Vantha

I think I have owed you all an update on this project for a long time now. Me and @ShadowOfHassen have neither forgotten about the encyclopedia nor given up on it. I'm as convinced by and passionate about the idea as ever. It's just that I don't consider the project as high priority as other ones (like making campaigns or a tutorial). However, I can promise I will get back to the encyclopedia eventually: My plan is to overhaul the UI completely (in terms of appearance). The current one looks alright, but it just lacks that artistic touch. And, good news, I am actually in touch with @whiteebony82, he's creating sprites for it, and what I've seen so far looks amazing. Something to look forward to. About the articles, I'd love to resume the writing process, I'm hoping I'd able to still write some texts every now and then, but because I'm now more involved in the technical side of things, it'll never be as much as it once was. I haven't talked with @ShadowOfHassen about it yet, but before picking it up again I think we have to find some more people interested in helping, if we ever want to see it finished. One thing I want to do for sure, though, is to go over all of my old art and improve them (as ShadowOfHassen did with his in the past) before adding any new ones. Looking back, I could have done a lot better and often missed the point. Regarding the code, there is still the PR I opened last summer: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/6997. It contains only the core parts of the page, but also the most recent version of the code. It is marked as"WIP" right now, which means review progress on it has stopped because there are changes planned it -- the UI changes I talked about above. When I've achieved a UI that I'm happy with I will remove the label again, get it moving and hopefully merged soon. Then there is also the github repo I made a while ago: https://github.com/indoptogopt/GUI-page-for-0ads-encyclopedia The code in it is neither up-to-date with the PR, nor compatible with A27. However, the repo stores all of the articles in the latest state. I'm still unsure what to do with it; in regards to the code, it doesn't provide much value to me, maybe it would be better to make a new repo dedicated to just the articles. TL;DR I won't resume now, but I'll do when the time is ready. As a first step, I ported the encyclopedia demo mod to the A27 release version and as recommended created it with pyrogenesis' archive builder this time. To install it, left-click on the downloaded file -> 'Open With' -> '0 A.D.' encyclopedia.pyromod @Genava55 (This mod's purpose is really just to demonstrate functionality, my goal is to add the that to the game eventually, which is why I will not be putting it on mod.io)

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/FAQ#what-shall-i-do-when-joining-multiplayer-matches-fails-with-an-error-message Also, Alpha 27.1 will include a patch fixing the automatic creation of port forwardings via UPnP, which should resolve the issue for some players entirely (to be precise, for those with UPnP enabled on their router).

Alright, that's what I'll do, likely starting with the parchment overlay. There's some other stuff I have to finish first, but I will get to this soon.

I came across this a while ago, I have yet to try it out, but it looks fantastic. It's one of the things that I'd like to pick up or help with, if only I had more time.

There's an old patch for it: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4246

Which of the two would you all prefer? If there's no clear tendency then I suggest to provide both options and leave it too up to campaign makers how and when to use them.

Point taken about versatility. It's probably best to provide options for both. We can discuss what style to opt for with built-in campaigns when the time comes to make them. Might make sense to do a poll. About the "hero talking" mockup: In what cases would it be preferred over the parchment overlay? Could they be used in combination? How do other games do it?

It would be really quick to implement. We already have a "cinematic mode" and apart from that it is literally just two black bars, a text field, and a portrait. The only thing a bit more tricky is that exclamation mark above the talking character.

I agree. Any ideas on how could we use it in combination with that parchment?

