It's time for the third part in the series where we take a closer look at some of the people working on creating 0 A.D. This time the honor goes to two people who have distinguished themselves by doing great work, in part in November, but as with the first month it's just as much their overall contribution that we want to highlight. The Member of the Month is Omri Lahav (OmriLahav at the forums), who has been and continues to be, composing the stellar music that will make the game so much more enjoyable. OS Contributor of the Month is Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz in the IRC channels), who is maintaining the 0 A.D. PPAs for Ubuntu, both the release and the development one. It's thanks to his work that Ubuntu users are able to enjoy not only an easy way to install the release version of the game, but also have an easy way to follow the development via the development versions he makes available regularly.
Omri
Tell us the basics about yourself
Well, I'm 26, I live in Israel and work as a composer. Mostly for theater, but recently I've been getting into film and video game music, which has always been my true passion. I play in several bands and generally spend most of my day making music, one way or another!
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.?
Quite a few things, but above all I have to say, the players' responses and comments on the score. It's extremely satisfying to know that the players (and team members!) are enjoying the music, and as a gamer myself, it's a unique experience to play a game with my own music. Other then being plain fun - it allows me to put down the mantle of "composer" and evaluate my own work as a listener.
When did you join the team?
Not so long ago actually - I think it was around March 2011.
What made you interested in joining the team?
Obviously the game itself, it looks and feels much better then many other independent games I've seen, and I am an RTS fan, so I was instantly sold when I saw it! Also, in the brief discussions before I came on board, I came to see that the team is made up of great, like-minded people, so much so that I found myself reading and posting on the forums for hours on end.
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you? Musically, it has driven me to explore certain types of music I've never experienced before. Indeed, there have been challenges (and I suspect there are more of those yet), but overall it's been a complete delight. The team was very good at creating a supportive and open-minded working environment, in which it was possible for me to experiment and receive valuable, constructive criticism. It's been a great learning experience for me as a composer, plus the "fun factor" of working on a game... what more could I ask for?
What do you find best about being a part of the team?
Well, just that - being a part of the team. Being a composer is one of the most isolated jobs on the planet, it's a very nice change to have teammates who are involved and interested, and offer usable feedback.
On a side note (if I may), I'd like to thank the musicians who participated in the recordings, they truly bring the music to life, and elevate it to heights that would otherwise be unimaginable. Marta Mc'Cave, Yotam Ronen, Bar Guzi and Dror Parker.
Rico
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.?
As I am very familiar with generating packages for Debian/Ubuntu maintaining the PPA for several Ubuntu versions gave me the chance to give people an easy way to test and play with 0 A.D. which is the spirit of open source. So while adding the PPA to their system and install it is quite easy!
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you?
This is quite fun to see such a project evolving over several year. It is nice to see new ideas and additions to the game. I am also quite aware of the technologies behind the scene it is really interesting. So it is nice helping you guys distributing this great software!
Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 8 Haxāmaniš" (Alternate spelling: "Hakhamanish"), the eighth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This alpha debuts the mighty Persian Empire, includes support for both saving games and reconnecting to multiplayer games, a bartering system, improved AI and more.
Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. You can redistribute it and modify it as long as you abide by the GPL. You can even use parts of the art and sound for your own projects as long as you abide by CC-BY-SA. No "freemium" model, no in-game advertising, no catch.
Top new features in this release:
Bartering system: Buy and sell resources in exchange for other resources. Resources are traded at exchange rates that vary with each deal. For example, to purchase 100 Food, the player may have to spend 100 points of another resource type (Wood, Stone, or Ore). By the next deal, however, Food will become 1% more expensive. Over time, the exchange rate automatically gradually resets to the default rate.
Saved game support: Single-player games can be saved and reloaded.
Multiplayer reconnection support: If you are disconnected when playing (by an unreliable internet connection, or perhaps by the game crashing), you no longer have to abandon the match - you can simply connect to the server again, and it will launch you back into the match in a few seconds.
45° Field of View (FOV): The FOV was changed from 20 degrees to 45 degrees. This means the view of the camera was changed from a nearly isometric angle to provide a deeper, more immersive look, which is standard in other 3D video games. You can see the difference easily by toggling back and forth between these two screenshots: 20°, 45°.
