Jeru

How old are you? Where from? What do you like about the game? You're invited to stick around and participate in more discussions with devs and other fans!

Although we've just announced our own alpha version, these news still had to be shared: A new game in the Age of Empires series, "Age of Empires Online", has just been announced. They invite people to join their closed beta. <blockquote>Marrying fresh features with classic RTS gameplay, Age of Empires Online pays tribute to the original game while incorporating a new look, feel, and approach that appeals to long-time fans, newcomers, and everyone in between. [...] There is no offline play. [...] Q: Why the new look? What was wrong with the graphics before? It looks more “cartoony” now. A: Age of Empires includes a refreshed art style with an unprecedented level of detail. The new design is fun and approachable, and we believe it will help invite a brand-new audience to experience this classic franchise. It will still offer gameplay depth for fans of the franchise as well. Q: The “Age” franchise has an incredibly loyal fan base. Do you think this new iteration will alienate any of your fans? A: Absolutely not. Age of Empires Online stays true to its roots with traditional RTS gameplay, a deep player-versus-player mode and detailed historical settings. From the creation of your capital city, to resource management and competitive matches, Age of Empires fans will feel right at home.</blockquote> (Hat tip: phil44)

Make sure this is in the relevant page on Trac

Hi Scotty, welcome. What brings you here?

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QgByWOhR8?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> Wildfire Games proudly announces the release of the first alpha version of 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. After 9 years since the concept of 0 A.D. was designed on paper, we have a close approximation of a playable game. This release comes with aggressive units that attack enemies on sight, lifelike animals that escape danger, two new maps, in-game multiplayer chat and much more. Alpha releases of 0 A.D. will each get a number and a name, so this one is "Alpha 1 Argonaut". Easy Download and Install Download and installation instructions are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. 0 A.D. is free of charge and always will be. No registration, no advertising, no catch. New features in this release: Maps: Added new maps "Arcadia" and "Hellenized Egypt", improved the "Multiplayer demo" map; Added textual descriptions to maps. AI: Added animal AI (walking around, running from danger). Redesigned unit AI: added order queues, auto-attack, auto-gather. GUI: Added in-game multiplayer chat; Fixed GUI stretching on widescreen resolutions; Improved selection outline rendering; Many other GUI changes, such as buttons and cursors; Changed camera controls. Graphics: Added floating decorative objects, such as lily pads; Added building collapse and corpse decay; Tweaked animation speeds. Gameplay: Added 'delete unit' command; Added rally points. Installation and compatibility: Added Windows installer using NSIS; Added Linux packages for many distros; Improved compatibility when 3D acceleration is missing; Improved FHS compatibility for Linux installations. Miscellaneous: Added terrain smoothing tool to Atlas map editor; Added some sound effects; Improved performance; Fixed bugs. Room for improvement: There are no victory conditions implemented yet. There is no computer opponent AI yet. In single-player games the enemy does nothing. There is no random map generation yet. There is no fog-of-war yet. Many unit stats are still unbalanced. Many planned gameplay features are not added yet: There is no research, no auras, no rank upgrades, no settlements and territories, no resource dropsites, etc. Many bugs and small missing features. There is no multiplayer matchmaking service. You have to connect by IP address. (More convenient ways may be implemented in the future). An overview of the gameplay feature status is on our wiki, and as you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done. If you want to be part of this effort too, you're welcome to get involved! Why "Argonaut"? From now on we will 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, ...). The Argonauts were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means "Argo sailors". (Source: Wikipedia). To celebrate Alpha 1 Argonaut, we included a recreation of the Golden Fleece, which can be found on the "Hellenized Egypt" map. Referring to the original Jason mentioned in Greek mythology, the word "Argonaut" is a tribute to our former project lead, Jason "Wijitmaker" Bishop, who managed the game's development between 2002 and 2008. 0 A.D. would have never made the transition from an idea on paper to a piece of software that runs on your machine without the countless hours of work by this gifted leader. Thanks, Jason. Long Time, No Siege Wildfire Games will continue releasing new versions of 0 A.D. periodically. Watch our news feed to keep updated, 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.

Mac is by compilation only?

Whoa! Well done.

Welcome, Wytse! You're welcome to get in on the action, participate in discussions with other fans and more. It's more fun than just being a wallflower.

There used to be at least one gal, but we can only hope some gals join again in the future!

