I have posted this other places, I shall now post it here. Sorry to those who have already read this!

Many years ago, I played an online fantasy RPG that was known as Horizions: Empire of Istaria. It was a world with a small, passionate and tight-knit playerbase… and a world in which you could play an actual Dragon character. I’m talking fire breathing, free-flying, claws and fangs Dragon!

Though it lacked the PVP aspect (which doesn’t bother me as I never PVP), it had a rich character development, good role play and a deep crafting system. It was one of the only games I played where you could actually see players building structures across the world (such as player houses and towns) by using their crafting skills and actually leave something long-lasting in the world.

For whatever reasons, though I loved my dragons, I stopped playing this game. I have now rediscovered it — I found out that a whole new slew of content has been recently added and the entire game client was reworked in order to support both Vista and Windows 7 systems.

I won’t beat around the bush… this game feels and plays like a classic MMORPG from back in the day it was developed. But it is also heavily mod able and easy to tweak to your liking. With just a few downloads, some adjustments to the controls and a few new macros in my bar, I was up and playing it not too different than I would some of the newer games. And I was playing a DRAGON!

The other thing that struck me was the community. It’s a small community… but many of these players have stuck by this game through thick and thin. They’re very welcoming and helpful to new players because they’re genuinely happy to meet them!

There’s so much to enjoy here — especially if you’re an RPer or a Dragon lover with an interest in a game with lots of fantasy lore to explore. For more information about Istaria, please visit this page.

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