Leaderboard

In late 2000 / early 2001 me and Dire_Wolf met up via the AOK forums at heavengames, both of us with an interest in modding Age of Empires 2.. We messed about a little bit, never really did much but eventually decided to form Wildfire Studios as a simple modding group, similar to dozens that were around at the time. After forming Wildfire Studios nothing special happened for a while, nothing much happened at all.. We had a few members join up and leave etc etc then Dire_Wolf recruited Wijitmaker (AKA Jason) who pretty much stepped right up and reformed nearly every aspect of Wildfire for the better. He recruited new and talented members such as Agamemnon, BullsWool, Sud Commander, Topknot and Icewyvern to name a few.. And in march 2001 we began work on Rome at War... there Was even a trailer created for the Rome at War mod at the end of march 2001 (check the bottom of the page) . It was about here that I started sinking backwards into the shadows at WFS, I was more a spectator than anything else but continued to watch from the inside all the progress that was being made.. lending a hand every now in then in terms of ideas and discussion and web design.. Eventually RAW was released, after huge community hype it was and STILL IS (I believe it is fair to say) the most successful mod for AOK ever. With over 16,000 downloads from aok.heavengames.com alone and many more from wesites all around the internet, it was something that was never predicted. It was such a success that RAW was even featured in magazines such as PC Powerplay and Gamestar. For me, now to look back to when WFS was first founded, it was never ever EVER predicted that WFS would ever raise to such heights.. After the unbelievable success of the Rome at War mod, the members of WFS decided to create a new modpack this time under the code name of 0AD, with the aims of brining barbarians etc to the world of Age of Empires 2.. After large amounts of work and time spent on creating this modpack, with a large community following and also the formation of the team dedicated to creating The Last Alliance modpack it was finally decided that the teams were too limited with the mod capabilities of AOK and AOC and that for the mods to be successful they would have to look elsewear.. The exact date is unknown to me but in late 2002 / early 2003 the difficult decision was made by the members of WFS to embark upon the task of creating, not just one game.. But two.. Simultaneously it was decided that TLA and 0AD would be created together, along with this decision was also the decision to change the team name to Wildfire Games and also ( I believe? ) the purchase of domain name www.wildfiregames.com. And thus work on 0AD began, with Wijitmaker keeping the game on track and keeping a completely professional front. By now I had become less and less a regular visitor to this site.. But still remembering to stop by at least once in a while, to check the progress.. I have watched the forums grow and the games progress from the very beginning, but as of late I find myself coming back here more and more often, this game is beginning to become for me, more of a reality than the dream I once thought it would only ever be. Seeing the new screenshots posted for 0AD in the last few days have created a sense of emotion within me that is somewhat hard to explain. It is a sense of achievement as well as a sense of pride that I was at some stage associated with the team which has been able to create what to me seems like a masterpiece of work. I believe that if there is one person to thank for all that has been achieved over the 5 or 6 years since the formation of WFG that, that one person is Jason "Wijitmaker" Bishop. I know for a fact, that without him in the team from the beginning that WFG would never be where it is today, Rome at War may well have been released but our soon to be greatest achievement would certainly not be the impending reality that it is today. Jason has been responsible for keeping WFG going and giving us that kick start that was needed right from the beginning. Although I beleive Jason to be the key to WFG, it definately would not have ever been possible without the outstanding contributions from all the dedicated team members and community that have been a part of this great team over the years. THANK YOU everybody for supporting Wildfire Games over the years and thank you for making my dream (and im sure the dream of many others) a reality. I'm sure one day, i'll be able to look back on 0AD parts 1, part 2 and perhaps part 3 and be overwhelmed with the same emotion that I am today. p.s if anyone wants to view that old 0AD trailer (dating around december 2002) you can view it here. and the Rome at War trailer from 2001 can be viewed here.

