Atari Ships Artifact Entertainments Horizons: Empire Of Istaria

ATARI SHIPS ARTIFACT ENTERTAINMENT’S
HORIZONS: EMPIRE OF ISTARIA

Highly Anticipated Online Role-Playing
Game Innovates with Playable Dragons; Dynamic, Ever Changing World

LOS ANGELES – Dec. 9, 2003 – Atari and
Artifact Entertainment today announced that Horizons: Empire of Istaria, one of
the most closely followed and highly anticipated massively multiplayer online
role-playing games (MMORPG), has shipped to retail stores nationwide. Available
now for PC CD-ROM, Horizons will allow players to experience online gaming like
never before in a massive, ever-changing, online world primed for exploration,
brimming with adventure and rife with danger. For the first time in a MMORPG,
players will have the opportunity to experience the power and might of ancient
dragons as a playable character race. In addition, Humans, fiends, dwarves,
elves, gnomes, as well as the cat-like Saris and the reptilian Sslik, round out
the first nine playable races available in the game.

“Artifact Entertainment has spent the last
few years making sure that Horizons will present MMORPG players with an
experience like none other,” said Steve Allison, vice president of marketing,
Atari Inc.’s Los Angeles studio. “Just imagine beautiful, massive, zone-free
environments, epic level combat on a scale never seen before, an extremely
intuitive, deep and self-sustaining trade skill system, extensive support for
player-run communities and guilds within the game world and, for the first time
in any MMORPG, playable dragons!”

Horizons takes place within the world of
Istaria — filled with cities and towns, castles and strongholds, villages and
mystical structures, in environments ranging from tropical jungle and arctic
tundra to windswept plains and mountainous wilderness. Whether adventuring by
themselves or questing with a group of friends, players are free to choose their
own paths and encouraged to create their own stories. Fierce warriors, arcane
spell casters and challenging combat will rule the frontier lands, but skilled
craftspeople will play an absolutely critical role in overall character and
world development.

“With Horizons we wanted to create a world
where players would have a massive impact on their environment — a dynamic
place where cataclysmic events could change the appearance and function of the
world in real time right before your eyes,” said David Bowman, Creative Director
and Co-President of Artifact Entertainment. “And, that’s exactly what players
can expect. Our advanced world building capabilities, the seamless integration
of changes into the Horizons universe and, most importantly, the inherently
dynamic nature of extensive player-run communities are sure to deliver a level
of immersion and interaction not seen before.”

Nine playable character races are available
in Horizons; Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Fiends and Dragons are among them. Each
player character can be further customized with a near endless variety of visual
tweaks, including gender, ethnicity, age, skin color, body and facial types,
hair styles and color, as well as wings, horns and other exotic alterations
associated with select species. In much the same way, Horizons allows players to
specialize their character’s class from a number of base adventuring schools
such as, Warrior, Healer, Wizard and Scout as well as base crafting schools,
including Blacksmith, Gatherer, Outfitter and Scholar.

Races:

• Humans — Humans are the paragons of
versatility. Their frames are strong and dexterous, and they exhibit
above-average power and focus. Humans are adept at many fields of endeavor,
though they tend to gravitate towards scholarly and arcane-oriented pursuits.

• Fiends — The Fiends are ethereally
beautiful beings. Their horns and tails and blued, icy skin are the marks of
their deity, Niatha Moraven, Goddess of Vengeance and Power. Fiends are the
descendants of altered outcast Humans of long ago, who sacrificed physical
strength for mental power. Fiends excel in all fields of scholarly and arcane
endeavor.

• Dwarves — Physically, Dwarves are one of
the shorter Living Races; however, they are quite stocky for their height, and
are known for their superior strength and resilience. While Dwarves prefer to
achieve their ends through strength and physical exertion, there are several
highly adept Dwarven mages in Istaria. Dwarves excel in all professions, but
tend to gravitate toward the roles of Warrior and Healer.

• Dragons — The Dragons are scaled, winged
beasts who become capable of flight as they mature. They are the largest of the
races, with the eldest of the Dragons being at least twice the size of the
largest specimens of other races. Dragons are blessed with an unbridled
strength, making them fearsome Warriors. Dragons also strike a balance between
power and focus, making them solid practitioners of the arts arcane.

• Elves — The Elves strive to create order
from chaos. Physically, Elves share the same build as Humans, though on average
they are slightly taller and lankier. Elves typically exhibit superior senses of
balance and dexterity; many of Istaria’s famed scouts and explorers have been
Elves. Likewise, Elves are renowned for their superior ranged combat skills,
especially archery. Elves tend to favor power over focus in the matters of the
arcane, making them excellent Wizards.

