Any news would be good news

[Gray Carlyle]

Any news you can share with us?

Also, do you plan to make a public a beta or something like pre-order beta access?

I think there were many people interested in.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

[Zaimat]

Also, do you plan to make a public a beta or something like pre-order beta access?
I think there were many people interested in. Anyway, keep up the good work.

Thanks! We are currently looking at this. I don't know exactly what form it will take yet. There will certainly be a pre-order / access to beta stage a month or so before the release but we are also looking at possibly giving access to select (limited number of early adopters) even earlier if we can find a good way to manage it.

What has been your experience with early alpha/beta access with different distribution platforms?

[IXxJordan]

Thanks! We are currently looking at this. I don't know exactly what form it will take yet. There will certainly be a pre-order / access to beta stage a month or so before the release but we are also looking at possibly giving access to select (limited number of early adopters) even earlier if we can find a good way to manage it.

What has been your experience with early alpha/beta access with different distribution platforms?

Hello, just heard about this game, sounds and looks awesome. Big PC gamer myself and have a large fan base around my area and hope to see this game soon.
To my understanding this game is currently in pre-alpha stage? if so, then i hope you all the best in the coming few months as its going to get harder towards the end.
If early (non public) keys are going to be given out to a select few, i would like to give myself a little shout-out, dealt with quite a few games in beta testing stage, where some have turned out rather well and then some where have been really disappointing.
Like i said, i would like to give myself a shout-out and i can help try and give as mixed feedback as possible, to help then better the game.

Thanks,
Jordan

[Zaimat]

Hello Jordan, welcome to our forum and thanks!

Horizon is currently in final alpha and we're planning to begin internal beta testing in January. I will keep you in mind (along with everyone who is active in our forums) for early access possibilities. I don't know yet when and how this will happen, it may be a little while yet (early spring). Right now we're talking with publishers and things are not yet very clear.

If you haven't signed on our mailing list, I would encourage you to do so from our main page: http://www.l3o.com/

[Traker]

Sounds good, still hanging around waiting to try this one out as it is looking

[Veneke]

Looks very promising indeed. Good space strategy games are hard to find, ones I haven't played to death even harder! Very much looking forward to Horizon's long-awaited release.

[Traker]

Great to hear. Can't wait to see some more stuff.

[Martok]

Indeed. I'm still trying to be patient and not chomp at the bit here.

[Anguille]

Same here...waiting patientely...yet hoping it will come out this year.

[Zaimat]

I hope everyone's holidays were enjoyable!

We just moved to our new studio office and Horizon's progress is proceeding very well with a recently updated graphics engine among other things. We will be Beta (I) testing for the next few months and I will talk much more about the game and a first look at the advanced tactical combat which is a big part of Horizon.

And we are very much looking forward to bringing Horizon to you in 2013

[Martok]

Awesome news, Zaimat! I hope the new digs work out for you.


Of course, you also realize your post now makes us want the game even more, right?

[Traker]

Soooooo Looking forward to seeing this one

[Anguille]

Zaimat, do you have an idea about the minimum specifications already? I hope i can run it even on my netbook 1024x600...would be cool.

Cheers

[Zaimat]

We currently have 1024x768 as the minimum resolution. This was our minimum for optimal UI design purposes.

I just tried removing the limiter and was able to run it at 1024x600 in windowed mode on my PC. There are some minor text/display issues we would need to fix to fully support it at the same level as higher resolutions.

The real concern with netbooks or laptops that were not designed for gaming is the video card/chipset hardware limitations. Some won't run directX/3D properly or have poor driver support or performance issues with games. I don't currently have a netbook to test it with but even so one configuration might work while another may not. What are the specs of your netbook?

Our target in terms of hardware is XP/VISTA/Win7 with at least 2G of RAM and a DX9 Video card with 512 MB or greater. Nvidia and AMD/ATI cards with 1GB are recommended for the best visuals and performance.

[Anguille]

Thanks,

It's really not a priority for me (it would have been a nice to have but not a must)...

Just make the best game you can...

Looking forward to more news...

Cheers

[Yaromir]

Right now we're talking with publishers and things are not yet very clear

Have you considered getting green-lighted on steam? Lots of games get bulk of their sales on steam nowdays it seems.

[Zaimat]

Have you considered getting green-lighted on steam? Lots of games get bulk of their sales on steam nowadays it seems.

We are definitely looking at Steam (and other distribution stores). Steam is certainly the most important one right now for most core games. The GreenLight program is an interesting option but there is a chance we can go direct with Horizon.

[Anguille]

And what about GOG...they are selling more and more new games as well (not a big fan of the steam monopole concept).

[Martok]

And what about GOG...they are selling more and more new games as well (not a big fan of the steam monopole concept).

Here here! If there's the option to purchase the game from somewhere other than Steam, I would definitely choose that one.

[Zaimat]

Steam (love it or hate it) has done a pretty good job both for developers and consumers with their system and captured a very large chunk of the PC market in the process. Other stores (with some holdouts) are selling games with Steamworks. This has some benefit to us indies because we can support one gaming platform with updates, client integration and QA even if players buy it at different stores.

I understand the concerns about Steam albeit I think so far they have mostly been a positive force for the PC/Mac platforms.

Ideally we can setup our own store for direct download/updates in the future. But this requires resources we can't commit to right now. It is definitely one of our goals though.