AI improvements: The default AI engine is now qBot, kindly contributed by WFG programmer Jonathan Waller, also known as quantumstate. qBot is still having trouble learning how to fend off attacks, but it runs a tight ship economically, and it can be very sneaky militarily. In fact, qBot has been observed rushing a human opponent just a few minutes into the game.
An all-new and unique Persian civilization, including:
A brand-new building set. Monumental and eclectic, it reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the Achaemenid Empire.
New units, from chariots and hoplites to rams and biremes, from Xerxes to Cyrus to skirmishers and archers.
All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games.
Music and Sound: Several new tracks, all composed and directed by Omri Lahav. They feature live percussion, as well as a flute segment by a professional musician (Thanks, Marta Mc'cave!).
Sands of Time: A mesmerizing and very orchestral Persian peace track.
Eastern Dreams: Persia's early peace track. A dreamy yet minimal, traditional-sounding arrangement, without orchestral strings.
The Road Ahead: A long, neutral (not faction-specific) peace track, it has several changing moods and orchestrations to keep it interesting, while still staying in the realm of "background music".
New map: Zagros Mountains.
All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games.
Bug fixes and minor features:
Improved selection boxes: Selecting units is now more functional and intuitive.
Slowly but surely, we are making 0 A.D. more compatible with the Mac, with the Atlas Scenario Editor now running on OS X.
For developers, a new performance profiler has been implemented, which allows anyone to see which parts of the game take up the most of the CPU's and GPU's time. The reports can be seen in a web browser. This helps developers figure out how to reduce lag.
Some progress has been made on improving performance, especially in the fields of pathfinding and AI.
A marker line now helpfully connects the building and its rally point once you select the building, to make far rally points easier to discern. Also, a button in the building GUI changes the view to focus on the Rally Point, which can be useful if you've set a rally point far away and don't want to have to scroll to it.
Rally points can now can be set on resources, so that citizens will automatically gather that type of resource when they are created.
Random map fixes: Fixed crash while generating maps and out-of-sync error in multiplayer games.
Please contribute! (REPORTERS/BLOGGERS, PLEASE MENTION THIS! We need your help to finish the game. Thanks.) We are seeking contributors in programming, art, sound, web design, taking YouTube videos and more. These roles on the 0 A.D. development team are great if you want to brush up on your skills and update your portfolio, if you're seeking a project for school with real-life applications, or if you care about the cause of free culture and software and are willing to work pro bono with a group of dedicated volunteers from all over the world.
Many of the features mentioned above were made possible through our previous fundraising effort from 2010-11. The sum we raised last time was directed to pay for a month of full-time development of the 0 A.D. codebase by esteemed contributor Philip Taylor, also known as Ykkrosh.
As you can see, that month has paid off tremendously for the project. We'd like to allow Philip to work full-time for yet another month, so we can keep delivering awesome new features and making progress towards a finished open source game of ancient warfare.
Who were the Persians? The Persians originated from the Pars province in the southern part of modern-day Iran. They speak Persian, which belongs to the Indo-European language family, a large family of languages including Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. The Persian Empire, when ruled by the Achaemenid dynasty (ca. 550 BC–336 BC), was one of the greatest empires of antiquity, stretching at its zenith from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece.
Since most existing accounts of this vast empire are in works of Greek philosophers and historians, and since much of the original Persian documents are lost, it is difficult to portray the Ancient Persians in their own terms and ideas.
Nevertheless, the Persians can be credited as the pioneers of empire-building of the Ancient World. Later empires, such as the Hellenistic and Roman empires, adopted many administrative innovations that the Persians had come up with. While taking over various peoples with different customs, laws, religions, languages, etc., the Persians imposed a centralized, bureaucratic administration under the emperor, with large, professional military and civil services. These included a postal system, advanced road systems, standard coinage, weights and measures and the usage of an official language, Aramaic, throughout the empire.
The ancient Persian army was largely comprised of national contingents from the various subject nations under the rule of the Great Kings. These contingents were organized along military/administrative lines and used a decimal system of organization by multiples of ten. Well-known national 'regiments' were: Medo-Persian, non-Medo-Persian Iranian, Lydian, Carian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Indian, Ethiopian, and Libyan.
The ancient Persian empire collapsed and disintegrated around 330 BC with the Hellenistic conquest, led by Alexander the Great. In later centuries, peoples in its former territories were either ruled by Alexander's successors, the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, or gained independence and were self-ruled. The culture of the central Iranian plateau, however, continued to thrive and eventually reclaimed power by the 2nd century BC. The Persian empire would also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Persia (now called Iran).
