PREAMBLE & NOTES
Horizons is a Character Role Playing Game (CRPG) that is played online in a fictional universe called Istaria. When you buy the game, the CD installs a client interface on your computer. This client interface connects via the internet to one of several servers. The game itself and your character including skills and inventory is kept online by the server. The customization of the interface is maintained on your computer. When you purchase the game, you will be allowed to play for free for a short period of time. After that, you must pay a monthly fee. This is good in that it allows one to try the game first with just the expenditure of buying the game in the store and deciding if you wish to continue playing playing it. If you chose to continue playing it, you will have to pay the creators of the game Artifact Entertainment (AE) a monthly fee.
Horizons is aptly named. In this Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) there are several schools for crafting and adventuring. Each school has several skills. Some of these skills overlap between the schools which helps you progress across the other schools. Your character participates in two "current" or active schools at any one time, one in adventuring and one in crafting. You can change schools at will without penalty. Once you achieve a level in any given school with its associated skills, you keep that level and those skills forever. You are not limited to one school, you can participate in them all. Its just that you can only have two schools active at one time, one adventure and one craft. I would say you can Master them all, but alas, Mastering is not fully implemented.
Having multiple adventuring schools may bring about a character limitation. Your character has an adventuring level and an adventuring rating. There has been great debate over what the rating does vice the current adventure school level and there are calculators for determining what it will be if you accomplish certain levels in multiple schools. The debate and the calculator can be found on the official Horizons forums/boards. I offer this from my experience. I have not witnessed any limitations. As a level 30 Warrior and a level 20 Cleric, I started the Mage school at level 1 and gained experience killing level 1 monsters, and killing them was incredibly easy so I started killing higher level monsters allowing me to level fast. A general note about leveling, as your character levels, the rate of leveling slows down.
As you change schools you keep all the skills and levels that you previously gained allowing you to switch back or use those skills at any time. However, certain items have skill level, school, and current level requirements to use them. This is best described in an example. If I am a level 20 Warrior wearing bronze platemail armor and wielding a fine bronze two-handed sword and then I switch to the Cleric school. When I switch, I start at level 2 (you did do ALL the schools during training didn't you?) or level 1 if I didn't complete the Cleric training when I first created my character. At this low level I can now longer wear the platemail because it requires a current level of 11. Note that the platemail has an Armor Use skill requirement, but you never lose your skills by changing schools. And as a Cleric, I cannot use edged weapons, only blunt weapons so I can no longer use the two-handed sword.
CHARACTER CREATION & TRAINING
When you create your character, you must pick a server. Your account allows you 5 characters on one server or spread across multiple servers. Note that the server you choose is the one your character will be created on and played on. AE separates the servers into 2 catagories, non-roleplaying and roleplaying. The explanation offered by AE is that you must act and interact with other players not as a real person but as that character on a roleplaying server. However, I have not found that to be policed at all. The primary difference it seems is in the name you give your character and this is policed.
Try to pick an original name and not something from a Movie or something corny. Remember you'll have to live with that name as long as you play the character. How would you like to roam around for weeks on end with "Butthead" or "Gandolf" over your head? Believe me, you will be laughed at and scorned. Get too out of hand with your name and AE will change it for you, to a long number.
Blight server is the test server. As AE comes out with patches and builds, Blight is the server they are implemented on first. Blight is also the server most people avoid so it's status is almost always very light. Blight is a non-roleplaying server. Although AE does not plan on doing character wipes on Blight, you do have to put up with frequent changes. I like Blight for this reason and because there are not 200 people racing to a single remaining ore pile.
When you are creating your character, you have to pick a race. The big difference here is being a Dragon vice anything else. Dragons have recently been given the ability to fly when they become adults. All other races have race specific bonuses and does matter somewhat, but it does not preclude anything. That is to say that you can pick a race that is suited for a warrior and still master as a mage.
When you create your character you can pick the build, height, face, facial hair, hair color, skin color, eyes, and eye color of your choice. These choices are purely asthetic.
After you create your character, you will start in a training area. Walk down the path and greet the Non-Player Character (NPC) standing there. Click on all the blue highlighted text and follow the tutorial to learn the interfaces of the game. At that point you will be directed into a hallway of rooms. Outside each room is a sign telling you the school within. On one side there are crafting schools and the other there are adventuring schools. In each room is a trainer for that school. Greet the NPC and perform the task given you following the tutorial. IMPORTANT: DO ALL THE SCHOOLS. The abilities you learn and skills you receive in all the schools help you. If you do them all, you should achieve level 2 in all the basic crafting and adventuring schools. This will allow you to use a little bit of every school, like training revitalize from Cleric (heal spell), training Flame Bolt from Mage (pick monsters out from a crowd) etc.
