Sundiata

Never Again!

I can't believe I didn't know this... lol... Thank you!

It saddens me to agree with you... There are just some places that are better at keeping the appearance up. But now even those masks are slowly falling of... I really do believe in democratic principles and all the positives it has brought. It just has a rally dark side that many people choose to ignore, or are unaware of. Once human nature is understood, it becomes easily manipulatable by unscrupulous individuals and organisations. Corruption seeps into the cracks... It's a darkness, like a monster, and when it's grown, it will eat everyone, regardless of their "allegiance"! Trying to control what can't be controlled, society is buckling under the weight of it's own decadence. I feel like we've been here before...

Silly me, thinking that running back to the 3rd world would save me from this nonsense, only to find out that this will affect the whole world, as big internet companies tend to comply to the strictest versions of these laws, regardless of what country they're based in, out of fear of being blocked in a large segment of the international market (such as th EU). It puts the little fish (like us) in an impossible position... This is a fight that's much bigger than "just" the internet. The worldwide democratic deficit is growing at an alarming rate and these new and fraudulent "copyright" as well as those new "privacy" directives are feeding directly into that. The only privacy that's going to be protected is the privacy of oligarchs and political gangsters as they continue to rape and pillage this world as if there's no tomorrow. Resist! A Luta Continua!

@LordGood, @stanislas69, I have one more silly question. So you double the faces and invert the normals right? But I see that you leave a tiny gap between the 2 faces. Is this actually necessary? Do the faces interfere with each other even if their normals are facing opposite directions?

Welcome to the future! Yes, but the deliberate and unnecessary vagueness and doublespeak of a small handful of individuals, obviously stemming from personal issues spilling into public discussions is really not something that should be entertained in my opinion. Some developers left. Some are still here. Development in some departments is going to be slow for a while. That's how it is. It's not the end of the world (aka, 0AD). It's not the first time it's happened. And it's not going to discourage the dozens of other developers in other departments from continuing their work. We're here because we think it's fun to work on one of the greatest RTS games ever. If someone doesn't enjoy it anymore, that's a pity. But some people seem to want to stop other people from enjoying the development of the game, souring the forums for nothing. Whether they do it consciously or not is a different discussion. I'd just like people to be a little more mature, and put their personal feelings aside to work for the greatness of 0AD. It's not a personal project. It belongs to all of us. Even if some people contribute so much, and some so little, and some only play the game, we are all part of this community. An online family. And there are always bound to be disagreements and even fights in the family. But at the end of the day, we are all one blood. Classic RTS blooded to be precise. Also, just because someone shouts louder than the others, doesn't make them more right, or their desires trump the desires of the many. There is compromise in everything, especially if so many people are involved, changes are bound to be slow, but indeed inevitable. It's just important not to force it, and not let the few hijack the show. I humbly forgive you. May you live long and prosper, my child. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, yes, I thought it was an intriguing picture. Tell me more about mayonnaise. I never eat it. Am I missing out? Good luck with your tendon man! I ripped the tendons in one of my feet playing paintball a few years ago (also broke it a bit). I thought I f'd up my foot for life. It took months to walk normally again, but now I don't feel a thing anymore.

Sure, but the main developers aren't business men to my knowledge, and these things take time, effort and investment, that you're not even sure you'll get a return on. As I said in the previous comment, the project is Open Source, CC0 license, which means you can do with it pretty much what you like. If you want to spend time, money and effort into creating merchandize, I'm sure it will be positively received, and if you decide to donate the proceeds back to Wildfire Games, that would be amazing! but someone needs to do it, and the most capable contributors are already being pulled left and right by everyone who thinks they should be doing what they want them to do, without actually offering to pay them a salary, since everyone is complaining about money, except for the people who are actually making this game....

Well, I've seen worse, and it's still amazing exposure. Most of those people didn't seem to know the game. This is the type of thing we need to be supporting. Free advertising that reaches the masses

@itrelles, also to clarify, I don't really mean to attack you personally. Just that there has been a negative trend in some of the discussions recently initiated by a mysterious split in the programming team and by some dissatisfied players/contributors. They're a minority but some seem to be passive aggressively trying to disrupt development/forum discussions because of personal issues. Your latest comments seemed to be inadvertently feeding in to this, which is why I felt the need to respond. Open Source. You do with it what you want. If you want to promote 0AD, who is stopping you?

That's some good exposure... And look at dem likes... 987 likes vs 20 dislikes... A 98% approval rating based on the gameplay of a novice player. Not shabby. Not shabby at all...