In 0 A.D. the Persians will have many bonuses that match their historic strengths. These include:
Why "Haxāmaniš"? We name our releases according to development status ("Alpha" or "Beta"), successive release number (1, 2, 3, ...) and a word relating to the ancient world, in alphabetical order ("Argonaut" for A, "Bellerophon" for B, ...). In honor of the release of the Persian faction, we decided to dub Alpha 8 "Haxāmaniš".
Haxāmaniš (Alternate spelling: "Hakhamanish") is the original Old Persian name for the legendary founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, who the Greeks and Romans called "Achaemenes". His dynasty included renowned rulers such as Cyrus II, Darius I and Xerxes I. Haxāmaniš himself, however, was a minor ruler of the Anshan (Ansham or Anšān) in southwestern Iran in the seventh century B.C. Nobody is quite sure if Haxāmaniš in fact existed, little is known about him and the little known is peppered with myth. (Ancient Greek texts say that he was "raised by an eagle".) Nevertheless, he remains a figure often mentioned in Persian history.
Nobody knows for sure how Haxāmaniš was pronounced in Old Persian, but it is probably something like hah-xāh-mah-neesh, where all the a's are as in "father", and the a with the macron (ā) is longer. X is the voiceless velar fricative, as in ugh, loch, or Chanukah. The stress is uncertain; If it were as in Sanskrit, it would have been on the last syllable (hah-xāh-mah-NEESH). (Thanks, Thamar E. Gindin, Ph.D., expert on Iran!)
For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter I. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)!
Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will keep releasing new versions of 0 A.D. from time to time. Watch our news feed to get updates, or follow us by e-mail, RSS, Facebook or Twitter. And you're always welcome to join the 0 A.D. community on our forums.
Contact info for press, bloggers, etc.: aviv@wildfirePERSEPOLISgames.com without the name of the ancient Persian city written in all caps.
During the last month we've had the joy of welcoming four new team members here at Wildfire Games. First we had the chance to reward three of our most diligent Open Source contributors: Jonathan, Jeroen, and Yves, who all have worked hard programming for 0 A.D. and we thought it was time to recognize that.
Jeroen (vts on the forums) has worked on fixing things, perhaps most notably making selecting units a lot easier (a more technical explanation: he's worked on making the bounding boxes correspond better to the actual models). He's also worked on adding rally point marker lines. In other words: the rally point you place to tell newly created (and ungarrisoned) units to go to a certain spot on the map can be a bit hard to find at times, but with this feature you get a line on the ground showing you the way to it. And also roughly the way the units will walk to get to it. It's probably easier to see how useful it can be from a screenshot though, so below you have one:
Rally point marker line, the line going from the building to the rally point.
Yves (Yves on the forums) has mostly been working on upgrading to premake4 and other compile related fixes (a less technical explanation: he's made it easier for people to build the game - the process of turning the code into an actual game that can then be played).
Jonathan (quantumstate on the forums) has been (and still is) the leading force behind qbot, one of the AIs for 0 A.D.
A video showing a match against one of the latest versions of qbot.
Second, we've gotten a new artist on board: Enrique (Enrique on the forums), who has already created some marvelous Roman buildings which will help enhance the game world.
New Roman temple (to the right, to the left is the Hellenic temple for reference).
Member and OS Contributor of the Month October 2011
For the second time we'll highlight two contributors to the project who has done remarkable things in the last month. This month we've decided to shine the spotlight on Alexander (fcxsanya on the forums) and Jonathan (quantumstate on the forums). Alexander for his work on trade and barter, both of which should be included in the upcoming Alpha, and Jonathan for his work on qbot, a new AI which might be included in Alpha 8 as well. As you can see from the fact that both of them answers questions about being on the team both are presently on the team, but the award is for October, and Jonathan didn't become an official member until November.
Alexander:
Tell us the basics about you?
My name is Alexander, I’m 24 years old and I was born and currently live in Novocherkassk, Russia. I’m married and have a six months old daughter. I work as a programmer in a small software development company.
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.? When did you join the team? What made you interested in joining the team?