If you speak Hebrew or Russian, you're in for a treat: Over the past few days, 0 A.D has been featured in Israel's influential, high-brow daily Ha'aretz (low-res print version in Hebrew; internet edition in Hebrew; English translation) and in niche magazine Linux Game Technologies (in Russian; English original). The Ha'aretz article is part of a PR campaign for Israel's premier Linux & FOSS fan conference, August Penguin (in Hebrew), where Wildfire Games team member Aviv ("Jeru") Sharon will be giving a talk about 0 A.D. See you there!

Hi Daniel! Welcome.

Whoa! That is a pretty tower.

If I do the singing I'm afraid we will have millions of users with PTSD

"100 bottles of beer on the wall, 100 bottles of beer..."

I never claimed they spoke Hebrew. They spoke Punic (that is what the Romans called it anyway). Punic is a Semitic language from the same northwestern branch as Hebrew, and it comes from their Phoenician ancestors. More information on this topic is available on Wikipedia and I also found this blog post which is interesting for Hebrew speakers - Once the writing system is switched it is actually very easy for a native Hebrew speaker to read and mostly understand.

Let me guess: It was actually Greek?

Christopher Tozzi from WorksWithU, a website which describes itself as "the ultimate guide to Ubuntu Linux", has reviewed 0 A.D. Pre-Alpha 3: <blockquote>All in all, the game is shaping up impressively. The art is great, the gameplay looks promising and the commitment to historical accuracy is always a big plus from my perspective. I’m very excited to continue following development and looking forward to the first fully playable release.</blockquote> (Reminder: Tozzi also interviewed 0 A.D. project lead, Erik, a while back). Thanks, Chris!

First, a small change of policy: Up until now we welcomed application forms for all sorts of volunteer roles in Wildfire Games, spanning everything from 3d animation to AI programming. The application system seems to be working well for graphics, sound etc., but not so much with programming, because we want to see programmers make good contributions to the 0 A.D. codebase before we can conduct any interviews with them. Candidates would apply, and then we would send them to the open tasks, and then the whole application would sort of lose momentum. So from now on, if you're a programmer and you want to contribute to 0 A.D., just get your feet wet and get started. We don't want to hinder your progress with any applications. If you do a good job over time, you'll get inducted to the team anyway. All the relevant pages have been updated. Let's hope this improves things from now on! Next, in other news, our gifted programmer Philip has implemented a chicken brain in 0 A.D. and chickens can now run away from their attackers. Some say they are now impossible to catch. Check out the Unit AI thread for more info.

That is what I meant to say, blablahead, thank you for the correction.

The Khazar story is pretty iffy and dubious. There are similar stories in Yemen btw.

(BTW if you notice, this is the only people in the world with such a story - other ancient peoples just merged into other entities)

Personally I don't care either way, but I think a lot of people both in Turkey and Israel may take issue with "Turkey/Israel" Also, to be more serious, the Hittites and original inhabitants of Asia Minor, Anatoliya and other parts of modern-day Turkey had very little to do with today's Turkic peoples, who came from the Central Asian steppes very late in history. And of course, all throughout history Turkish people and Jewish people have been very, very different, in terms of language, religion etc. Although Turkey in modern times, up until the last few years anyway, has been very secular and open to the West, which meant they shared a lot in common with Israel. So it is kind of like making a "France/Germany" or a "France/Poland" faction, or how the European colonialists called Vietnam "Indochina" just because it was in the middle between India and China, and without caring that they had languages and cultures there that were neither Indian nor Chinese

Thanks for this assessment! You certainly sound like you know what you're talking about. Can you provide examples of other freeware RTSes you have tried?

Justin McElroy, the Joystiq reviews editor, was kind enough to give us a feature on his indie game column, The Joytiq Indie Pitch. <blockquote>Why did you want to make games? [... P]eople are spending more money, time and attention on playing computer games than ever before, and games are constantly evolving into a more nuanced medium of expression and a greater part of our culture. We think this culture should allow gamers to learn how their games work, change them, share them and redistribute their works. This freedom to tinker is what Free, Open-Source Software (FOSS) is all about and so we hope a lot of people tinker with 0 A.D. [...] What one thing would you tell someone to convince them to get your game? 0 A.D. is open-source, free software with cross-platform multiplayer capabilities. So you will always be able to download it from the internet for free, share it with your friends, and play with them online, even if they run Linux and you don't. </blockquote> Read the whole thing.

Hi Evans, welcome. Under the keyword "simple" on our Trac system we keep simpler, self-contained bugs and feature requests, meant for developers without a broad knowledge of the codebase. Sounds right up your alley. Check out the development forum for any questions, suggestions or ideas.