Wijitmaker

my crazy idea for the day: Would it be possible (or worthwhile for that matter) to 'convert' RMS scripts from other games to be usable in 0 A.D.?

Hey Daniel, good to see you found your way to the forums. We got your application in on the 9th (looked good;)). Hopefully you got a reply back, but currently the plan is to start doing some interviews over the next few weeks. We are still waiting for applications to come in. In reply to your query about AI, yes we plan to fully support AI scripters that would like to do work on the scripts after the release. We plan to have lots of documentation, access to the AI developers right here on the forum to answer questions, and of course the multiple scripts made for release with the game availible for examples. AI vs. AI is something that will be availible to do also. We have some guys from the Age of Kings community that really enjoy doing this in AoK. They have AI tournaments and stuff - if your interested check them out here: http://www.aiscripters.com/ Bolo? Haven't heard of that before. Is that an independant game?

'Arabs' - as western civilisation defines the term, won't be featured in the game. They don't really make a name for themselves in world history till about 700 A.D. which is about 200 years after the timeline of our game stops. However, some of their predicessors that inhabited the region of the Arabia will (Persians, Carthaginians). Arab champions have their place in history. One of my favorites is Saladin.

Greeting RexTroianus, and welcome to the forums! I just wanted to say thanks for stopping by, and that I'm about ready to head out for the holiday weekend. I'll hopefully get back to you sometime early next week - and be able to look over you images in more detail. Again, welcome

Check it out!

This individual has been awarded the following due to outstanding accomplishments as the 0 A.D. Staff Member for the month of August: Jan Wassenberg (aka janwas): Jan truly is our "code keeper". It isn't easy squashing bugs and making numerous improvements to code - especially when on holiday. Yet, this is something Jan has done and even with a smile on his face. Hats off to you Jan, you are really an inspiration to our project! Accomplishments for the month of August/July: Minimap updates - Interactivity, viewing Basic client side of automatic error reporting Preliminary investigation of rendering water Updated GUI Scripting Reference Interviews and recruitment Rewrote GUI scripts for greater dependence on styles and consistent formatting More documentation on Random Map Scripting Client/server UI, initial game setup screen UI, placeholder profile manager UI Atlas integration Some self tests for code More efficient VFS w4-warning clean Output STL containers in stack traces Updated code to work with VS2005 Atlas updates: camera movement, terrain editing, undo Preliminary Greek tech names finished Major articles by Joshua, including sea combat and the Battle of Raphia Persian concept art continues to be described, examined, and approved Finished Hiring the Audio Team Assigned Tasks More documentation for Sound and their XML files Terrain XML properties implemented Remodelled and Retextured the complete Hellenes Building Set Completed Hellenes Poleis branch Super Unit concept art Began conceptualising building selection sounds Also, if you will notice to your right in the 'latest image section' - you will find a new screenshot! Also, check out the latest concepts if you haven't done so already. Enjoy!

I'm sure if you found a player that was your equal the game could go on for 2-4 hours, it will likely depend on the game mode chosen and how equally you are matched.

We hope it will, it is planned to. But, until it is actually implimented - no guarentees.

Good Comments/Questions Stephen. I'd like to say, we aren't purposely not 'releasing' the game because it is part of some shrew marketing plan. The game is very rudimentary at the moment and barely in a playable state (currently only simple combat, unit training, and resource gathering). Maybe you have seen it mentioned on the site before but nearly the entire team is college students or working adults - investing time into this as hobbyist developers in between fultime work/part time work/classes/homework. I as the project leader of this virtual hobbyist group don't have any control over how the team members invest their time (as much as I would like too). If we were sitting in an office working a 9-5 shift 5 days a week - it would be a totally different story, but unfortunatly we aren't. A year or so ago, we tried throwing more bodies at the project. The problem is - the new guys need to be 'trained' and need assitance to get around the code. In order to do that we pull programmers off what little coding time they have and pray that the time they invest in the new coders will be fruitfull (which in many cases it isn't - they just pick up and leave after they realize how complex and time consuming it is). How many years can the idea of 0AD stand? Probably not to many... with AOE III, Rise of Legends, Rise and Fall all coming out this holiday/spring - our game will already be significantly outdated by comparison. We don't have much experiance in marketing - probably not even as much experiance as you possess in your pinky (I did some googleing to find out more about you). But, as you stated once - until the game is release it is pretty much just vaporware. We enjoy working on this in our freetime though and we are building up our resumes, and perhaps that is the only thing that will matter in the end whenever 0AD is released. We might explore open sourcing the game - we'll see where we stand at the end of the year. Good thoughts

Speaking of searching... it would be nice if we could search for 3 letter words. I always seem to be hitting that limit (it wants 4 our more)

Welcome to the forums SoldierOfTheMany. I'll attempt to answer a few of your questions because they are good ones that I don't believe have been answered before for the public. Many of these things you have suggested have been pondered over by the design deptartment already. Due to us being a hobbyist group that is developing this game on our freetime with no financial compensation... most of the nifty features we wanted to put in have been shelved until a time comes when we have the support to impliment them. We'll see what 0 A.D. part II brings us. For now with part I, we are focusing on the basics of an RTS. RPS - We do not have specific bonuses that state that spearman always beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers, archers beat infantry... etc. What we do instead is jostle around the numbers of units stats such as the three attacks (hack, pierce, crush) the three armours (hack, pierce, crush), hit points, attack speed, attack rate, blah blah blah. We want to keep it fluid and realistic. Do away with these simple RPS concepts. Down side is... it will be very difficult to balance - especially with 3 ranks of citizen soldiers per type. However, an open beta should hopefully help with that. LOS - We toyed around with this idea, even what we called "keyhole" LOS. Unfortinately not feasible for part I. Archers - We hope to impliment inaccuracy with distance... but time will tell if we can squeeze that in. Formations - We have them down on the todo list, they will also yeild statistical bonuses and penalties when in certain formations. Height advantages - yep Forests - yep (at least similiar to what you have suggested) Charging - yep Morale - we have a plan ready for part II. Units wont run away, but instead have aura bonuses and penalties (could be hitpoints, attack rates, damage, etc..) around special units that give or take morale. Standing Cavalry - Moving cavalry would be a nice visual for eyecandy. However, I don't know if the programming time involved to do it well would be worth it. Falling Trees - depends what direction the tree is placed in the world (which happens to be random).

