Acumen

I have to say I love how this is developing, particularly how vibrant and alive the palette looks. Too many games look very drab and lifeless, but it looks like our environments will have a lot of atmosphere and personality. Kudos, gentlemen!

Zero. Unless you count the trigger for the central locking on my car. I've just realised that I obviously don't get nearly enough couch potato time.

24. Man, I feel old being at the top of your age ranking.

Am I getting old, or should Sandra Bullock also be on the list?

You think smoking kills? Now *that* would put me in the ground quicker than you can say 'coronary'. And I don't even smoke. Seriously, I see your point, Tim ...

Initiate my carefully crafted Plot for World Domination.

Hmm, I might have used conflicting terminology. I meant 'cinematics' as in 'pre-rendered CGI movies'. You might have thought I meant in-game cutscenes generated through scripting.

Thanks, Tonto_Icy_Tripod. You just saved me a post.

If it's any consolation, WC3 is one of my favourite RTS games. The micromanagement of Hero units isn't everybody's idea of a good time, but it works for me; dealing with small, formidable parties, well-balanced and varied factions, exquisite cinematics, and what I consider to be a strong user interface.

I've changed to the Celtic skin too. Very nice. It really makes the link colours stand out. Great job, Jason!

Well, actually it used to just be an all-in-one Siege Workshop and Blacksmith, but then we were told to move the infantry and cavalry production into it too. "It's kind of odd isn't it, but that's how the Project Leader wants it."

Yeah, I think it might be a good idea to decide on a standard format for the basic geometric shapes of buildings again, as SUD suggested. So that the player intuitively knows which buildings are of the same class.

A job? That's for lesser mortals. I plan to Conquer the World! Bwahaha!

Here are screenshots from the Prometheus Engine, in time for the end of October, as promised by Jason. Because the engine is still at an early stage, most code to date is low-level foundation work, so the visual element doesn't capture how much is actually active beneath the hood. But here are a few shots of the current terrain system. These demonstrate height-mapping, tiling, blurring and texture blending. May I take this opportunity to give a big thanks to Poya and Jan, who rushed to improve a lot of the terrain engine in the last couple of days.

Done.

Hi. I received your email this morning, and have you sent you a reply with an application form. However, your address came back with a send error: Here's the email text I tried to send to you: Please arrange a functional email address so that I can send your application form. Thanks.

A thesaurus and a sackful of pretension.

Muchos gesturing.

I'm guessing that this would work something like a play by email RPG. The designated GM would describe the player's actions and affect all die rolls and plot development, and the players would post replies saying what their character chooses to do in that situation. If you were going to do this, it would probably be preferred to pick a well-known game system, like AD&D, so that we're all familiar with the rules and don't have to spend a long period making them up. Also keep in mind that RPGs are typically best played with small parties.

Great review, CodeOptimist. At its deepest, darkest core, that's what 0 A.D. was always meant to be. So hopefully you'll get your wish. Otherwise I agree with your assessment, although most of the problems you've pointed out were resolved in the sequel (smart blokes, that Ensemble Studios). The Pros and Cons of the Age of Empires games has seriously shaped the design of ours.

Team Tray (group up top): Check. Idle Villager button: Check. Villager Allocation: Great idea. Checked. The fundamental principles of the interface design are familiarity and ease of use.

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need ... roads." -- Back to the Future (1985)

Though stunned by your generosity, Tim, my inner selfish git is urging me to side with Jason.

Torturing the undead has never brought me so much pleasure, not even in my Dungeon Keeper days. Thanks for the link, CheeZy!

Well, the modules wouldn't be designed to limit gameplay to such a large extent. Modules are split up in such a way to cater to a particular user's needs. For example, someone who just wants to play over the Internet needn't download the singleplayer campaigns. If he doesn't have the Campaigns module, then the Campaigns option is greyed out in the main menu until such time as he downloads it. Naturally, if he wanted to play multiplayer with his buddies, they'll all need to have downloaded the MP module. The advantage is that the player can download modules over a long period of time and still have gameplay in the meantime, or if, say, he doesn't plan on doing any modding, he doesn't have to spend hours downloading the Scenario Editor or other tools. That's the theory, anyway. Ultimately the amount it proves beneficial to modularise the game modes will be dependent on just how much space those components actually occupy.