Shattered Horizon is set in the near future, where privately funded companies have begun military operations against each other in orbit. A huge explosion has put a large amount of moon rock (the titular shattered horizon) into space, and this orbital flotsam now plays host to a guerrilla war between space-suited mercenaries and miner.
6DOF gameplay:
While you use normal FPS controls to move around, with forward propelling you in whichever direction you happen to be facing, you're also able to bind a key or mouse button to \"rotate\", allowing you to move into whatever alignment you fancy at the flick of a wrist.
haven't seen anything about tricording, though.
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:04 pm
by Isaac
Oh cool! The astronaut deathmatch idea is brilliant!
Wow, this is the first FPS I've seen in a while that looks like a legit 6DoF. Hopefully the weapon balance is decent and allows for some dogfighting (unlike the distance-sniping in that vid).
Wiki shows it as a Windows-platform game. I suppose it wouldn't have much success on consoles just because of controller limitations.
I'm really looking forward to this now. Thanks, Pandora!
Thanks, Thenior. Now I'm curious about the movement when the players have their feet on a surface. I wonder if the movement becomes any different.
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:49 am
by Thenior
I would imagine the ground has a magnetic effect (i.e. Snap To). So as you fly next it, if you run into it, you will just start walking.
Probably have to jump off to get into the air again.
Re:
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:14 am
by Pandora
Foil wrote:Wow, this is the first FPS I've seen in a while that looks like a legit 6DoF. Hopefully the weapon balance is decent and allows for some dogfighting (unlike the distance-sniping in that vid).
(...)
I'm really looking forward to this now. Thanks, Pandora!
same here; I am quite hyped up about this now. And Thenior's new trailer looks really good. Although the levels seem awfully large so far --- I wonder how this will play out in deathmatches, with fewer people involved.
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:52 pm
by Spaceboy
Wow! That second vid... I'm actually kindof hyped about this.
I think this beats minerwars by a longshot. Minerwars seemed kindof like a game a few people were working on during their spare time, and IMO MMO's are an enormous waste of time.
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 1:24 am
by []V[]essenjah
Man, I would love to beta test that!
Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:52 am
by Pandora
Foil wrote:Thanks, Thenior. Now I'm curious about the movement when the players have their feet on a surface. I wonder if the movement becomes any different.
Apparently, there is a key that allows you to "lock on" to any surface (does it have to be metal?). Not sure about what the advantages of this are. Probably that players don't have to deal with inertia anymore, and can duck in and out of cover more efficiently.
WASD moves you, mouse aims, left click to fire, hold right and move mouse to rotate.
hope it also includes upwards and downwards thrust. However, in Thenior's movie, you definately see upward boosters fire (at around the 1.22 mark).
also, the \"hold right and move mouse to rotate\" seems awkward; i hope they allow different keys to be mapped to rotate.
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:43 am
by Foil
I registered on the Shattered Horizon forums, and asked a few questions. Here's the response from one of their developers:
FM_Antti wrote:
Foil wrote:I've looked around the game specs, and I'm wondering about a few things regarding player movement and control:
1. Is there a difference in movement or response when standing on a surface? If so, are there advantages/disadvantages to being on a surface?
You get a movement speed penalty when attached to a surface, with the benefit of higher accuracy when shooting.
Foil wrote:2. Is movement fairly inertial? E.g. Is there momentum to overcome when reversing or changing direction?
You have inertia when flying with your rocket pack but not when walking on surfaces.
Foil wrote:3. Is there an established maximum rotational speed (like turning a vehicle), or is it mouselook-ish (like other shooters, where the player can spin around in virtually an instant)?
We designed the game around responsive FPS controls, so moving the camera is "mouselook" style. Certain special situations (getting caught in the radius of an EMP blast) can limit your turning speed.
Foil wrote:4. Will there be options for joystick control?
Joystick control isn't currently planned. We prototyped different input methods earlier in the game's development.
Foil wrote:5. Will S.H. implement tri-chording? I.e. Are multiple concurrent thrusts vector-added? [For example, if a player uses a combined forward + left + up thrust, will this result in more acceleration than a single forward thrust?
Acceleration and maximum speed are the same regardless of movement direction and how many keys are pressed at the same time. We abstracted actual thrusters for the sake of intuitive controls.
[]V[]essenjah wrote:Man, I would love to beta test that!
From what I gather, their Beta-test period just ended. I haven't seen anything yet to indicate when this will be released.
