Meowdy – it’s been far too long (literally a year?) since we’ve had any news update from HorizonXI, the private server running Final Fantasy XI. Turns out some staff joined the Level Sync Podcast for an interview and I was requested to provide a transcript. So, here I am listening to a 3-hour podcast in hopes of any nuggets of news related to Horizon. If only we had formal communication 🙁

TL;DR

TLDR: Rebase is taking quite a while. Treasures of Aht Urgan is more likely to come by December 24, 2025 at the earliest rather than the “joked” “rumor” of December 24, 2024. (I pray to Altana this is wrong and we get it sooner.) It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

If you’re a masochist continue reading below as I live blog myself listening. Or feel free to watch it yourself!

It’s worth noting the first full hour is not much for news or content. I should have listened to advice and started an hour in. I’ve shared the VOD above at when the content actually starts.

The podcast hosts mention they’re not sure when Tier 3 HENM is coming out, which is a bummer since Tier 1 HENM was released a year ago. Not on the podcast, but I heard a rumor T3 was put on hold for Treasures of Aht Urgan and rebase.

There was also mention of custom modding and .dat files and potentially new items coming, as noted from the Halloween Event.

Details

Hookstar and Damarus, who both are working on the Horizon rebase, mention how much rigor goes into updating and changing code on Horizon to then merge it into LSB. It’s worth noting for non-coding folks, this should be standard with any code base, both professionally and personally. The rigor helps avoid issues down the line. This seems to be the case only for code that is merged to LSB, as the custom Horizon content should be staying with Horizon and not made publicly. Damarus mentions there are 3 tiers of code base (LSB, ASB, and Horizon) that have to be maintained.

The reason for the rebase was due to the use of modules for Horizon which are incompatible with old versions of the code (LSB). Without the rebase, Horizon won’t be able to pull from LSB which may have fixes for certain bugs (e.g., blackscreen issues). It wasn’t an issue at first, but as time goes on there are more and more issues and mismatches which need work from LSB.

There was a question around how players can help. Horizon staff shared there are two streams of work: #1 – Modules in ASB which need to be pushed to LSB. Some of these modules are not fully completed and tested and require more work before loading to LSB. #2 – Era+ changes which need to be modularized. Players are welcome to help for #1, but not for #2.

Damarus mentioned that people can try #1 as the ASB code is public and he is more than willing to help answer questions. There is also mention that LSB staff are “harsh” in their feedback and some Horizon staff have quit over it, which is a shame.

After the rebase, Horizon does have to make the decision between continuing to push code to ASB or just send code only to LSB. It seemed to be a huge discussion point throughout the podcast episode.

Conclusion

The staff interviewees did share progress is being made but that many folks are experiencing burn out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and they appreciate the patience.

If you prefer more details, definitely give the video a listen.