Jeru

From the contact form:

It is mesmerizing to watch.

I agree with Michael. In general, I think it is curious to have no qualms with wholesale massacre of representations of people on screen during a game, but to have a problem with destroying a representation of a building.

Welcome, Jason! I am a public high school teacher in Israel and I found your description of your school intriguing. Is your school private? Particularly selective? How are students motivated to learn about the cultures and languages of old?

Hi av93! I am glad you are becoming enculturated into the 0 A.D. community.

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I will prepare a brief for stuff for you guys to say during the recording. (Erik - Be succinct! )

We won SourceForge's June Project of the Month poll! It was neck and neck for days with Sourcefabric's Newscoop, a FOSS CMS for news websites, but finally, after a hair-raising run for the finish by both contenders, we won by 3 votes (527 to 524)! This means 0 A.D. will get featured on SourceForge's blog and mailing list, lending the project high visibility among a new audience of FOSS developers. Reaching out to such large, technically minded audiences like these is very important for the project, to attract new contributors and speed up the game's development. Thanks to the hundreds of our dedicated fans who voted, and a courteous hat tip to Newscoop, for putting up a great fight and for their excellent sportsmanship.

Holy crap! We won!!! A huge pat on the back goes to Kieran for his initiative and leadership in this event. Hat's off. The last tweets of the race read like a professional PR release and will be re-used in the new website. What an effective use of data to support your arguments.

Hi Catalin! Thanks so much for your kind offer, we can definitely put your expertise to good use! Please stick around the forums. You are very welcome to participate in any and all discussions.

If you have a Twitter account, please consider voting for 0 A.D. as Sourceforge's project of the month for June 2012. Just a few hours left. This way we can attract even more new developers and make faster progress! http://twtpoll.com/03i0fe Thanks in advance! The 0 A.D. team

No doubt it will be a long time until the AI in 0 A.D. learns how to modify tactics in mid-game.

ברוך הבא

Ditto pig animations, we keep adding more and more animations over time, but still not everything is animated, and it can be difficult to find contributors in 3D animation.

Hi m0nstre, Thanks for your kind offer! I have notified the music lead for 0 A.D., Omri Lahav, and he should reply here shortly. In the meanwhile, could you include a link to your work and briefly describe your experience? Thanks in advance!

Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, proudly announces the release of "0 A.D. Alpha 10 Jhelum", the tenth alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. This alpha features Hellenic factions such as Athens, Macedonia and Sparta; technologies, civilization phases, click-and-drag walls, healing and more! Easy Download and InstallDownload 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 gameplay features in this release: New Hellenic Factions: Athenians, Macedonians and Spartans will now replace the generic Hellenic faction. Each features some unique characteristics along with shared Hellenic units and buildings:Receiving significant naval bonuses, the Athenians are the rulers of the waves. Special Buildings: Gymnaseion, Prytaneion ("Council Chamber") and Theatron.Macedonians have a wide selection of units and siege engines, for a combined arms approach. Special buildings (in planning): Lighthouse and library.The Spartans can't build stone walls, but as their soldiers are top-notch, their men serve as their walls instead. Special Building: Syssiton ("Military Mess Hall").(Also, along the same lines, we have decided to include more factions in 0 A.D., beginning with the Mauryan Indians! Read on to find out how you can help.)[*]Basic Technologies: Technologies, or techs, are economic or military bonuses that can be "researched" (bought) for resources at designated buildings. In 0 A.D., technologies come in mutually exclusive pairs: Within each pair, you can either research one tech or the other, but not both in the same game. As researching some technologies depends on having researched others, one should plan ahead carefully. (Importantly, for the meantime, all factions share an identical tech tree, but over the next few releases, different factions will get different tech trees, adding complexity and interest to the game.)[*]Civilization Phases: Start in Village, upgrade to Town, then to City. Unlock new techs and expand your territory with each upgrade.[*]Click-and-drag wall building functionality. (Support for gates is due in a future release.)[*]Healing units from their battle wounds is now possible by a priest conducting a ceremony with special chants within range. Priests can be trained at the Temple.[*]The Iberians get a pre-built walled settlement as a bonus every game. Graphics improvements: New Models/Artwork:Roman Siege Walls, Prytaneion, Roman Merchant Ship;Iberian Special Building, Temple and Fortress; Remodeled Iberian Civ CenterRemodeled Hellenic barracks and marketUpdated/Remodeled all wallsNew hand-drawn Greek unit portraits[*]Prettier unit/building selection rings[*]Refactored rendering engine, supports the new specular effect.[*]New graphics options: Ability to disable particles and unit silhouettes in game, which gives small boost to game's FPS if needed (Thanks, rouge-spectre and mk12) From top left: 1. Specularity; 2. Celtic walls and revamped selection rings; 3,4. "Drag" (3) and "drop" (4) to build all types of walls, including Roman siege walls pictured. All works CC BY SA Wildfire Games. 9+ New maps, including: Acropolis 5, Laconia 1, and Punjab 3 (scenario maps) and Deep Forest (a random map).New music tracks: "In the Shadow of Olympus" (Hellenic) and a generic victory track. 0 A.D. Soundtrack by Omri Lahav Usability Improvements:Training units with multiple buildings of the same type selected trains that unit in all selected buildingsSeveral UI changes in bartering and setting units' formation and stanceIt is now easier to select multiple control groups (by Shift+N, where N is the control group number, or by shift-clicking the control group icons) (Thanks, mk12)Shift-clicking a garrisoned unit now ungarrisons all units of that type[*]Atlas & Random Map Script Improvements: Terrain eyedropper toolSeveral bug fixes improving display and stabilityNew wall generation tool for random maps (Thanks, FeXoR)Bug fixes and minor features:Refactored AI API, setting the groundwork for developers to reduce lag and program faster, smarter computer opponents in the future.Attack restrictions: Soldiers can't attack stone walls, women can't attack soldiers, animals can't attack buildings, and more. (Thanks, ZsoL)New "Random" faction option for random maps (Thanks, deebee)Increased support for Linux and Mac on several accounts (Thanks, ZsoL)Control groups are now persisted between save/load (Thanks, mk12)Fixed several gameplay & AI bugs (Thanks, mattlott, Dietger, MattDoerksen)New data paths on Windows and OS X (Windows: "%appdata%\0ad" and "%localappdata%\0ad"; Mac: "~/Library/Application Support/0ad"). Please contribute! (REPORTERS/BLOGGERS, PLEASE MENTION THIS! We need your help to finish the game. Thanks.)We are especially seeking contributors in sound contribution management and in documentation, and, as always, in programming, art, sound, 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. Specifically, we invite contributors to guide us in ancient Indian history and architecture as we collaboratively design the Mauryan Indian faction in 0 A.D. Interested? Please register on our forums and start participating! (If you are applying for a role on the team, we request you start a thread in the applications and contributions forum following these instructions. Thanks!) Why "Jhelum"?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, ...). "Jhelum" is the Indian name for the Hydaspes River in the Punjab region, and the site of a major battle between Alexander the Great against King Porus of the Hindu Paurava kingdom in 326 BC, located in modern-day Pakistan. Alexander victored, but at a heavy cost, and the bravery, war skills and princely attitude of Porus so impressed Alexander, he allowed him to rule Hydaspes in Alexander's name. In honor of the decision to include Mauryan Indians in 0 A.D., we decided to dub Alpha 10 "Jhelum". (Thanks for the name idea, zaphzaph!) The setting for the battle of Jhelum is represented in the "Punjab 3" map included with Alpha 10. For the meantime, Persians replace the Mauryan Indians on this map, but this will be corrected as we include the Mauryans in 0 A.D. within the next few alphas. For the next alpha, we welcome fan suggestions for words relating to the ancient world beginning with the letter K. Keep it original and within the 0 A.D. time-frame (appx. 500 BC - 1 BC)! Long Time, No SiegeWildfire 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@wildfireHYDASPESgames.com without the Greek name of this alpha version written in all caps.

(FWIW I think the Pledgie is not needed at the moment)

Thanks! (Am I supposed to see notifications that there are unapproved topics in certain forums?)

Hi fireprog, You are right, we should make these things more transparent, but with people occasionally joining and leaving (sometimes with no advance notice) we have trouble keeping tabs on this. In general: Management: This is Erik who coordinates everyone's efforts. Art: Michael (Mythos_Ruler) and artists. Programming: Jan (janwas) is department head and has contributed more in the past, Philip contributes heavily nowadays as lead programmer, along with contributing programmers in various areas, from AI to building 0 A.D. to run on different platforms. Music: One contributor, Omri (OmriLahav). Web Development: Two contributors and me (theoretically) overseeing them PR: Several contributors handle this, mostly Erik, Michael and me. Hope this helps!

The credits should also say something like:

Also: Concept artists are missing.

Stu = Stuart Walpole aka Acumen

We usually leave threads open, if that's all right.