After you are done with the training area, follow the tutorial, talk to the final NPC to get a small Quest (this is your introduction to Quests), then you will come out into a training town. There are three types of towns in Istaria; Training; Player; Main. As a low level character you can port to any town for free. As you get higher in level, you will be charged for porting (portal fees). The training towns have all the basics you need to get started. The first thing to do is find the town shrine (every town has one) and Bind to it. When you bind to the shrine, you will come back to it if you hit the Recall button. To bind, right-click on the shrine and left-click on Bind To This Shrine. IMPORTANT: RIGHT CLICK ON EVERY WINDOW OR ITEM TO LEARN THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE ON THE OBJECT AND THE GAME INTERFACE and HOVER YOUR MOUSE OVER EVERY ITEM TO GET A BALLOON POPUP DESCRIPTION.
STARTING OUT
It's best to stay in your training town at first. Quickly however, you will need to port somewhere to talk to someone as part of a Quest or to get something you need. Porting is simple. Walk up the steps to the portal and a window of possible destinations will appear and the gate fees if applicable. Click on the destination and you will be whisked away to that location. Clicking on the Recall button will bring you home (to the shrine you are bound to) free of charge, always. As you go to different towns, you can "Bind" yourself to the shrine in that town (right click on shrine then left click on Bind). When you bind to a shrine, that is where you are transported when you recall. This allows you to set your recall spot to any shrine in any town. A note about player towns. You can port to any player town that you are "attuned" to. To attune yourself to a player town, find the portal and/or landing pad and/or shrine in the town and look for the "Gatekeeper". Greet the Gatekeeper and attune yourself. Now you can port to that gate. So you have to first run/walk to the town and attune yourself before you can port to it. Lastly, not every portal will allow you to port to a player town. The portal in Tazoon WEST and in New Rachival allow you to port to any player town.
Click on yourself to highlight you. This will display your level in the two schools, one adventuring and one crafting. In each training town are the basic trainers. Pick the schools you want to level in first and visit those trainers if you aren't already in those schools. Visiting the trainers you can greet them and click on join school and then greet them again and click on training equipment. The trainers will give you the equipment you need to get started. Training equipment you get includes items and basic formulas (forms for short). A form is what you need to scribe it (right click on form then left click on scribe) to be able to create (craft) an item. Some forms you must get from the trainer. For example as a blacksmith, you will be given beginner metal bar form when you greet the trainer and click on training equipment. You can initiate a trade with the trainer and she will sell you some forms, for the Blacksmith as an example, you can purchase beginner blighted metal bar and beginner blighted metal bar cleansing. All other forms you must purchase from Imperial Lore Masters with Imperial Lore Tokens (tokens for short). See the crafting page for more details.
Training tools limit your skill to 50. Above level 5 or 6 you will need Tier I material tools and discard your training tools. Blacksmiths make tools. Materials are broken into tiers. Tier I is Bronze (from copper and tin ore), Tier II is Iron & Silver (From Iron ore and Silver ore), Tier III is Steel & Gold (From Gold ore and Iron+Nickel ore), and Tier IV is Cobalt & Platinum. Each tier material takes a pre-requisite skill in crafting to make (skills are gained by level) and each item of a particular material has a pre-requisite skill and level requirement.
From level 1 to level "20" you can craft and use Tier 1 items. From level "20" to level "40" you can craft and use Tier II items, etc. The quotes are because it's not a hard limit. For example, a Warrior and a Cleric can use Iron Ringmail armor if they are level 21 and have 210 in the Armor Use skill. A Blacksmith can make Iron tools if their Metalworking skill is 200 which is achieved at about level 23-24 in the Blacksmith school.
Items can have Techniques (techs for short) applied to them that give skill bonuses. You obtain techs from the Quartermasters in Tazoon South, Dalimond, Mahagra, New Rachival, and Kion by exchanging Imperial Bounty Markers (IBMs). You learn the tech by right clicking it and left clicking on scribe. To apply a tech to an item, you will need special resources. More on this on the crafting page.
Fighting, called "Adventuring" is straight forward. Equip a weapon and go kill things. To equip a weapon, right click it and left click on equip or just double click it. Training weapons can be obtained from the adventure trainers. The basic adventure schools are Warrior, Cleric, Mage, and Scout.