An interesting mod; since the developer doesn't have advanced modeling skills, he embraced that as the mod's identity, which I think is a very honest approach!

https://www.moddb.com/mods/derphammer

Committed the first draft of the Guptas I need ideas for: 4 heroes and their bonuses Unit references (for textures) Mercenary Unit ideas (at least 3) Unique technologies Civ Bonuses Team Bonus Catafalque

I saw this the other day and it made me smile. When we named the game, we didn't intend to get to the top of the list... Ha! Congrats on the latest release all, glad to see the project still making forward progress!

Hello everyone, It is with great sadness and a little relief that I am announcing my retirement as project leader of both 0 A.D.: Empires Ascendant and Wildfire Games. It has been an awesome 12 years and 8 months, with its ups and downs. Making it to the team will remain one of my greatest achievements ever. After 6 years of 3D art struggles, getting the chance to join the team was unexpected (and, to this day one of my proudest moments), and two years later to be offered the leader job came even more as a surprise. It has been an incredible opportunity to be the leader of such a project. I would not have met half of the awesome people I met if it were not for it, and I would certainly have not have had the opportunities to go to the places I went if it were not for it. I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. Being able to spread the word about the game around the world has been an honor, and I hope the game will continue to shine at events. Recently, I had less and less energy and motivation to give to 0 A.D. The delay followed by the cancelling of A27 was no exception; I simply could not give the same energy I gave for the previous ones. The lobby became a source of permanent mental load and anxiety, first because of it is lack of moderation, then because of it started becoming moderated, and now because mods splat the community even more and the cheating is rampant. And it went downhill from there, as I started the longest break I ever took from 0 A.D. Those of you that know me know I was not really far, but I was simply not there. On the development side, I cannot seem to find any fun anymore. Everything feels more like duty than an actual desire, which can only work for so long until it breaks. The learning curve is just simply not worth the burnouts anymore. There are so many things I wanted to add to 0 A.D to showcase the true potential of the engine, as it is just immense, look at all the mods have done, look at all the thing people learnt about history, programming, art, bugs.. But I don't feel I can carry that vision anymore. I believe it is time for a change. I am therefore, effective immediately, quitting my functions as programmer, artist, video editor, documentation manager, translator, human resources, moderator, social media manager, public relations, system administrator, mod signer and modder, (all my mods can be considered archived until further notice). It is the only way for me to ever move on. I cannot just keep doing one thing for 0 A.D., unless I get a clean break I will continue feeling everything not covered by someone is on my shoulders, and it is a weight too big for a single person. I would like to thank everyone that made some or the whole journey with me, I will miss you all very much. I hope we shall meet again. I would also like to thank all the players that took action in the balancing department it has not been an easy task. I do not have ideas for the person who can or will replace me, nor do I know whether I should be replaced by a single person. I will leave it for the remaining people to decide what kind of leadership model they want to go for from now on. As for what I'll do next I do not know yet, but I've been working on Godot tools to import 0 A.D. assets and it's been fun, so I might continue that. I'm still working with Activ' Design this year as well. tldr; So long and thank you for the fish. May Wildfire Games and 0 A.D: Empires Ascendant live a long and healthy life after I am gone. Best regards, Stan

How much is the game finished? Well, there are others who can/have given good estimates on that question, but one thing I do now is that you don't want to play the game yet. You might think you want to, but if you'd try and play it for a while you'd just get disappointed as it's not finished yet. For a while it's marvelous to see it in all it's glory, but when you look closer/encounter a bug you realize that there are things to do before it's finished, and while things are progressing there is no real way to know dates etc. Not only is it hard to know when people will have time (or when new people will come as people will move on from the project due to changed circumstances in their lives, like getting a job, a family, finding they have more interest in another hobby etc) but to make things worse most, if not everyone on the team are perfectionists. That will make the finished game better, but will also lead to the release date getting later as perfect takes time. Hmm, that word soon is a perilous word. For example, Jesus said that he'd come back soon 2000 years ago, but though we are some Christians in the team we're sure not Christ, so I can promise it will be sooner than that at least And while I don't have any info on a alpha/beta I repeat what I've said before, we do have something on the way which will, well, without wanting to give away any details I can say that it will give a bit more insight into the game/developing of the game for a select few...