Here is what you are looking for: from our FAQ?.

Welcome to the forums! 0 A.D. is first and formost a RTS game. The Pharoah and Ceasar 3 games fall into more of what is called a 'city building' type genre. Unfortunately, with a zero budget we are currently working with and as most of us are developing this game as a hobby, we just don't have the time/funds/etc to create a RTS/CB type game. Also, our vision for the game is a more millitary than economy based game. Good suggestion though. I'm sure a game like what your suggesting would be of intrest to many gamers out there.

For those of you living in the United Kingdom, run on down to the local news stand and pick yourself up a copy of the 14-20th July edition of Micromart. Inside you will find a 3 page spread starting on page 54 entitled: "0 A.D.: Making History with Wildfire Games". Be sure to pick up a copy if you can as it will some day be a collector's item *wink*. But what if you aren't able to find the magazine, you ask? You are in luck, you can still read the article on their webpage HERE.

Caesar89, see what I have to deal with in the game design department all the time!? Crazy historians Can't live with them, can't live without them.

Yeah good suggestion, I'll take that down right now.

Problem is, we don't know exactly if all of the units in the document are going to make the final version of the game. In fact, we won't know until we conclude beta testing. We don't want to release a bunch of information that is vulnerable to change. Yet with that being said... let me give you a rough layout of a master sheet from units possible in the game. I'll leave it to you fans to discuss what civs should get what units, what their names should be, stats, etc... Infantry Spearman Infantry Swordsman Infantry Javelineer Infantry Archer Infantry Slinger Cavalry Spearman Cavalry Swordsman Cavalry Javelineer Cavalry Archer Infantry Super Unit Cavalry Super Unit Big Ship Medium Ship Small Ship Siege for Units Siege for Buildings Ram Priest Female Worker Trader

The 0 A.D. staff is looking to fill two positions. The first is a Sound Effects Specialist. A historical real time strategy game requires a massive amount of sounds such as: user interface responses, swords clanging, arrows flying, wood cutting, birds chirping, and much much more. If you have a passion for Sound FX recording and editing, please have a look HERE. The second is an OpenGL programmer. We could use some assistance in bringing the Art Department's assets to life. As we have already established the basics for rendering the game, we are looking to extend some of the graphical features of the game to include (or update) things like: shaders, shadows, lighting and materials. If you have what it takes to help out, please read more HERE. Also, if you yourself don't have the skills, but you know someone who does - let them know about the job opening. Thank you for your assistance in making 0 A.D. a reality.

Yeah probably only 3-6 times during the time till the game is released

Are you referring to the "Official Announcements" forum? I believe that is only for official press release type information.

The 0 A.D. website has a new poll up. Please take a moment to participate. http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/

This individual has been awarded the following due to outstanding accomplishments as the 0 A.D. Staff Member for the month of June: Jan Wassenberg for his consistent work ethic and great troubleshooting skills. Jan has been steadily been expanding the debugging code, and is always ready with his bug stomping boots. Cheers Jan, may the bugs always fear you! Accomplishments for the month of June: Improved handling of OpenGL extensions, and removed dependence on support for S3TC. Started implementation of Atlas scenario editor. Hired a tool programmer and general programmer. Revised terrain XML design. Rewrote GUI scripting reference in Wiki. Wrote GUI coding conventions. Finished first version of the Odysseus Editor (WYSIWYG, UBB code converter tool). Revised and propped the Carthaginian Structures. Random Generator impoved to include objects, elevation, smooth, clumps, and layers. Made a few more terrain textures. Improved Colour Tester tool. Updated the sound file tree on the server. Worked out Audio XML sceme. Preliminary GUI thinking as it relates to Sound Design. Thought deeply about Nonstandard Randomization for Sound FX. Lots of work on debug code,interface and documents finalized.

Merry Christmas

To answer your question breifly and reinforce what Ken is saying: The function will be there for some of the Super Units (example a legionairre with a pilum for ranged and a gladus for short) and therefore be an option to use in a mod. Currently in the game, we have friendly fire right now - so it will be possible (either modding or game start option), but not the default option for reasons Ken stated. An idea we toyed with at one time, but decided it would take to much micromangement and lead to to much frustration, so we cut it. Something I personally would like to see done, but untill it is actually programmed and working in the game, I can't guarentee it. "Parthian Tactics" is something that isn't easily done. In fact there were only a few civs that did it well none of which are in part I of 0 A.D. (though you could possibly argue the Persians). Look for this tech/feature to be in part II, especially with the Huns. Neat idea, it sounds similiar to ones we have had in the past, except I thin ours was based on who you where allied with. Again something to look for in part II. Like Ken said the Carthaginians are going to be a big mercinary civ so 'training' those units will be a bit different than the other civs in part I. Majority will be military skill on the battlefield, but some will not be. I believe Socrates was at one time a hero for the game (don't remember right now if he still is). There are others...

Thank you, we have recieved your application. Stuart will get back to you in a few days probably . If you don't hear anything from us just post here.