Official FAQ

The fine folks at Vitrium LLC! They are a team of dedicated, experienced developers who have worked on Horizons since before the original release of the game.

850 MHz or faster Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor, 256 MB or more RAM, 64 MB or greater supported Direct3D and Hardware Transform & Lighting capable video card, Direct X 8.1 or greater and a dial-up Internet connection.
The recommended specs are a 1.4 GHz Pentium IV or AMD Athlon processor, 512MB RAM, GeForce 3 or better, DirectX 8.1a, and a DSL or Cable modem Internet connection.
Please note that Horizons does not support the Vista OS at this time.

Vitrium's goal is to allow play via modem as well as higher speed connections.

The subscription rate depends on the length of the subscription you purchase:

Term Rate*
1 Month $12.95
3 Months $35.85
6 Months $65.70
12 Months $119.40

*All prices are in US Dollars.

Note that you can have more than one subscription per account. Each subscription allows you one login, 7 character slots, one plot/lair slot, and 150 consignment slots for selling items to players.

A basic subscription of $9.95 per month will allow you to have 3 character slots, but is restricted from owning a plot.

The standard subscription, called a Gifted subscriptions, is offered in monthly, semi-annual and annual rates and allows 7 character slots and one plot per subscription.

Note that you can have multiple subscriptions per account.

Yes. People from around the world can connect to either Chaos or Order to join you in Istaria.

Currently there are Dragons, Humans, Fiends, Dwarves, Dryads, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Giants, Saris, Sslisk who roam Istaria and battle against the Withered Aegis.

For the most part your choice of race won't limit you to playing the game in a certain way. Dragons are an exception to this, however. They have their own schools and skills, and different rules with respect to items and what they can do in the world. A dragon character will still be able to act in many of the same roles as other races, though. Additionally, as one of the biped races, it will not be necessary for you to start over as a new character if you decide to explore a different role in the game.

Each character has a set of statistics that are used when they perform actions in the world. Strength or Power are used to determine how much damage a character deals in combat; Dexterity and Focus help a character hit with an attack or avoid an enemy's attack; Health determines how much damage you can take before falling over. Characters' statistics increase as they progress in the game world. Horizons is a skill based game, however. Skills have more effect on actions you perform than do statistics.

Characters in Horizons have a number of ways to differentiate themselves from one another. Which species and gender you choose will be the most obvious difference between you and another character, but we offer many other ways as well. Appearance is customizable. Players can change their character's skin tone, hairstyle, hair color, facial features, apparent age, and clothing. Our body structure is also fully morphing from fat to thin, muscular to wiry, and anywhere in between. Some races also have the ability to add tattoos to differentiate characters.

The primary differences in abilities between two characters will be determined by the schools in which they have gained levels. Each school grants different special abilities and improves different skills.

No. Food and drink are currently part of the trade skill system. Players will be able to create fabulous feasts and beverages. However, your character will never starve or die of thirst. Eating or drinking is voluntary, and provides you with a small benefit.

Yes. However, because your character is one of the Gifted Ones, you are able to overcome even death. Gifted, however, do return in a weakened state after death, and often require many hours before they'll return to their usual strength. Confectioners are able to create foodstuffs which help them regain strength faster, but often the only real remedy is time.

Horizons is played in a vast land of high fantasy. Battles are won through the might of a handcrafted sword and the power of magical spells. Fantastic creatures, from the horrors of the risen dead to the majesty of the ancient dragons, prowl the land. Heroes arise to protect civilization from marauding beasts, journey to distant lands, create wondrous objects, and complete epic quests.

There is a day and night cycle. Players will not be required to carry torches around or constantly adjust with their gamma correction to play the game at night. Night has a dramatic impact on the appearance of the world, but it is not an annoyance to game play.