Change is indeed coming, and 0AD is ideally positioned to take full advantage of this, as it's the best free to play, open source, cross platform RTS project out there. But indeed, people need to know about it to be able to contribute to it. That would be really valuable, for example... No, I'm just cringing at all the misplaced criticisms directed at people that have been moving mountains... Some of them are like real life superheroes! It's impossible to not to come to that conclusion if these latest discussions are all you read. Luckily, it's just a skewed narrative... I don't understand why some insist on pushing it. If someone doesn't like the way 0AD has evolved over the years and wants to go back to playing alpha 16 or whatever because the good old laggy days of missing features was so great, then why not just go back and play those alphas. The only real thing I can deduce from all these discussions is that you're upset that things aren't going fast enough. Which is immature in my opinion. You can't force development by "whining" about things that can't be fixed right now and "pressuring" people who are already overworked, and need help, not more criticism. These discussions aren't constructive at the moment, unless you yourself can do something about it. I don't think you're inspiring positive change or progress like this. I'd say it's even getting toxic. I know we all have different dispositions, and different tastes in humor. I know you don't mean any harm. But other people can draw the wrong conclusions, even get offended and loose heart if they think a lot of people feel like that about the game. Which isn't true of course. The game is growing in popularity and 9 out of 10 comments are super positive. People generally love the game! But negative comments always weigh heavier, even if they weren't "intended" to be negative.

Honestly, a lot of you talk about 0AD like it's a commercial project (somebody had the nerve to suggest adds in the game and forum). Like we have anxious investors that need to be appeased by rushing development to release an unfinished bug-ridden game full of broken features and broken promises. A lot of us are here because we are tired and disillusioned by the dishonest and predatory money grab schemes the big developers are currently specializing in. Even high quality indie games can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and AAA can cost tens of millions, even more. And 0AD is routinely compared to the best!! RTS games are incredibly complex to make, especially if they're fully 3D, which is one of the reasons you don't see so many of them being made. With all the doubt and sometimes even negativity from a handful of "fans" these days, I have to ask, which recent Historical RTS are you all playing that's so much greater than 0AD that you're all "threatening" to jump ship? Empires Apart??? lol! 0AD has never been greater! Or as popular... Just because there are snags in the development today (as there have always been, by the way), doesn't mean anything about the future of this gargantuan project. It's just part of the development cycle. There's always ups and downs. But I honestly don't get it. It's like you prefer fairytales, and sweet lullabies of all the things money will do for this game, forgetting how much money has been thrown at far lesser games... The volunteering aspect of development is both it's greatest strength, as well as one of its weaknesses. Patience is a requirement. In everything. Money can't buy love. Money can't make a game like 0AD. Only the love, dedication, passion and tenacity of its developers can. So please stop antagonizing the developers and let them work! Give them words of encouragement, not these belligerent and uncalled for reproaches because things aren't going as fast as you'd like them to go. You are causing harm by seeding unnecessary doubt, and it's unpleasant for developers to keep hearing their unpaid work isn't good enough for you. If anything, see what you yourself can add to the development. Just throwing money at things is a lazy and unwholesome way of doing things. The one thing I do agree with is that some of the social media accounts, especially the facebook page, as well as the main 0AD website should be updated with regular screenshots, either of development or just fan made, and some small update lists of interesting commits, to show of the development of the game, because currently there are way too many 6+ year old promo shots floating around the net, and doubting Tom's who think the project is dead while so many people are actually working on it day and night. Isn't this something for you @asterix? Collecting all the pretty screenshot and other media produced and shared on the forums, and making a small selection of the best pieces, to post anywhere from 1-5 images per week on facebook, with a 1 liner (What is it? who made it? Can we expect to see it in vanilla or is it for a mod?). And then secondarily, look at the weekly commits and see if there's anything you think people might find interesting. Either a short list of the most interesting commits, or a small written piece (just a paragraph or so) of a more intricate commit, just once a week or so? It would do wonders to let people know how much is actually being done (outside of the pathfinder or AI department).

20.000 views in less than a day for a first time player. Not bad. Lot's of positive reactions and nice comments. I'd say the French approve

Mauryan elephants can build, which is super weird if you ask me. They can't initiate a construction, but they can build it. I think like free ptolemaic houses and starting walls for the Iberians, it's one of those civ specific things that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Having the elephant boost construction speed when other units are already building seems really cool and even intuitive, but the elephant building by itself is weird.

For me, "free" stuff like houses is really immersion breaking. I know time is a resource, I just don't understand the desire to keep this feature in a game like 0AD... The increased build time is equally confusing as to what makes this desirable or sensible or immersive? It's mud brick architecture, why would it cost more time to build? If anything, the logical thing for Egyptian houses is for them to be built in a shorter time. Think about it for more than a minute. How could vernacular architecture possibly take more time to build than say, a Roman house? Why don't we go for a compromise, and give a nominal cost, at least. The next cheapest houses are 75 wood. So why not let the Ptolemaic houses cost just 50 wood? Still a big advantage, but not immersion breaking. And reduce the increased build time dramatically please. Same for dropsites. Civ specific traits should be based on the actual civilization, and what made them unique or special. Not what another mythology inspire fantasy game did. There is so much to work with, as has been pointed out many times before. For Ptolemaic Egypt specifically, off the top of my head: Super densely populated (houses can have extra pop) Grain basket of the Mediterranean (increased income from farming) Incredibly rich (trade and/or mining bonuses) Mercenaries from everywhere! (they can hire everything from Kushites to Thracians, there was even a notable population of Scythians in Alexandria) Monumental temple construction, Egypt, land of the ancient gods (religious fervor, priestly bonuses) One of the most powerful navies in Antiquity (naval bonuses) Countless engineering marvels (improved siege, other techs related to construction) etc

