Acumen

Found it by accident, although from what I can tell it only seems to inform you when a new topic is created. Replies have been sent to existing threads in the forum that I've tagged, but I've only received emails for the new topics. I described it in more detail in the Programming Dept forum if you need to know more, Tim. And enjoy the break! You've definitely earned it.

Ideas aren't the problem. Ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is successfully implementing that idea. That's what separates the winners from the also-rans. But there are various reasons why it's inadvisable for the DD to be public access: a] There's nothing left for you to enjoy. It'd be like skipping to the last page of a great novel, or reading the full shooting script before seeing a great movie. There are no surprises, no moments of wonder, no plot twists. As an example, do you really want to know every aspect of Half Life 2 before it's released? Every weapon spec, every monster type, every level design, every conversation thread, every twist in the storyline? Of course you do . But then why bother to make the game if everybody already knows what's coming. Valve are doing the right thing by withholding the details so the public will have a better experience at the end of the day. b] Too many cooks in the kitchen. We'd be inundated with cries of "why are you doing that?" "do this!" "no, do that!" "that sucks, do this!" It's already enough of a challenge to keep the design static enough to implement with the contributions from staff members. We have to reach a point where the design is "feature locked", or we'll never get a chance to implement any of it. c] Culpability. As hard as you try to plan ahead, a project inevitably evolves beyond its original constraints. Maybe a key feature is discovered to be impractical to implement with our resources (remember, most games require a multi-million dollar budget; we have literally *no* budget), or it's discovered that it just isn't fun, or through usability testing we discover that there's a more intuitive way to achieve the same thing. If the design is publicly known, we will be expected to stick rigidly to those constraints, and we can't guarantee that will be plausible. d] Why? At the end of the day, what would be the point? You'd satisfy your curiosity, still have to wait two years to see the final result, and probably have a lousy experience as a consequence.

I might be running Win98, but at least I have DSL.

Boris! Great to have you back, man. I've been looking forward to another shot of that aural beauty.

Tonto_Sanjab, you've just summarised my design philosophy ; realism wherever possible, as long as it does not affect gameplay. Unfortunately, keeping the game fun and accessible means we have to make a lot of concessions to gameplay. And Mythos_Ruler, I'm pleased to report that your plea for ship rams was already speced for inclusion some time ago. Please read the Unit Classes section in the Design Document for more information.

Maybe they don't have any willing candidates for cattle mutilation or anal probing back home?

A venerable 24. 25 in May.

AcridEvergreen. Had to keep chosing random nicks until it let me in, and and now I'm stuck with it.

Mythos_Ruler, if you mean "Amrtaka", currently that's mentioned as part of their rollover text/history, but the unit is currently listed as Immortal because as pointed out it's easier for the layman to remember. Of course, anything could change at implementation depending on feedback.

Sorry it took us so long to catch up with you, ZeZar. Yes, I'm afraid it will be "several" months before the engine is at a point where you can see screenshots or vidcaps of complete gameplay. But yes, I agree that when we reach that point, it will take substantially less time to record scenes from a game session than to create full teaser trailers like the one that you've seen, and it sounds like a good idea to me, server space permitting.

Heh. C L A S S I C, A S S E M B L E, and C I R C U M S T A N C E were censored in my last post.

Great responses, guys. I'll get back onto my ideal game at a later time, but for a *remake* of an existing game ... I'd choose Bloodnet. You've probably never heard of it, but it was an RPG released by Microprose back in the '80s. A classic case of awesome concept hindered by crippling execution. + Excellent setting. A cyberpunk world infested by an ancient vampire menace, set in 21st century Manhattan. The two should be contradictory, but the gothic and dystopic just seem to blend into a general dark sense of noir that works so well together that it deserves to be further exploited. + Strong plot. As a netrunner recently bitten by a vampire lord at the tail-end of what should have been a sleepwalk deal, only your neural implant is keeping you from becoming his thrall. You need to restore your humanity and overcome the undead threat before your implant burns out, and you succumb to eternal bloodlust. + Very well written dialogue, richly seeded with hustler slang and inventive cyber-jargon. Party members regularly made comments, breathing life into their personalities, in a fashion that would be used to great effect much later in Black Isle's Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment. + Each character in the game had a unique well-drawn detailed personal portrait. And there were a *lot* of NPCs. + Life path character creation system, similar to Bethesda Softwork's Daggerfall, where you could answer a series of multiple-choice questions to define the nature of your protagonist rather than just rolling stats at character creation. + An interesting, though simplistic, implementation of Lawnmower-Man-style cyberspace, with upgradeable deck hardware and collectable softs. + You could assemble and dismantle items in inventive ways. For example, strip a weapon down to its basic components to reuse its fuel source in a different weapon, dismantle a decking unit to scavenge its memory chips to put into your own deck, or assemble a flamethrower from household parts. You could even mix your own drugs with a pharmaceutical kit. + Combat system featured a number of unique features for its time, such as aimed shots to different limbs of an opponent, and the ability to bite or mesmerise an enemy using your vampiric powers. - Extreme reliance on Bram Stoker's Dracula for vampire authenticity. Hence, vamps walk around in dinner jackets and capes in a futuristic world, but nobody "bats" an eyelid. On the other hand, it does provide material for some interesting game mechanics (for example, in order to find a means to rest, you must acquire a coffin and line it with soil from your homeland). - Very poor graphics outside of character portraits, especially for NPC sprites. Tremendously out of scale and barely-there animation. They have to be seen to be believed. - An incredibly awkward interface, further encumbered by a woesome lack of online help (for example, you have no idea how much damage any weapon inflicts). Inventory icons are barely distinguishable, and most actions are laborious to an extent only matched in my mind by "Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura". For example, although there was a great deal of wasted space on the inventory screen, you could only view a few of your inventory objects at a time and had to click scroll arrows to get the rest. - Though there was a wide variety of character statistics (including several that I've never seen elsewhere, such as Innocence, Leadership, Faith and Jury-Rig), I have a strong suspicion that most of them weren't used by the game at all. They also seemed to increase and decrease beyond my control. - Most tasks are "Fed-Ex quests", requiring you to bring object x to NPC y in exchange for object z. This actually fit in very well with your wheeling-and-dealing profession in the game and the dialogue kept it interesting, but was still far too basic. - Really awful turn-based combat, mostly on account of the aforementioned interface and artwork. - While the game was really non-linear (you could accomplish most tasks in the game in any order), there was nothing stopping you from killing critical NPCs. In fact, if you didn't regularly consume the blood of the living, your bloodlust would peak and you'd drain a random NPC or companion dry, probably scaring off half your party in the process. Furthermore, a single botched conversation could alienate a character whose circumstance was vital to progress in the game. Not only that, but it was possible to be snared by net security at any time while navigating secure areas of cyberspace. This would permanently erase all software from your decking unit. This was a very unforgiving game where you needed to save early and save often.

