mysticjim

You know it's that time again!

Just for info - have finally featured Balanced Maps in my Mod features series of videos

And finally done another feature on Mods;

Bit midweek fun. I do believe 0AD can be enjoyed as a spectacle even if the players are not 'pro' level standard and they spend a fair bit of time, shall we say, taking a slightly different approach to playing the game

Thanks for posting here for me @Boudica - managed to post to Reddit but ran out of time to post here before I had to head out this morning. And darn, did I get @Dakara and @Dizaka mixed up? I probably did, I know I covered Dizaka in a tournament game a while back, you know how crap I am with player names!!!!!!!

That is looking spectacular, dude, great work. I used the older version for my commentary for the game I'm releasing this Sunday, shame I couldn't have used this shiny, revised version, but I had to get it done while I had time last night Will have this new one up and running for later...:)

Replied in your thread. Great work, dude.

@dpikt Brilliant work, dude, very interested to see how you refine this in terms of the whole situation with count accuracy, but it's certainly a great start. Is there not a live running count of population through the game that can be plotted? I mean, the game keeps track of a pop count, and although it seems to reach it by different means, so does the FGOD mod, right? Or am I missing something silly here?

Nice work, just replied to you in your email in a bit more detail.

As I said, @Sundiata- not intended as a criticism - anyone who is an active part of the community will know how much hard work is happening 'under the hood' - so to speak. Those on the outside looking in, they might draw an incorrect conclusion based on the metric of visible activity and engagement at a surface level - that would be my concern. @Stan` & @Sundiata- couple of things to float at you here. Does 0AD need more support/help/volunteers from it's community in the more non-technical aspects of the project, like community engagement on it's social media and video channels or public relations in general? I know the more people you involve the harder a project like this becomes to 'manage' - I'd be keen to shift the narrative of the discussion from 'why aren't you doing this' to 'okay, appreciate your situation - what can we do to help, add value to the project and make things easier for the dev side of thing.' Second thing is a bit more of an aspirational suggestion this, but interested in your take on it. If I've understood the current situation right, latter 2020 (i.e. right about now) is the date that was previously sort of tentatively touted as the intended A24 release. There has been some muted hype about it, and as a result - right now, there is a sense of expectation, and probably reading this thread and seeing the kinds of challenges still present in terms of getting A24 out into the wild, you're going to see a bit of collective disappointment. That has happened, and you're right, announcing that in Social Media now - probably not a positive thing to do. I reckon the only way you could still maximise the release of A24 is if you utilise a PR strategy in conjunction with the release. Pick a time in the future, a decent timescale, say June/July/August - maybe even a Sept (a whole year from now) - basically a timescale that even the most overworked, time-starved volunteer dev could reasonably turn around and say, 'yes, even with what is outstanding, that is more than enough time to finish and make A24 ready for release.' And then you build a PR/Social Media/Video content strategy around it - all leading up to that release. Aim to build as much positive engagement and most importantly, momentum, to that release date. Make it become a seismic event with huge anticipation. 0AD is a niche game, in a niche genre. But the genre is a pretty big niche, and I see 0AD as a something of a 'sleeping giant' within it. I'd love to wake it up! With the foundations already in place, the community you have already got fully engaged and actively playing their part, there is potential to really move the needle. Don't trade forever on the 1m downloads of Sourceforge claim or look at the A23 trailer on Youtube having had over quarter of a million views, that's the past. There is plenty of time, there is a great existing community, 0AD could be something really significant, and a strategic release of A24 could be the transform the narrative from an unfortunate delay in 2020 to an epic triumph in mid 2021. Just a thought

I'm pretty sure the purpose of social media is community engagement. Which doesn't occur from not posting. Again, not mean't as a criticism, merely an observation. If there is truth in the fact that potential players are being turned off 0AD by the perception that the project is dead, which could be arrived at due to there being no uploads to the official 0AD Youtube channel since the A23 trailer (i.e. no uploads since 2018), and infrequent social media posting generally (last post on FB was from 20th sept (only post in Sept) about European Bison) - then how could positive engagement not help? When has positive engagement with your community not helped any project ever?