• Saris — The Saris are a proud race,
originating from feline ancestry. They are of average height, their bodies
covered in a light fur. The Saris are by far the most dexterous of all the
Living Races, and they make for superb Scouts. The Saris are also noted for
being some of the foremost Monks in the land.

• Gnomes — Gnomes are as strong of mind as
they are agile of thought. While Gnomes are not as physically powerful as the
other Living Races, they make up for it in their solid dexterity and their
gifted power and focus. Gnomes make excellent spellcasters and scholarly
tradespeople; they also make fine Scouts.

• Sslik — The Sslik are strong, sleek,
reptilian bipeds who are genderless. The Sslik are extremely strong and focused
beings, and this contributes to their exceptional adeptness as Warriors and
Healers equally, calling upon both skills to aid their people in times of need.

• Half-Giants — Half-Giants possess a brute
strength matched only by Dragons. On average, they tend to focus more on
physical endeavors rather than pure mental pursuits, but this does not mean that
Half-Giant society is without noted arcanists and scholars. Half-Giants are
creatures of reason, patience, and focus; they seldom raise their dander, but
when they do anger, they are quite formidable opponents. Consequently, they are
often found in the role of Healer.

Combat:

For many, combat in Horizons will be an all
encompassing passion, but even a simple tailor minding his or her own business
can run into the occasional zombie – so training a few fighting skills can never
hurt. Combat in Horizons takes the art of war to an entirely new level as
lunges, parries, blocks and evasions are all fully represented with detailed
animations. Monsters will no longer stand still as your mighty sword cleaves
them in two. As players progress in skill by using standard attacks in combat
situations they gain new special abilities that could be the difference between
life and death in later levels.

These special abilities are granted to
characters by the schools to which they belong. As players demonstrate mastery
of current abilities, they are promoted in status and will be rewarded for this
progress with new special abilities. When leaving a school, the school will
revoke some of the special abilities that were granted to a character, but will
be restored if the character later rejoins the school.

Tradeskills:

The crafting system in Horizons is the most
robust system ever put into a massively multiplayer game. Players have several
design choices when making an item. Swords, for example, are made of hilts and
blades while a smelting tong is made of a handle and head. As the player becomes
more skilled in weapon crafting, blade and hilt styles will become available at
the time of item construction. A person who has learned techniques is able to
attach such things as tassels using the cloth system, visual effects using the
shader system, fire using the particle system, and runes using the decal system.
Crafting techniques further differentiate the items that can be created using
tradeskills leading to millions of permutations.

Player Properties:

In Horizons, the Empire controls the land.
However, the Empire will sell the rights to pieces of property to anyone with
the ability to meet the conditions of sale. In most cases this is simply pay the
Empire and the rights are yours. In some cases, it might be necessary for you to
clear the land of hostile creatures such as the Undead or to go on a quest for
the Empire. Player plots come in many different sizes. As the Frontier is pushed
back and more of the world is explored, new individual plots will become
available.

Community Building:

Community building in Horizons is not just
about constructing a home on your personal plot (see above). Community building
involves developing a multitude of structures that provide benefits of different
types to the owner of the property. Structures can be buildings for storage,
decoration, defense, entertainment, transportation, resource management,
socialization, vending, construction or crafting. After sufficient construction
has occurred on individual plots within a community, computer-controlled
characters will begin construction on the community plots that adjoin the
player-controlled properties.

Those communities that are nearest the
frontier will be exposed to the greatest risk of hostile encounters from
creatures in those outlying areas. These frontier attacks range from loose
groups of merely hostile creatures, to carefully orchestrated invasions of
undead hordes. If conflict of this nature does not appeal to you, be sure to
obtain a plot in the more sedate portions of the long-settled world.

“Artifacts” are another form of community
building, but unique in that they provide enchantment benefits to either all
members of local communities and/or all characters within the physical range of
influence that the Artifacts possess. When enough player built communities
within an area have been established and developed, an Artifact-only community
plot becomes available for development. Artifacts must be both maintained and
protected by the communities they serve.

Another unique community class of building in
Horizons is the “empire” structure which is designed to benefit everyone in the
world and not just a particular community. An example of an empire structure is
a bridge that is not within a community, but provides the entire world of
Istaria with access to a newly discovered landmass. Much like artifacts, empire
structures can come under attack from hostile forces and must be maintained and
protected.

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