Wandering Horizon - The History of Symphony of Light by: Soliptic Our roots are simple, and reach back to the game Shadowbane and the Scorn server. In the early days of that game, many guilds recruited large numbers of people in attempts to create cities the fastest and control large armies. This led to the discontent of many, including several of our founders. The problem was simple: they didn’t like the guild they were in. The solution was equally simple: create one they would want to be in. Though while the solution was seemingly simple, the reality was that it was very hard. Even before Shadowbane shipped, a group of real life friends had decided to start a guild, the kind of guild they could enjoy being in. A guild with no tough rules, no stringent recruiting process, no taxes, and most importantly one based on democratic leadership. Those friends were Silhouette, Chloe and Durien. Shortly after the launch of Shadowbane another group of real life friends also decided to begin the process of creating a guild. Unhappy with their current guild, Candescence, Kolat and Nef decided to start acquiring the necessary money to form a guild and build a town. In the snowy lands of the north a group of Dwarves looking for a specific rune learned to become friends. They were Synthardis, Thigvald and Stubbs. And somewhere else on the Scorn server an elf named Khadgar was looking for some rich saps to hand him a bunch of money to design a town. Together with his friend Ishido and their convert Talthorn they would begin looking for a dark side to join. Fortunately for us all they had something in common: A town called Moe’s Tavern. First, it was Silhouette and Kolat who met. They both realized the potential of combining forces with the other, and soon they did. The Dwarves and Elves followed shortly after. Temporary web boards were established to discuss, plan, and make fun of people’s mothers. Names were proposed, argued over, and debated upon. Until at last three things remained. The name: Symphony of Light. The town: Wandering Horizon. The motto: Desert Power. What followed was the most complex scheme to acquire money ever witnessed by human eyes. Genocide was brought to the centaurs. Commander runes were camped. And entire legions of people were robbed blind in the middle of a bank. The result of all this: the guild was formed and the town was built. Wandering Horizon, and her sister city of New Horizon stood in the desert as symbols of our might. With nearby neighbors to fight, and a steadily growing membership, everything seemed like it was going all too well. However, it would not be too long before events beyond the desert sands would force the young guild to join with others for something greater. An alliance of the old guilds of Pkers and griefers had infested the Scorn server under the name Rollin’ 30s. They used beta knowledge and exploits to crush all opposition and make life on the Scorn server miserable for all they could. Something had to be done to stop them, and that something was an alliance of guilds for the sole purpose of destroying the R30s. That alliance was LAPD. At first, LAPD was an agreement for mutual protection. Major cities were falling to the R30 juggernaut and if something wasn’t done the Scorn server would soon be a no mans land, an unpleasant prospect for the young SoL which had invested so much into Scorn. Thus a decision was reached: ally with the rest of LAPD and bring R30s to their knees. The battles were epic, frequent, and furious. In the end, the brash posturing and endless coffers of duped gold could not save the R30s from destruction at the hands of the LAPD. The Rollin’ 30s fell, never to rise again. However, in the ashes of the R30s a new, more sinister force would emerge. The leadership of LAPD fed on the riches of the R30s conquered land like hogs at a trough. It was not long before all thoughts of disbanding the alliance fell away, and LAPD was rechristened as Reborn. Seeing the direction Reborn was heading, the Inner Council of SoL put the guild to a vote: leave or stay. The vote was overwhelming to leave Reborn and return to life in the desert. However all was not well. Former allies became new enemies as resentment over SoLs departure erupted into fights and disputes. The bloated leadership of Reborn wanted to make an example of SoL. They didn’t want any other guilds to leave and possibly threaten their power. So attacks were launched. These were to be short lived however, as it was now becoming clear to all that in the wake of the R30s demise and the subsequent solidification of Reborn there was nobody left on Scorn to fight. The server was quietly dying. All was not lost however. There was still one Shadowbane server that retained the promise of fun PvP: Chaos. With Reborn slowly collapsing many member guilds of the former alliance changed servers to Chaos. With the leadership of Reborn virtually gone, many SoL opted to travel to Chaos and join old friends from the alliance with only