They're not based on references at all, that's the problem! That's not what Ancient Egyptian houses looked like, and as a historical game we should be careful not to perpetuate unnecessary stereotypes. I made a post about Egyptian housing before, I'll just share the artist references here again. Keep in mind that most of these are Dynastic Egyptian, not that different from later periods, but multistoried apartment blocks became more common in the Ptolemaic period. I'd go even further than what Genava said and say that this applies to every single civ in game. None of them appeared out of nowhere. All of them were built on the enduring legacy and heritage of those that came before them. The world wasn't empty in 500BC. It was already rather populated, and a significant number of our civs were already pretty developed before the 500BC date as well. .

Another important point is that the specific names are the same for everyone, regardless of what language they speak. It's a unifying element, as someone from Kazakhstan can use the same name for a specific unit or structure as someone from Argentina.

The original languages are fantastic element of 0AD, when and where they can be, and actually are accurate. I think this a good example of something that needs to be civ-specific. Some civs just don't have a rich corpus of written history in the original language to ever get it right, and so it doesn't matter to use generic names only in those cases. But that doesn't mean that the educational aspects of having accurate original terminologies where possible should be underestimated. I haven't read this much Latin and Greek since high school, because of the historical research involved in development and since the Kushites I've even learnt a little something about Ancient Egyptian and Meroitic. Of course I don't speak any of those languages, but becoming more familiar with them through 0AD is a real addition of value in my opinion. Also don't underestimate the subconscious internalisation of these terms when actually playing, especially for kids.

Even the houses themselves are clearly inspired by AoM...

OMG, you're so dramatic! I think the most important thing is to: And whatever you think you can do towards improving the development of 0AD yourself, whatever your skill, The more work we do individually (and share it of course), the more other people will feel inspired to do more work themselves, regardless of the department. 0AD has been under development for so long. Even if we need to wait a year for a new AI developer to come along, I'll still be here! And my personal skills will have improved as well... Because one department has ground to a standstill, doesn't mean that every other department does too, nor does it mean that it's a permanent issue. There are so many things that took years to fix... I'm not too worried about the future of the game. Even though I recognize that there is a crisis of sorts, there's always a crisis of sorts... It's the way of the world. The thing is... 0AD has never been more popular, more stable, more fun and more beautiful than it is today! It has blossomed into one of the greatest games in it's genre, and something tells me we're just getting started 2012? 2018! The trajectory suggests greatness. Have faith my brother!

We thank you! Over the years (even before joining the forum) I've noticed 0AD's development go through these cycles of crisis alternated by major development spurts... People will always come and go. It's a great game and an even greater project! I just hope we don't have to wait too long for someone to pick up AI development again. It's already evolved by leaps and bounds over the past few years already, but isn't quite there yet.. Anybody know why exactly @mimo left, and if he'll ever come back?

Did you download "Rise of the East Mod"? If you want to play with the Han Chinese (and Xiongnu and Zapotecs as well), you need to download "Terra Magna", from the in-game mod downloader (mod.io), by clicking "download mods" at the bottom of the mod selection screen. "Delenda Est" also has the Chinese.

I don't know what that is. Even when I google it for mac, I can't see anything... I've played computer games my whole life, but I've never considered myself a gamer. In the real world I have gamer friends, and I'm definitely not in that category. I'm as casual as it gets. I never had money to buy a lot of games, and when I started working, gaming wasn't on the list of things I wanted to spend my money on. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it if someone wants to spend all their extra cash on it, I just never did. I also don't like the industry itself so why finance them? One of the many reasons I like 0AD. Because there's no money involved. I did play a bunch of less than legal versions of the iconic RTS and city builder games and played an unholy amount of hours on friends' computers back in the day too, lol. Either way, forgive my noobness, for I really am a noob, and I've never hid it. In fact, I embrace it! I'm a filthy casual and I love it! That's also one of the reasons why I'm active on the forums. There's a huge number of casual gamers enjoying 0AD for good reason. It's good fun! But we casuals don't have a voice, because were too in awe by the presence of all these pro's and are too shy to say that we can't figure out our non existent settings on our systems (a lot of macs have one graphics system, or something...), so I'm here to give a voice to the voiceless! We casuals would like some anti aliasing in-game, because we're too dense to figure out our gpu's graphics settings

Fern attempt 2: 32 tris Size: .dae file: fern 2.dae Adjusted texture

I wouldn't know where to access that... My point is that it should preferably be default in-game, not have to go into my computer settings to search for something I'm not even sure is there.