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Jeru

Web Development Team
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Posts posted by Jeru

  1. Wildfire Games, an international group of volunteer game developers, has successfully applied to make 0 A.D. an associated project at an organization called Software in the Public Interest, Inc. (SPI).

    SPI is a non-profit corporation based in the USA, that acts as a fiscal sponsor to many open source projects, including Debian, Drupal and LibreOffice. This means SPI can accept donations and hold funds for the development of these projects, sign contracts on behalf of the developers, provide legal advice when they might need it and more.

    Importantly, if you live in the United States, you can donate to 0 A.D. through SPI and deduct it from your taxes. (Europeans can donate to SPI through a non-profit association based in Germany, named ffis e.V., which has partnered with SPI.)

    Wildfire Games has been developing 0 A.D. as a standalone game since 2003. We are always looking for ways to improve the speed and quality of development. That’s why we have recently re-considered many aspects of how our project is run, including setting up new and better ways to get funds. This is the first step in this direction.

    To be sure, this partnership does not change things from the perspectives of developers, artists, or users. 0 A.D. will remain a free, open-source project run by the community, and SPI will not intervene in our decisions. The only role that will change is that of the project lead, currently Erik Johansson (also known as feneur), who now has the extra responsibility as the project liaison to SPI. This means Erik is the only person authorized to tell SPI how we want to use funds that were earmarked for 0 A.D.

    0 A.D. was accepted as an SPI Associated Project by the Board on December 13th, 2012. Through this cooperation, we hope to both strengthen 0 A.D. as a project, and propagate free, open-source software everywhere.

    We welcome your donations through SPI and will be phasing out the previous donation systems over the next few days. Edit: After further deliberation, the existing donation systems will remain in place in parallel to the new system. However, donors are advised that their donations are only tax-deductible if transferred via SPI.

    Donating to 0 A.D. via SPI (U.S. Dollars Only)

    Please find full instructions for donation on the SPI donations page.

    clickandpledge.gif

    Donating in Europe

    If you wish to donate to 0 A.D. through a European bank account, to save international money transfer costs, this can be done through the German non-profit organization, ffis e.V., following these instructions.

    • Like 1
  2. By the way, you're playing a game that have people killing each other... Why not make slaves get in? Some games have slaves, like Imperium Civitas and I think that happens nothing. It's history...

    I agree, but modern cultural considerations still factor in to our decisions from time to time.

    And sadly, a lot of people are more offended by representations of, say, the naked human body, than by representations of people killing each other.

  3. I agree, this would be a cool feature, but it needs a lot of work.

    This is long, should be shortened to the very most important events only.

    It's also super-Greco-Roman-centric and war-centric. It would benefit from adding some events from the rest of the world, like India, and more events that concern civs like Persia, Carthage, Celts, etc. besides wars with Greeks and Romans.

    And should be broken down by civilizations for easy navigation.

  4. A user writes on our contact form (emphasis mine):

    Because my age is 59 and the reaction is not the best, so I like to ask you for a real pause-mode (the possibility to give commands while pausing the game). The game should not start again if I give a command.

    I´m not sure how your plans are for this, but please, if you don´t want that, so put it at least to the options, so everyone can decide to play with or without.

    I am wondering if we can implement this, and what other features would be needed to make 0 A.D. accessible to as many people as possible, e.g. people with visual impairments, the hard of hearing, etc.

    • Like 1
  5. For loyalty, perhaps the player color on the unit texture should gradually fade, or oscillate more and more strongly as it approaches the conversion point.

    For garrison slots, I suggest showing a set of small person-shaped icons that fill up as occupancy increases.

  6. 1) If I want to sell the game later on, what should I look for that the licensing is correct?

    If you use code from 0 A.D., you must release the code of your game under the GPL.

    This license allows you to sell your game, but also requires you to make the source code available to anyone, to allow your users to legally redistribute the software, and more.

    For better and for worse, this gives your users more freedom than the usual model does. For example, it encourages people to mod your game, but also makes it easier for people to acquire and play the game without paying you.

    You should know this before starting to create your game, so that you don't get disappointed later. The FSF has made some unofficial translations of the GPL available in French, German and other languages, if that helps.

  7. Have to say that Age of Empires Online will not be developed anymore...

    This sayed a blog from the Devs. I hoped for the Romans but they will not come.

    Rest in Peace AoEO.

    PS: It's not dead, but i think many Gamers will leave the Game.

    Thanks for this info.

    The blog post is very interesting:

    It means that there will be no new content created for AOEO. There is a small amount of content still in the pipeline that will be released in the next few weeks, but that is all. No new features will be added. Most significantly, no new civilizations will be released; the six existing ones are the complete and final set.

    [...]

    Is AOEO dying? No. Nothing is changing for the existing game. You can still do all the things you do today; we’re not taking away anything you already have. There will be no new civilizations or features, that’s all.

    [...]

    What about bug fixes? Fixing any remaining bugs and addressing balance issues will be slower and, frankly, more difficult for the team. Some may, in fact, be unfixable. We will be watching carefully in case any critical bugs appear.

    Why no more content? Because creating top-tier content, as we have been for the last year and a half, is very expensive—too expensive to maintain for long, as it turns out. We can no longer afford to keep creating it. AOEO already has a very large amount of high-quality, hand-crafted entertainment, and adding more is no longer cost-effective.

    I agree that without constant improvement, AoEO will probably have a hard time supporting the existing community and attracting new fans.

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