a single goal: have fun PvPing with no worries about a town, guild management, or politics. This loose conglomeration named itself Scorned Death, in honor of the two sources of it’s members: the Scorn and Death servers. Scorned Death had only one, simple rule: If you’re not SD, you are a target. Back on Scorn things weren’t going so well. With too few guild members remaining there city maintenance was becoming a problem, and once friendly neighbors, in a desperate bid to alleviate boredom, engaged in open warfare against Wandering Horizon and the remaining SoL. The man left in charge of SoL on Scorn decided to fight back, and soon the desert sands ran red with blood. It was roughly during this time that Shadowbane’s creators announced their intentions to end the Scorn and Treachery servers, migrating their population to a new server to be named Vengeance. Simultaneously they would launch a new, clean server named Corruption. It was their intention to consolidate the disparate population of their game on these two servers. The remaining members of SoL on Scorn decided to travel to Vengeance, while those in SD decided to go with SD to Corruption. Through a many layered fiasco involving the experience gain rates on Corruption and inflated economy on Vengeance, it soon became clear to most of SoL that Shadowbane, while still occasionally fun, was no longer an engrossing game. It was, simply, getting old. Slowly but surely the guilds active members dropped out of Shadowbane, many never to be seen again. However, there was hope on the Horizon... literally. Shortly after the exodus from Shadowbane another game caught the attention of many SoL veterans. Artifact Entertainment’s Horizons: Empire of Istaria. Though the game featured no player versus player combat, it did boast a robust trade skill system (something Shadowbane didn’t have) and a somewhat more traditional MMO experience. SoL hit the ground running for the Horizons launch. Old allies from the Shadowbane days were met. New recruits were signed up. Everything seemed to be going well for SoL in this newest venture into MMO gaming. And then the proverbial gold was struck: while exploring offshore islands some members found a massive unclaimed undeveloped city. Quickly pooling resources, they purchased nearly all the available plots of land and began to construct a town. The joy was to be short lived however, as Artifact announced that the method used to reach this island was an exploit. Artifact claimed that because swimming had not yet been implemented, walking across the bottom of the sea was an exploit and that anything gained by doing this was subject to removal. So with their island reclaimed by the gods of bad design, the disillusioned player base of SoL slowly began to abandon Horizons. It would not be long until the Symphony of Light was no longer to be seen in Istaria. Many months were to pass after the abandonment of Horizons. Periodic returns to Shadowbane didn’t last long. Some members amused themselves with various non MMO games, while others simply dropped out of contact. Periodic betas came and went until it seemed as if SoL might forever be without an MMO to play as a complete family. It would take a game of heroically epic scale to bring SoL back together again. That game was City of Heroes. Released in spring 2004 by Cryptic Studios and NC Soft City of Heroes was a unique game by MMO standards. Rather then being a typical Fantasy or Sci-Fi setting, CoH took it’s setting and themes from American comic books. In CoH the player created a unique avatar to take on the role of a budding super hero in a town ruled by crime. The emphasis on instanced group based missions which placed the importance on the group fit well with the tight knit group of SoL veterans who took to the game. Despite the lack of PvP SoL as a whole found the game enjoyable. This was not to last however. Around this time the esteemed GM/team speak jockey/web maestro Jokey (aka Synthardis) managed to somehow get into the World of Warcraft beta. Needless to say, he dropped CoH like a brick. As for the rest of the membership, the repetitive nature of CoH and it’s lack of PvP finally began to wear thin. Slowly but surely the SoL presence on the Virtue server diminished until only a small group remained. Following the slow exodus from City of Heroes many members of SoL entered into the World of Warcraft beta. Others bid their time, once again retreating from MMOs for a time, emerging to participate in the various WoW stress tests and Guild Wars weekend events. More recently, with the launch of EverQuest 2 a group of SoL veterans formed a chapter on the Permafrost server, where they continue to grow and thrive. The rest chose WoW as their vice, and as of this writing the SoL presence on the Bloodscalp server is akin to a force of nature. We have earned the gratitude of our allies, and the grudging respect of our foes. By all indications, this trend is set to continue far into the Wandering Horizon.