Good stuff, dude, glad you've made such a swift recovery. Not least cos you're the one player I can beat at 0AD on a regular basis! Just kidding, welcome back, dude!

Another great Sunday game, and huge thanks to @Isshfor providing the replay.

Hi Stan, many thanks for your reply - and It's totally not really an inconvenience - I think everyone is just really psyched and excited for the updated iteration of the game

Not even an aspirational timescale? We're all aware of how the development works and it's voluntary nature, and we're grateful to the creators for their work - make no mistake, there is universal appreciation, but there is the school of thought that a dream without a deadline is just a dream...

Sometimes you got to get a group of poor, unsuspecting new players, drop them in a horribly under resourced, unbalanced map and see what happens

That map, or something akin to it, would be an awesome addition Have been keeping an eye on the Monitor Mod (c'mon, you've got to give it a more kickass name, surely?) While I think it's extremely clever, and potentially huge for realtime analysis, I'm still not if it helps in terms of bringing the coverage to the small screen when doing a replay with commentary. I'd worry I'd spend too much time fiddling with buttons and icons and not focusing on the on-screen action. But we do have very different styles in terms of our commentary videos, yours is definitely rooted more in the technical nuts and bolts of what the players are doing, whereas I quite dig the human element and the drama when there's a lot of fighting and explosions and stuff! Just floating this out there - collaborations are all the rage on Youtube at the moment, apparently, what do you reckon to trying to cover a replay together? I think I can do the waffling bit and fill the dead air, and I can hand over to you for the analytical/technical bits when it requires someone who knows what they're talking about? No idea how we'd make that work technology-wise, but sure there will be a way to do it. DM me if you want to chat about it further

@badosuthanks mate, that's brilliant info. I understand now about the 'fixed' business - that is something really useful to know. I reckon calling it 'fixed starting positions' would make that clear to someone not in the know, but I see what you were aiming for. And yes, that feature does make for some interesting combinations. Were there other maps you'd considering 'balancing' when putting this collection together?

Hi @badosu - as we discussed, I'm looking to feature Balanced Maps on my Youtube channel Mod previews. Got a few quick questions I reckon you'll be able to clear up easy, if you got a minute. 1) Fixed Maps. So I see a few maps with the 'fixed' postfix on them, for example, Balanced Mainland. Does that mean that the original version of Balanced Mainland has an issue, i.e. it wasn't quite as balanced as it should have been? I'm curious as to why there should be a fixed and not version present, I'd have thought you'd want one, definitive version of the map to avoid confusion? Both maps play and they seem somewhat more balanced than ordinary Mainland, are there any other 'gotcha's' involved to using the unfixed balanced maps as opposed to the fixed? 2) Can I clarify that in a multiplayer game, am I correct that the host and the other players all need the Balanced Maps mod installed? I initially thought it was just the host for playing. I know bizarre things happen if you try and watch a replay of a game on a balanced map without the mod (it was quite funny!) but what about joining a game. I had a player who couldn't join a match and they got a mod related error, so assuming that was the case. 3) Where will we be with A24? I'd have hoped that the full game would possibly have fixed Mainland to be more balanced by then, being as it's taken a Mod to demonstrate just how unbalanced it can be. Have you been approached with a mind to include your variation of balanced mainland in the full game so a mod is no longer required? 4) Anything else you think it's critical I mention when summarising the mod? I'd have thought this particular mod is fairly easy to cover, it doesn't have lots of little, hidden features - it sounds like it pretty much does exactly what the title says

And another Sunday brings another replay

Slightly later than billed, some Friday Free 4 All action!

Finally, after a lot of editing, my first 0AD Tutorial is done Won't probably apply to most of the very skilled players on this forum, but a few newer players have already advised they've found it useful, so I think it's kind of justified itself already. I'm happy

No problem! Anyways, it's Sunday, time to get the discussion back to the game! This game in fact;