There are many types of weather: snow, rain, fog, tornados, etc. At any place in the world, at any time, appropriate weather for that area can start, stop, and move across the seamless landscape. Lightning is one of the attack types available in magic. If a character were struck by lightning due to a magical spell, then it would be possible to die from such an attack. However, it is not intended (even though Artifact Entertainment has the ability) to randomly strike characters dead from passing thunderstorms.

Yes, they are called schools. There are quite a few of them, such as Healer, Warrior, Jeweler, Wizard, Weaponsmith, and many more. Schools are wrappers for sets of skills. They define which skills a character advances in as they progress in the school. Your character will not be forever bonded to a single school. So, you can change your mind without hitting the delete or character creation buttons.

Characters advance by performing actions in the world. Adventurers kill things, trades people make things, and everyone can go on quests. All of these things give you experience that increases your character's level in your current school. Increasing level in your school grants you higher skill ranks, as well as statistics and special abilities. All of these will make your character better at what you do.

Techniques are earned abilities that can be applied during the creation of an item. These abilities allow the crafter to modify the item during its creation so that the resulting item has additional powers. Not all items can have techniques applied to them, and some items can have multiple techniques applied. The more powerful the resulting item, the more skillful the owner of that item must be in order to wield such power.

Items are created by players. Players gather resources from the game world using skills and tools. Higher skills allow players to gather rarer resources, and to gather larger quantities of resources. The resources are then converted into usable items by using tools, machines, and item formulae. As players make items appropriate to their level in their school, they gain experience. As they advance in level within their school, the trade skills in their school advance in rank. This allows them to make better, more advanced items. It also allows them to use fewer resources to make items they already were making.

Resources come from many sources. They can be gathered by tradespeople from resource nodes in the world. These nodes can be stationary, like iron outcroppings or oak trees, or they can be mobile like sheep or deer. Other resources come from monsters and are usually collected by adventurers who bring them back to town and trade them for new items.

Of course there is! Every weapon and tool takes advantage of the weapon system. Swords, axes, spears, daggers, maces, mauls, staves, bows, shields, and other weapons all use this system. Smelting tongs, gem hammers, pick axes, wood axes, and many other tools will also take advantage of techniques and socketing.

No - you never have to participate in the trade skill system, though you should consider giving it a try (because it's a blast!). There are specific player-to-player communication tools and game systems dedicated to trade skills and consigners that better facilitate the interaction between adventurers and tradespeople. If you are an adventurer and really don't want to spend an exorbitant amount of time dealing with tradespeople in order to get the items you want for your character, then the tools and systems in the game will allow you to get what you need and get back to adventuring.

Not in the least. You can spend a week swinging a big sword around as a Warrior, then decide you want to try throwing fireballs for a couple hours and switch to Wizard, and then decide you didn't really like that and switch to Healer. Players are free to change schools at any time just by finding a trainer in the school that they wish to join. Most schools will accept anyone at any time, but some will require that a character meet certain requirements or perform tasks before allowing the character to join.

There are 28 adventuring schools and 19 crafting schools for bipeds, as well as the Dragon adventuring school and two crafting schools for Dragons. One of these schools can be joined at the time a character is created or anytime thereafter. There are teachers of all of these schools in the major towns across Istaria.

Yes - You can own one plot per Gifted subscription. (See the FAQ on subscriptions for more information.) Plots can be purchased at the plot itself, or from player to player. Once you own a plot of land you can build (or have built) many different types of structures on that property; houses, shops, and decorations. You can place them anywhere on the plot you want. Players will be able to sell their plots as well, either to another player or back to an NPC, so that they may buy a new plot.

Yes. If you own a plot of land, you will be able to set permissions for the plot and for any structures on the plot. You could set your plot as public, your house as private, and your blacksmith shop as guild only, or let a your friends have full access to everything.

Yes - players will be able to own shops on their property, and sell items to other players there.

A character's personal property is never destroyed.

