Damion has a few words of commentary about the player-created content that is being introduced to Horizons.

Using a public copy of the game database, players and writers alike can use existing characters, enemies, and items to add or change their own quests. Tulga’s staff will evaluate these quests for quality before bringing the customized quests into the live game. These customized fan quests should certainly add a homespun dungeonmaster feel to the thousands of Tulga-crafted quests already in the game.

There’s no word on when this is going to be released, and Horizons has competition from the Ryzom Ring expansion Nevrax has planned for later this year. My inclination is that these are going to be interesting for those of us who like novelty in the genre, but it’s not going to do what the companies making the games are aiming for.

Both Ryzom and Horizons are (let’s face it) not blockbuster games. If the goal here is to to try and attract more players, I don’t have high hopes they’ll meet with success. On the other hand, if they’re aiming to differentiate themselves from WoW by going for a new and different niche, they may just have something interesting. Here’s hoping there will be trails available for the curious.