Horizons: Empire of Istaria Interview

Ten Ton Hammer has conducted an interview with Tulga Games’ Jason “Amon Gwareth” Murdick, in which the developer answers three pages of questions about the changes they’ve made to Horizons: Empire of Istaria. A little something to start you off:

Q: One unique aspect of Horizons at launch was that a player could be a dragon. Unfortunately, being a dragon meant hours of digging gems from the ground to put into a hoard that decayed faster than a molar at a sugar cane convention. Dragons were also weak combatants relative to the bi-ped classes which meant that being a dragon was more work than fun. How have dragons changed and how has Tulga made them more entertaining to play?

A: First and foremost, one of the biggest changes for Dragons from the state they were in at release is that hoard no longer decays. Some abilities (burn) hoard when they are used, but you will no longer lose hoard simply by standing around or when logged out. Another big change is that there is an entire line of lootable items called Hoardables. These are items such as ancient weapons, gold coffers, and the like which have hoard value and can be looted or bought by dragons to enhance their hoard. No more digging in the ground or begging bipeds for items to hoard. Now, dragons control their own destiny and the size of their hoard!

Some other changes that have been made to dragons are the increase of their armor. One problem dragons originally had was that their armor was inferior to bipeds of equal level. We fixed that earlier this year by increasing the armor that dragons get every level and also giving scales inherent armor values. Now, a dragons’ armor is comparable to that of any biped in the game.