Everyone gets the itch to rearrange their plot every now and then, whether it is because your crafting level is higher and you want to do higher tiered work, or just because you want a new look. When you take down a structure on your plot, you will get back 80% of the resources used to create that structure as novian resources. Novian resources go right to your vault, can only be used on a plot that you own, and are always applied at a one to one ratio to a new structure.

Magic skills are grouped within schools exactly like combat and tradeskills are. In order to cast a spell, a player must first obtain the scroll for the spell from a trade person, quest reward, or from your trainer and put it into their spellbook. Then they must meet any skill or other requirements to use that spell, but once they do, casting it is as easy as clicking on the spell icon on a hotkey bar. Magic is grouped into eight circles: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Life, Death, Chaos, and Order. Each circle has its own unique character and visual style, but several circles might be able to accomplish the same task (such as healing or damaging) in slightly different ways.

No. You will learn about all aspects of magic thoroughly in the tutorial. Just as easily as a player can hit a button to swing a sword, they can prepare a spell for a quick cast. Your character can learn spells specifically by gaining spell scrolls that you can place in your spell book. Acquiring those scrolls will vary dramatically in difficulty.

Yes. If you wish to learn magic you are free to join any of the magic related schools. Even if you started your character in a non-magic school, you can learn magic later at any time by joining a new school.

Yes. There are many different forms of communication between players. Players are able to create special chat rooms and invite others to join them, or simply leave the channel open to the public. You can send private messages (tells) to a single player, or join a guild and talk to groups of players that way as well. You can also create a friends list and organize it into groups so that you'll know who of your friends is online and who is not at any given moment.

The goal is for you to never be more than a few minutes away from gathering with your friends in town. Players can recall to their home towns at any time, and from there take one of their rapid transport systems to a more central location if they wish to meet up with a group of friends. It is important to understand that this does NOT mean that you and your friends can quickly reach any location in the world, only that you can rapidly get together as a group.

In order to pursue the goals that are more difficult than one player can easily handle alone, players might form a group. Guilds are formed to pursue larger social, political and organizational objectives beyond the scope of just a single group. They're also a great place to chat with others while gathering resources and just share combined knowledge of the game.

A guild may start with as few as one member, however it will not have earned the right to have all of the perks of a larger guild, for example a guild name. So these probationary guilds are given a temporary name by the Hall of Guilds until they reach sufficient size to qualify for proper naming. When the guild has registered enough members the Guild Leader is asked to submit a name to the Hall of Guilds for approval.

Yes. The game supports both first and third person views.

Horizons runs in a window on a PC. The window functions as any window, but also has the ability to be set to a traditional game style, with the render window being the entire screen. Although the game will default to standard full-screen mode, you can easily change a setting to run Horizons in its own window.

You can have as many communications windows open as you want, separating your different conversations into individual windows. Or you can combine them to form multiple conversations occurring in the same window. You can also create tabs in a single chat window to allow you to have just one window, but multiple conversations, happening at the same time.

The interface system has been developed from the ground up with flexibility as the primary concern. The user will be able to configure the appearance and layout of various interface elements while in game. You can reposition all of your UI elements within each window. Every window can be resized and moved in any direction. If you don't like the way we place the windows when the game ships, simply reposition them to the size and location that works for you. All modifications are saved between play sessions. Also, each of your characters will have his/her own interface layout. Every window will also have a variety of properties you can set, such as auto-hide, docking, and opacity.

For the more advanced user, your UI can be customized by modifying the text files and art work that is in your Horizons install directory. Many players have created UI packages which they share with others on the Horizons official forums.

In Horizons, all hotkeys will be built off of a scripting system. Simply right click on a hotkey to bring up its setup window and players will be able to edit everything that button does in great detail without needing a computer science degree. An example of hotkeys; players will be able to change into a completely new set of equipment with a single hotkey. This is great for the social types that want to easily put on their in town outfit. For the adventure types, think of being able to put on your best fire resist suit in a single key-press.

You can also change keyboard shortcuts to fit your playing style by modifying the list of keyboard commands under the Options menu.