I first found 0 A.D. in summer 2010 and I was impressed by its scale and quality. The key factor of my interest was that 0 A.D. have free licences for both code and art. At that time 0 A.D. already had a pretty solid game engine and awesome art. In the same time it had wide room for improvements and I found out that I’m able to accomplish some tasks. I started to contribute as a community member and in October 2010 joined the official team. I was interested in joining the team because I wanted to follow development more closely, keep abreast of developments and I liked the team members whom I had met.
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you? What do you find best about being a part of the team? Later on I realized that this team/community is even more important for me than the project itself, I feel myself very comfortable here and I'm glad to work together with all these guys
Jonathan:
Tell us the basics about you I'm Jonathan or quantumstate and 21, I am currently studying in my last year of a maths undergraduate degree in Cambridge.
What do you find motivating about contributing to 0 A.D.? Basically i got started because I felt i should do something in the summer break and the AI is fairly bad so needed improving. I also seem to suffer from overconfidence in programming so I enthusiastically attack a problem thinking I can solve it fairly easily and then find it is 10 times harder than I thought. Also I love the AoE series of games and AoK: The Conquerors is my favourite game so making a better RTS in the same style is fun. Being open source was quite a big factor as well, I like the idea of open source and it is pretty practical as well for new people joining since the barrier of entry is so low.
What has contributing to 0 A.D. meant for you? Joining an online community again is nice, it has been years since the last one I was in died. Also my C++ is slowly improving as I read random bits of the codebase. Contributing to a real project which people will use is also good, in the past I have mainly done random small projects on my own which nobody would ever care about. Also since I will be applying for jobs fairly soon I hope it will look nice on a CV. So contributing to 0AD is awesome in a lot of ways .
When did you join the team? What made you interested in joining the team? What do you find best about being a part of the team? I joined the team on the 3rd November. For programmers the changes aren't so significant since there isn't any hidden programming discussion. I get to be part of the "peanut gallery" watching the artwork progress which is quite nice I guess. I also look nice and official on the forums now.
Pledgie work off to a good start, you can keep it going longer
As you may remember we had a fundraising campaign to support one of the developers working full-time on the game for a month. It was a success and we got the money needed. However, it took a while until one of our programmers (Philip Taylor) had the time to start this work, but now he's started. Below is his summary of the first week of work.
First some background information: I've been involved with 0 A.D. since 2004, and like everyone else I've been working in my free time (increasingly limited as an undergraduate and then PhD student) since it's been fun and a great way to gain practical experience. This kind of game takes a huge amount of effort to create - an end is nearly in sight, but there's still a lot left to do and it needs more time spent on it. Thanks to donations from supporters of the game, I now have the opportunity to devote a month of full-time work to the project and make useful progress on various long-standing challenges. If you think this kind of work seems worthwhile, we're asking for donations to support more of it!
Currently I've done the first week of the work. I've posted some progress reports in the forum, but here's a quick summary.
One of the most commonly requested features is saving in single-player games. I've implemented that now - you can simply hit the "save game" button when playing ...
... and then select "load game" from the menu screen ...
... and it will let you continue from where you left off. This isn't perfect yet (it needs AI compatibility and better UI) but the fundamentals are working, and it will be tidied up before the next alpha release.
Another new feature is the ability to reconnect to a multiplayer match while it is still running. If you are disconnected when playing (by an unreliable internet connection, or perhaps by the game crashing), you no longer have to abandon the match - you can simply connect to the server again, and it will launch you back into the match in a few seconds. (Technically, the server makes a saved game and then uploads it to you, then you can load it and join back in). The process looks like this:
I've also started working on a new tool for recording and analysing the game's performance with support for multi-threading and for detecting occasional freezes or inconsistent framerates. This won't be directly useful for players but it should help with optimisation work, and the plan is to spend the next one or two weeks improving the pathfinding and AI performance to ensure the game remains playable even with large maps and large numbers of units.
As he mentioned you now have the ability to keep him working for more than a month by contributing to our new Pledgie:
The Pledgie page has all the info, but just one thing before you leave: If you aren't able to pay any money yourself you could still help by linking to this page or the Pledgie page directly to help make other people aware of it.
• Free and Open Source Software • Cross-platform • Historically based • 6 unique civilizations • Provinces and territories • Realistic maps/terrain • Realistic naval warfare • Comprehensive editor • Several multiplayer modes
Support WFG
Help pay for one additional month of full time work by one of the developers on 0 A.D.
