Palantius

Yep, 100% blender using cycles (blender render would maybe have been better for this task)

Hello, I thought that I would just try your idea ludo and reply when I was done with it. However, it seems that it might be a bit longer. Just want to say that I really think your idea is worth a try, and I'm working on it. But it might be some weeks until I can show anything though... The reason being that (except for that I need to put it aside to get a fresh perspective on it) currently, the lightning has kind of two separate function: both to lighten the texture correctly and to lighten the shape (bevels) correctly. I The problem is that when I increase the bevel it's just a bright, one-colored bevel, and when I try to adjust the lightning to fix this, the texture looks worse. It's a tough situation... :-/ I always try to wait with replying until I got something to show, but sometimes I'm just to optimistic with the time, and I end up not replying at all in a very long time...

Yes, this is something I would do in my mod. However, there are many things that I think can and should be changed in the main-game, so I'll try and work on these stuff first and then I'll mod what I think should be changed after that. This is a comment by Sander in his patch as a reply to a comment that changing animals vision to 0 could be seen as a hack: And I totally agree with the solution, but I want to point at that the solution still was a hack, and the reason a hack like that had to be the solution is because hunting is very unrealistic and way too technical - you can really feel the "gamyness" when hunting: "click to get points". Edit: Yeah, my point... My point is that 0 ad is not a hunting game. Therefore, any implementation of "hunting" will be full of "hacks" so that it would fit the game. Then you don't have hunting, but some sort of mini-game.

I see that you replaced "hunting" with "resource gathering" in my post, but I'm not sure I get your point... The difference between hunting and other resource gathering methods is that hunting requires far more micro-management. If you seriously mean that all resource gathering methods should be removed, then I must say that it's an interesting idea that deserves some thought! What about having resources that you "capture" and what you can build in some way depends on the number of captured resources. This puts a lot more focus on expanding, which in my opinion is a central aspect in any RTS! However, back to the topic of hunting - why not just remove the possibility to hunt? The extra time the player gets could be used for strategic planning. Also, I've played a game yesterday in which a lion annoyed me very much by making my army go after it while I wanted my army to go after my opponent. It's a small problem, but hunting does little good for the gameplay, so my point is, hunting does more harm than good even if you don't think about the micro-management aspect.

I don't really know if this is an answer to your last post or not, but I'm going to present my view on options in strategy-games (the part that is relevant to this topic, so I'll leave out stuff like non-linearity and parallell systems (hehe, I've learnt some fancy game-design-words ) ). The starting point is that any option that could be used must be used if it would be the best option in the situation. If you need more food and hunting would help, then you'd have to hunt even if you don't like to do it. The nature of strategy-games is that the best possible move must be made. However, I found that there are exceptions to this rule: One is that, if you have little experience with a certain situation, you should avoid it (and the opposite if you know that your opponent has little experience with a certain situation). This is because the players are a part of the game. That is quite natural and can be found in almost all strategy-games, for example, in chess, you stick to the openings you know. This exception isn't really relevant to this topic, but the next exception is. If a "move" is the best possible, it could also be a good idea to avoid it if it's to time-consuming. This is relevant since 0ad is a Real Time Strategy-game. So basically, the question the player would stand in front of is: do I have the time to do this even if it's good from a strategical point of view? And since it's not thinking that would take up the precious time, but instead micro-managing, the player finds himself playing a game that is part strategy-game and part micro-managing-game. "Should I attack that building? Maybe not, then I can't hunt at the same time..." This is of course natural (in chess, to physically make a move takes time and could be used against your opponent if he only got some seconds left), but it should be as small as possible, after all, the best strategist should win, not the fastest "clicker". ... there are probably more exceptions ...So what I'm trying to say is that micro-management must be avoided even if it's "optional".

FPS-mode! That would be sooo cool! And you could by cool weapons like bombs and stuff! And some animals could be super strong and have superpowers! But seriously... I don't see what function hunting fulfills in a strategy game - it doesn't really require any strategical planning, and on the contrary, it takes away the focus from strategy and just requires more micro-management. I know a lot of work has been put down to that aspect of the game, but I just can't see how to justify such a requiring task for the player when it doesn't add any (significant) strategical depth to the game. Well, that's my opinion...

Thanks! Made some changes, what do you think?

I've been quite busy lately, but now I'm back! Upgrading a structure based on town phase is quite useful (especially for centers) and would be relatively easy to implement. But it would only make sense to implement it if there were models for each upgrade, so maybe it's too early for that. I've been thinking about my idea, and I've come to the conclusion, that implementing it would require very much work on other areas to make everything fit together. And if I would like to put that much effort into experimenting with the gameplay, then I could even try bolder things. After all, scripting in 0ad allows for very much. So I guess that I'll put the upgrade-functionality on hold. However, something I would like to say, is that I believe gameplay design deserves much more attention. At least the game design document is, in my opinion, insufficient. I know these complaints are very unspecified, but I'll get back to that topic soon - I'm currently reading about game design theory (it's very interesting!).

It's been a while since my last post, but that's because I've been quite busy lately. But now I at last got some time to spend on 0ad! Well, now I see that the grey logo doesn't really really look that good. It's very easy too not see your work as it actually looks when your working on it, so feedback is really useful. Thanks! I made another attempt, but it feels as if I'm running out of ideas. I hope that my tries at least could be used as examples for when someone else would like to give it a try. I think a painted logo could be quite interesting. I'll also attach the project if anyone wants to play with it, but beware, I's quite messy! logo.blend.zip

I don't even know what I did with my ticket, I just wanted to upload the code... I would really need help with adding a button to the GUI that would allow for upgrading the selected building. The function that should be called is UpgradeStructure, and it works. Here's my current progress on Upgrade.js: I've been looking at how the gate works, but there is so many files that I can't find everything and understand how it all fits together. And the documentation is "mostly outdated". I really need help with the GUI!

Update:

I actually think it looks great! To make it easier to see the letters one must look at the holes, so with a good background that would emphasize the holes in some way, it could look really good. However, the current logo-design has been used for many years, so it might be a good idea to stick with it. Here's an update:

I'm a hacker! http://trac.wildfire...com/ticket/2128

Thanks, added some more color and made some fixes.

I really want to thank you for the feedback on my code! The directDeploy does what I want it to. A problem is however that the AI does not know how to handle it, it just breaks down and cries. The tabs were converted to spaces when I posted it on the forum, so my code is with tabs. And I have problems with creating a patch, since I'm using Ubuntu and I tried something called RabbitVCS, however when I want to set up a checkout according to the instructions, it just crashes But I really don't want to think about that at the moment... I want to make progress on the mod. It's been a while since my last post, but that's because I've been quite busy lately, not because but I have given up! I've been trying to implement building upgrades, but it's really hard... I've also been spending some time to get better at 0ad and get a better understanding of it. Well, yeah, it's true that talk is cheap, but 0ad is cheaper Actually it's not just talk, the entire point of this mod/project is to try to find the most optimal gameplay from a strategic point of view and really go far with experiments on the gameplay. Therefore, the most important thing to do at this early stage is to make analyzes and doing some brainstorming. I'm thinking of calling the mod "0ad SRTS mod" for "strategic real time strategy". Provocative enough?