feneur

He's referring to this http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=11868 In the screenshot of the widget a list some threads appear (the ones which had new posts at the time the screenshot was taken) and this one was one of them.

As you can see by the link under "Affiliates" in the menu to the left Wildfire Games and Ancient Warfare Magazine are working together. You might remember the raffle and discount offer we had together with them last year. They also had a review of 0 A.D. on page 49 in the December/January issue (unfortunately there must have been some misunderstanding as they say that we're nearing the end of the testing phase, but apart from that it's a nice review), so please make a visit to their website and if you are interested in Ancient Warfare (why would you be here otherwise ) I can recommend subscribing to the magazine. I do, and even though I'm not an "ancient warfare nerd" I still find it really interesting to read. The present issue (June/July 2008) has the Age of the Trireme as it's theme, and contains a lot of info on naval warfare in the centuries leading up to "0 A.D.".

I can see what you mean But you'd be more disappointed if we released whatever we'll have in a few months and called that a beta

No, I think he meant that "Where do I sign up?" was a joke.

Hmm, no offence, but did you really read my previous message? I think I was fairly clear that we haven't decided on how to organize the beta testing, nor is it about to begin in the near future.

By responding to those who have applied to be beta testers. That's about how specific I can be right now as we're not even near beta and thus haven't decided on the exact details for the testing.

Ok, if you say so. CLOSED

(And regardless of whether you're kidding or not that's another thing, that's for voluntary gifts, it won't affect your chance of being chosen as a beta tester or much else for that matter. It will help to pay for website upkeep and similar stuff, which can bring the release a bit closer (WFG wouldn't work very well without the website etc, at least not in the long run), but for everyone )

I was referring to the ones you can eat, but regardless of whether or not you could get them for free it would still not be free since you would pay something to be a part of the beta And that's not something we'll accept, we're trying not to be corrupt you know

Hmm, I see a chance to be evil =) But no, I won't be. The exact details will be decided later, but in general I'd say: being active at the forums being able to show some skill at RTS games having a computer that can run 0 A.D. (of course ) having enough free time to be able to test the game enough being able to submit bug reports being responsible (hard to check, but anyway, it's something we'll look for in those who'll be a part of the beta testing) and perhaps cookies, lots of cookies :P (that would make it non-free though, so forget that )

Well, for normal game play the sun will stay in the same position, it is possible to move the sun though, so in Scenarios it can be moved to make the scene a day/night/sunset/sunrise scene.

Well, I believe I've said it before, but I might be wrong. The exact number is not decided, as that is dependent on a lot of things (computer resources available, balance, etc) but I'd be surprised if no one will make a mod which allows unlimited population. For now I'd suggest expecting something around 200 though, it's better to be happily surprised than negatively (And there's a reason why that showcase didn't say anything about pop cap etc, we haven't really decided yet after all There's a reason why testing is one of the major parts of game development )

The exact details will have to be worked out later, but yeah, we will need all help we can in testing the game, so a beta in one way or another will be released.

Exactly how long time you want it to take is of course very subjective and personal, but since the game hardly has a 1:1 ratio of in-game time compared to real time I don't find it too unrealistic if it just takes a second to achieve full speed. True, perhaps it should be something like 5-10 seconds to be more realistic, but I personally don't the think the relatively small added realism is worth the "cost" in programming and perhaps also confusion among players that the game might seem laggy.

Just to be on the safe side I'd like to add that this image is just for illustrative purposes, don't expect that many units in a Phalanx in a normal game

As I believe have been explained before that is due to the game not having a particle system yet, the current blood is just a texture, so it can't really fly through the air. Unfortunately we don't have anyone on the team to develop a particle system at the moment, so you'll all have to wait to see any effects requiring that

Well, true, but on the other hand you have an advantage over them all the time, you're human

There'll be patches for 0 A.D. yeah, did you expect us to deliver a perfect game without no bugs or features to add? Seriously though, yeah official add-ons will come in the form of patches

Ok, can see that you're worried then Rest assured that the game will have multiplayer though, as far as I've heard it's easier to implement than making a good AI too (ok, true, haven't played many games with a really good AI, but anyway something relatively good ), so if either singleplayer or multiplayer would have to be missing I guess singleplayer would go (A really huge disclaimer so no one takes that wrong: We have every intention of providing both singleplayer and multiplayer for 0 A.D.)

Even I can make mistakes , and I was sharing my opinion too, so when thinking about it I can see if someone could miss that part In general I can say that the game will be a fairly traditional RTS though, so most things that complicate things for the player will not be in the official game. But as we've said time and time again the game will be easy to mod so if there's some feature you want bad enough it will "just" be to add it (Easy is of course relative, and it'll naturally be much easier to change the player colors or something like that than to add slavery or something more major. )

Well, the main reason why gold etc is done that way is so it's easy to tell where/what it is AFAIK. And while prospecting and mining can be interesting in a more City Building type of game we're trying to keep the resource gathering as simple as possible to make room for the military/tactical/strategy part of the game.

Well, for now all I'll say is that there will be a multiplayer mode

Exactly how different they'll end up to be will have to be determined during testing, since it's affecting balance, but as with everything else we're aiming for as much diversity as possible.

I guess you missed my reply.

Some very good questions there, I think I'll avoid answering them at the moment though, they're actually good enough to be included in a future Q&A We'll see, but I won't take away such good questions from a Q&A I can say this much at the moment though: most, if not all questions are answered on the site somewhere. Some are only answered indirectly though, and all might be difficult to find, so be sure we'll try and answer them some way, whether as a part of a future Q&A or in this post Thanks for your interest in the game btw