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:52 am
by Pandora
thanks, Foil! (Although the lack of tricording/joystick support is a little bit disappointing, of course)
Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:11 am
by Foil
Pandora wrote:also, the "hold right and move mouse to rotate" seems awkward; i hope they allow different keys to be mapped to rotate.
Nope, at least according to a recent response I got in that thread on the SH forums.
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:24 am
by Pandora
yeah, I just read it (and posted as well to second your point). It would be great if separate rotation keys could be implemented.
Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:37 pm
by []V[]essenjah
That sucks, I would have loved to play the open beta.
The only thing that bothers me really, is that they will allow mouselook in this game. IMO, that is one of many things I like about console games, you don't have to deal with players that have a 3500 dpi mouse and can get a super accurate aim. Sure, you can amp up your sensitivity but you will sacrifice accuracy if you do that so most people keep their aim at default levels.
Re:
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:03 am
by Thenior
[]V[]essenjah wrote:That sucks, I would have loved to play the open beta.
The only thing that bothers me really, is that they will allow mouselook in this game. IMO, that is one of many things I like about console games, you don't have to deal with players that have a 3500 dpi mouse and can get a super accurate aim. Sure, you can amp up your sensitivity but you will sacrifice accuracy if you do that so most people keep their aim at default levels.
That's almost like saying it's not fair when someone has a faster computer and gets a perfect framerate.
And regardless of whether or not you have a very fast mouse, you still have to have the skill of hand-eye coordination.
Re:
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:00 am
by Isaac
Thenior wrote:
[]V[]essenjah wrote:That sucks, I would have loved to play the open beta.
The only thing that bothers me really, is that they will allow mouselook in this game. IMO, that is one of many things I like about console games, you don't have to deal with players that have a 3500 dpi mouse and can get a super accurate aim. Sure, you can amp up your sensitivity but you will sacrifice accuracy if you do that so most people keep their aim at default levels.
That's almost like saying it's not fair when someone has a faster computer and gets a perfect framerate.
And regardless of whether or not you have a very fast mouse, you still have to have the skill of hand-eye coordination.
Isaac *headshot*> []V[]essenjah
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 7:30 am
by CDN_Merlin
I saw the last video posted here and while it looks cool, it's going to be to muhc of a sniper game. To many places to hide in a such a HUGE play area. Also, it will be a ground pounder game. It's based on those controls. I will keep an eye on it.
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:31 am
by Foil
I'm not sure that it's really a long-distance / sniper game. From some of the Beta-tester comments, there are quite a few close-up melee-style kills.
The thing that concerns me is that they said there's a dropoff in accuracy when shooting from space compared to shooting from a surface. I hope that doesn't tend to prevent the kind of open tumbling dogfights we all know and love.
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:42 am
by CDN_Merlin
What I read on their site was that you won't tumble but you won't have the best accuracy. Sadly it will leave XP users out of the loop as it's only for Vista and Windows 7 and DX 10. I won't be playing this for years or unless I win the lottery, whichever comes first.
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 10:20 am
by snoopy
One day we'll come to admit the reality that a descent 4 will never happen because the masses are too dumb to handle genuine 6-dof battles; (& thus finance such an effort) enabling us to ascend to demigod status & join the Alterans.
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 1:46 pm
by Foil
It's apparently slated to be released around the end of this month via Steam. If it's a decent price, I'll probably pick it up.
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:20 pm
by []V[]essenjah
lol, neither will I sadly... I love XP and I'm stickin' to it.
Hm. Looks like my system meets the minimum requirements, but not quite the recommended ones. I'm planning on getting it anyway; I'll let you guys know how it plays for me.
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 12:26 pm
by Thenior
I skipped Vista altogether, right now I am running Windows 7. Works great.
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 3:08 pm
by Spaceboy
I meet the recommended requirements except for the processor... I'm not sure where my processor falls on that.
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:50 pm
by SirWinner
Looks and sounds cool... Except for the NO joystick part!
DOH!
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:57 pm
by Duper
loo well yeah, it's a space ground pounder with vehicles. Not a space vehicle game with ground pounding elements.
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 6:40 pm
by Valin Halcyon
I've just finished installing Win7 on my new machine. Looks like I well exceed the minimum requirements.
Shows the game setting (\"Arc\" of Moon debris above the Earth) well.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:03 pm
by Foil
It's official: There will be no options for independent roll input (rolling will be solely tied to right-click + mouse) until a post-release patch. Link
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 6:07 am
by Pandora
thanks, Foil. This is very disappointing. On the other hand, when I finally have my new computer the patch might be released already
