Virtrium LLC
Senior Developer	Rick Simmons Jason Murdick Heather Rothwell
Erstveröffent- lichung	December 5, 2003 December 9, 2003
platform	Windows
Game engine	Intrinsic Alchemy Mantrid Engine
genre	Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Game mode	Multiplayer
language	English
Age rating	USK

Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by the US game developer Virtrium and was originally published by Artifact Entertainment as Horizons: Empire of Istaria . Tulga Games, LLC acquired the game and all of its assets on January 25, 2005 and sold it to EI Interactive in July 2006. On July 18, 2007, Virtrium LLC (Vi) acquired the rights to the game.

The fantasy world enables players to be adventurers, craftsmen or both and to take part in the struggle of the living races against the Withered Aegis , an army of the undead who are trying to destroy all life. Istaria offers the unique opportunities among the MMORPG Dragon to play and to acquire a dragon's cave or a plot of land in non-instanced player cities and to cultivate individually. The computer game can only be played online via the internet .

Gameplay

The aim of the game is to fight the undead hordes of the Withered Aegis with other players , build settlements, repair destroyed buildings and successfully complete the many quests. Unlike in some other MMORPG , there is no fighting against other human players ( player versus player , PvP), but only with them against monsters ( player versus environment ). A measure of forces between players, i.e. PvP, is only possible on the Isles of Battle. The attraction of the game lies in the multitude of combative and manual professions that can be practiced at the same time.

There are eleven fantasy races available: dragon, dryad, elf, fury, gnome, half-giant, human, cat-like saris, satyr, reptilian sslik and dwarf. With the exception of the sslik and dragon, which are designed as a unisex gender, male and female gender are available for all other races. The specialty for the two-legged races is that they can learn as many of the existing professions as they want. However, only a craft and an adventurer can be practiced at the same time. There are 28 adventure classes and 20 skilled trades to choose from. Certain skills of an adventurer's profession can be mastered and are therefore available to all adventurer classes of the avatar. It is possible to switch between the classes as often as you like without any disadvantages. The adventurer classes are divided into healer, magician and fighter professions and in various mixed forms. Some of the classes require some basic knowledge of other areas before you can join them.

Dragons have one adventurer and three craft classes and are completely different from bipeds. A dragon begins as flightless Jung Dragon ( hatchling ), in an Epic Quest he becomes able to fly adults ( Adult ) and in a further extensive Epic Quest series finally to Altdrachen ( Ancient ). Flying in Istaria is reserved exclusively for dragons, so an advanced player can fly through the game world. Dragons have to choose between one of the two factions as they grow up: the more magically gifted Helian, who is allied with the bipeds, or the combative and skeptical Lunus towards bipeds .

The craft system has a very high degree of complexity. It is divided into professions that are used to create usable items for players (clothing, armor, weapons, jewelry, scrolls, potions, food, tools and spells) and professions that are used to construct buildings (houses, walls, machines for Craftsmen, silos, traders and decorations). A special feature of the game is that resources (ore, wood, plants - more than 150 different ones) have to be mined (as with the Ultima Online model ), whereby higher-quality resources can be mined with increasing professional experience ( level ) (example for jewelers: Tier I: Copper and tin, II: silver, III: gold, IV: platinum, V: mithril , VI: adamant ). The resources are then processed into intermediate and end products using tools and machines. When making a product, a craftsman can improve the products with additional techniques to give the items individuality or improved properties. To produce them, techniques and product formulas have to be collected, fought for or bought over time. The manufacturable pieces of equipment, which can reach an epic quality, are the basis of every adventurer and craftsman and is in contrast to many MMORPGs where craft trades often play a rather subordinate role. There are over 2,000 product formulas that a master craftsman of all classes ( Grand Master Crafter ) can record in his manual.

development

The core concept behind Horizons before the release was as follows: To create a zone-free, constantly changing environment in which the players try together to stop an apparently overpowering enemy: the Withered Aegis . This enemy consists of a few individuals from the living races (races to which the players belong) in an unholy alliance with groups of devils and demons from another existence, the so-called Realm of Blight . The interwoven cursed magic would include necromancy, the ability to summon zombies from corpses, and resurrect skeletal remains into fierce warriors. Because of the cooperative nature of the game, the Aegis would be completely controlled by the AI . According to David Bowman in 2002: "Horizons is not released with a player versus player conflict. Rather, Artifact pays full attention to creating the best possible player versus environment gameplay.

This enemy was originally intended to be dynamic in nature, launching automatic attacks against player-held positions and cursing conquered ground with dark magic. The concept proved difficult to put into practice, and the Warfront eventually reverted to static regions held by players and the Aegis . In the years after the release of Horizons , "World Events" were held by gamemasters that allowed gamers to leave their mark on the world. While not as cost-effective as an automated system, it allowed Artifact and Tulga to deliver on their promise of a changing and interactive world.

Istaria suffered from various problems in the first few years after the launch. Many of these were known to both the current and previous management of the various companies that owned Istaria . Rick Simmons, the owner of Istaria , stated that his team is working to fix the issues as soon as possible. Istaria suffers from performance problems that affect both the client and the server. These issues are often perceived as lag by players. According to David Bowman, former Artifact Creative Director and President of Tulga Games , "The client combat system was slow and hackneyed. David Bowman:" There wasn't enough entertaining content for the players, and a lack of promised game mechanics that didn't make it into the game . There were many reasons to like the game, many players didn't last because of the problems.