Furthermore, the more beta testers we have, the more management overhead is required to gather and accurately collate data. So we are going to need to have some kind of applicant control system to ensure that beta testers do a thorough job, provide accurate feedback and thorough QA information. And yes, as Marcus Petrius pointed out, we need to ensure that the beta is not widely distributed, since a highly buggy, unpolished version released into the public domain will cheapen the company's reputation and the image of 0 A.D. Anyway, we needn't concern ourselves with beta testing for at least another year. There's a great deal that needs to be accomplished first.

Done.

Mihail, thanks very much for your offer, and especially for your impressive commitment to WFG. We can definitely use whatever skills and time you're able to contribute, and in particular I'd like to hear more about your OpenGL experience, as we particularly need graphics programmers at the moment. Please email me at stuart@0ad.wildfiregames.com, and we can make further arrangements.

*I* still remember when a 5MB hard drive was state of the art, and I'm only in my early twenties. *feels old*

You often hear complaints that the gaming industry is stagnant, obsessed with cloning and the need to dumb their games down to suit console kiddies. If you had the resources, what game would you like to create and release? You needn't worry about market pressure. It could be within an existing genre, or something completely revolutionary. Be as detailed as you like. TLA and 0 A.D. for example are cop-out answers, BTW. We're talking about what you'd like to create some day outside of WFG's current projects. It doesn't even have to be a brand new title. Is there a certain game that you love, and wish it could be remade using modern technology? What would you do differently?

I've spent most of my (un)natural life behind a screen, starting with the Spectrum 48k (yes, that's memory, not a product number), and later upgraded to the almighty Spectrum 128k. So we're talking Manic Miner, etc, with pixels the size of your fist (but then, I had very small fists back then). As for programming, that started with GW-Basic on our first PC (an XT), but I dabbled a little on the Amiga 500 before that. My father did some programming on the Spectrum, though (educational programs for the kids, mainly).

Hmm, interesting. So if I understand this correctly, every webpage is in fact a forum window (but without the option to add to the thread with replies). Neat. That certainly keeps it consistent. We're using the same language for site and forums. So eg when a moderator wants to add some extra screenshots to the Media section, he's just editing a forum message using the same interface as we're using now? Or if say we need to add something to the FAQ text, we just edit that post? Very neat. At first thought it might be a bit limited (I guess HTML tags could flesh that out a bit). Watch out for an upper limit on the character length of a post, though. I've made that mistake. For example, if news was added the same way (presumably just added to the top of the message), you'd eventually hit an upper limit and it'd truncate any future text. You'd then have to move older text into an archive message, and then other one later, etc. Or is each news post going to have its own window? Oh, and we also need to watch version control ... eg two newsposters updating news at the same time, and one is overwritten. I definitely like the new sidebar. As has been requested, it's simple and clean, attractive but not too flashy. Wasn't there going to be a poll in there somewhere, though? But on the other hand, I like that you're devoting two thirds of the screen to the current active window. Less scrolling.

Sounds like AoC (Age of Kings: The Conquerors) is going to get the widest number of attendents. This'll actually be my first AoC MP game over the Internet (played LAN a few times). Are we going via the Zone?

I currently work as a scripting programmer for a domestic appliance insurance company, foisting insurance junk mail on an unsuspecting populance. Or to put it another way, I'm a menace to society that kills trees for a living. As for future jobs, anything but what I'm doing right now.

That's a great idea, Murchad! It might give us something to encourage more members to attend. Of course, the big problem is getting us all there in the same timezone. I know it's hard enough for me to arrange real-time meetings.

I PASSED! How can I change my vote in the poll?

It's strange actually that in all this time we've never actually arranged to play MP among the team. Possibly we've been too work-motivated (I can only hope). Anyway, name the game and the time, and I'll be there. I tend to be a defensive economist more than an aggressor, so I tend to get my fluffy white posterior kicked when playing against humans (can't rush fast enough), but I'm game. Maybe team games against AI opponents? Less rage that way too.

As near as we've been able to establish (the bloodlines are somewhat watered), I'm probably a direct descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, the first British Prime Minister. I'm not sure whether I should be proud or ashamed ...