After a few years of stagnation, there were no more land and dragon caves to acquire at Istaria . It was only through the " Plot Reclamation " that the areas owned by the players that no longer had a paid account became available again. The plot reclamations have been carried out monthly since then. With the various content updates, new game content has been added continuously since 2007. Updates of the client in the last few years since Virtrium took over the further development and thanks to the more powerful computers of today, the lags have significantly decreased and the game runs more smoothly and much more stable than it used to be.

Events

Shortly after launch, the Horizons team ran Storyline guided events. These events uncovered the traditions and history of Istaria and sometimes led to the discovery of new, different events.

Originally weekly events were planned for the game, but since September 2004 they have been drastically reduced due to personnel and financial problems at Artifact and later at Tulga . Some of the events included digging tunnels and building bridges to open up new areas and to free entire races from the magical bondage of the Withered Aegis . The two races, satyrs and dryads, opened up to the players through large and complex server-wide events.

Before the introduction of Horizons and the problems that followed, this and similar events were intended to be carried out continuously.

Subscriptions

After the download, the game can be tested free of charge for two weeks, after which there are monthly fees depending on the subscription type. Istaria distinguishes between three different subscription models. Free Access is a free-to-play , i.e. free account, which, however, is restricted to one character and only enables the race of people to play. The Basic Access subscription costs around € 7.50 per month and includes up to five characters, but you cannot own a plot of land or a dragon's cave. With the Property Holder Access Account, which costs around 11 € per month, it is possible to own a cave or property and create up to seven characters. A special feature in the account management allows an account to book additional basic or property holder access subscriptions, so it is possible to create more characters, to purchase several parcels of land or dragon caves and to log into the game with several characters at the same time, everything is managed from one account .

Server (shards)

At the beginning of Horizons , there were three European and eight North American servers (shards). Because of the immense problems at the beginning of Horizons , many players looked for other alternatives, and some servers were only visited by very few players. In October 2004 the three European shards Wind , Ice and Earth were merged into Unity , the five standard shards Life , Shadow , Bounty , Twilight and Energy into Chaos and the three RPG servers Spirit , Dawn and Expanse into Order . With the takeover by Virtrium, the Unity Shard was taken offline at the end of 2007. It took a few months until finally in April 2008 the Unity players were given the opportunity to transfer their characters according to order or chaos without incurring any costs.

There are currently three American servers called Shards, one of which is the test server. Istaria is uniformly held in English, but there are public chat rooms in which German is spoken on the two game servers. The Chaos server is the regular game server populated by a large number of players, the second game server order is aimed at role-playing players and the Blight server is the public test server on which updates can be tested and the new features can be played before they appear on the regular game servers .

Content updates

The following content updates have been released by the Virtrium development team:

• Hammer's Rest (October 16, 2007)
• Gnomekindle 2007 (December 12, 2007)
• Tasty Treats (March 24, 2008)
• Pax Istaria (July 29, 2008)
• Dralnok's Doom (July 1, 2009)
• Scourge of the Skulks (February 10, 2010)
• Dragon Rite of Passage (June 22, 2010)
• September 2011 (September 6, 2011)
• November 2011 (November 29, 2011)
• Spring Update 2012 (April 10, 2012)
• November Content Update (November 12, 2012)
• Gnomekindle 2013 (February 2013)
• Spring Festival 2013 (May 29, 2013)
• The Crystalshaper 2013 (October 15, 2013)
• 10th Anniversary Celebration! (December 10, 2013)
• A Bitter Wind (April 8, 2014)
• In Memory Of (August 19, 2014)
• City Under Siege (February 10, 2015)
• Summer 2015 Update (August 11, 2015)
• 12th Anniversary Release (December 21, 2015)
• Niesa's Fate (May 24, 2016)

Web links

• Official American homepage
• Horizons: Empire of Istaria at MobyGames (English)
• istaria.wikia.com - A wiki about Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted (English)
• www.istaria-lexica.de - An alternative wiki to Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ MMO Development Platform - www.virtrium.com
2. ↑ Virtrium LLC: Virtrium LLC Changes Name Of Game Product Horizons To Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted. (No longer available online.) April 14, 2008, archived from the original on April 16, 2008 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ MMORPG.com: Horizons sold to Entertainment Interactive. July 21, 2006, accessed November 17, 2013 . 
4. ↑ MMORPG.com: Interview - Rick Simmons - MMORPG.com. July 17, 2007, accessed November 17, 2013 . 
5. ↑ Gamersinfo.net: Interview - Rick Simmons - Gamersinfo.net. (No longer available online.) August 16, 2007, archived from the original on December 5, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Virtrium LLC: Races. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 21, 2009 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) February 3, 2003, archived from the original on February 3, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) September 1, 2003, archived from the original on July 11, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) October 28, 2002, archived from the original on February 3, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) October 14, 2002, archived from the original on June 22, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman at E3 2002. (. No longer available online) 11 June 2002 filed by the original on February 4, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) November 11, 2002, archived from the original on July 6, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ RPGVault: RPGnet Interview with David Bowman. June 22, 2006, accessed November 17, 2013 . 
14. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with Rick Simmons. (No longer available online.) October 4, 2007, archived from the original on October 18, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ RPGVault: RPGVault Interview with David Bowman. (No longer available online.) September 5, 2005, archived from the original on February 10, 2007 ; accessed on November 17, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ Virtrium: Istaria Community News. September 30, 2008, accessed November 17, 2013 . 
17. ↑ Virtrium: Virtrium LLC Announces Availability of Unity Transfer Program. April 11, 2008, accessed November 18, 2013 . 
18. ↑ Virtrium: Unity transfer. August 23, 2012, accessed November 18, 2013 .