Maybe we can do both. An introduction at the start like this: "It's the year ___. The ___ wars have ended a few years ago. ___ has died and was succeeded by ___... " and then switch over to a monologue of the main characters. We could communicate the difference between the two by adding quotation marks to the last one and showing an image of the character, for example. These images look indeed quite nice and I'll experiment with them. And I agree the charcoal style fits really well. In general, though, I'm very reluctant with using AI images. For actual campaigns we'll have to find an artist somehow. I'm sure this charcoal drawing effect can be replicated in Photoshop. Then there's also the option of having the characters talk in the game view directly (or a cutscene). Here's a mockup created by @wowgetoffyourcellphone:

Ok, I'll make those changes. Actually, I quite like that "overlapping"; having the image cover everything and then placing the text on top in some free space of it. That's totally possible. The only downside is it could make the text "jump" around quite a lot between slides/screens. Also, it would require specifying the text position for each image separately, although that's a small price to pay in my opinion, and there could be a default layout to fall back on when no custom one is needed. I want to add an image to the mockup, but I don't know what. Do you think stories have to evolve around a specific character? Should they be told in first or third person?

That's good inspiration. Here is a mockup I made a while ago: It's comparable to the storytelling screen of AOE2 DE, no? It's missing an image obviously, which is essential to achieve a more aesthetic look. The question is how to and where to place images on that parchment (in terms of layout) and where we can get them from in the first place... Can we maybe find an artist to draw characters or scenes for it? Or do you think there would there be enough royalty-free material available online to cover some basic campaigns?

Haven't looked into it in detail, but should there be a need for it in a specific campaign or game mode in the future, it can (and hopefully will) certainly be done. I wouldn't call it a "simple" change either, though.

I think most players would agree that the single-player content 0ad offers is meager, especially in comparison to other RTS games. There are many great scenario maps, but there are no built-in campaigns. In my opinion the underlying issue is that there is simply no way for map makers to tell a story. I want/plan to make an interface for exactly that; the capability to tell the player about the historical context and events a game or campaign is based on, and to pack it into a plot that unfolds while the player plays through it. I'll disclaim it straight ahead: I'm not the typical and traditional RTS player that I know many other people in this community are -- e.g. I haven't player the AOE games. It might be because of that, but I personally dislike the idea of adding actual dialogue and voiceovers. I'd personally rather convey the feeling of reading a history book. However, I am well aware that there are players who would disagree with this. So why not do both? We could have history-book style prologues and epilogues and something alike at key points too. And to bring the story to a more interactive, personal level, add the ability to have character monologues and dialogues. What do you think? I made this thread to collect concepts and ideas on how to make it work and look. (By the way, I made some mockups for this a while ago, I'll post that in here when I've cleaned it up.)

At what point does the game crash? While connecting? Please attach the log files mentioned in the error message.

It is, albeit quite short:

Controversial opinion: High latency is not necessarily a bad thing; it adds to the realism. Do you think Julius Caesar would have known about an intruding army any faster than this?

Hmm, another difficulty will be to convince the government to lend us some of their carrier units (the "birds") in the first place...

The title says it all. I hereby officially propose switching all of Pyrogenesis' network traffic to IPoAC. Finally an authentic, period-accurate communication method! Who's onboard?

There is a section in the FAQ about it: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/FAQ#what-shall-i-do-when-joining-multiplayer-matches-fails-with-an-error-message

On another note, I've actually made some great progress on the map recently: (haven't painted the ocean floor yet) I will upload some screenshots and the files when I'm done; but I want to remake some sections and polish everything up a bit more first. As you might remember, I am using the 'desert_persia' biome mixed with the 'aegean_anatolian' biome. Southeastern Spain is a lot more arid than regions like Italy, Greece, or Turkey and not far away at all from a typical "desert". Honestly, I was really afraid it could turn out looking horrible, but they ended up fitting together quite well in my opinion. The only thing I struggled with was fading between bushy and earthy spots. There are a lot of textures available for empty and dry grounds. And some others full of bushes ( / vegetation in general) - namely 'Desert plants b persia' and 'Desert plants a'. What's missing is something in between to fill this gap. Patches of bushes don't just abpruptly "end" at a particular point; instead, with increasing distance, bushes are becoming smaller and sparser. And it's this transition that I find very hard to replicate with available textures. If someone could create a such a texture that would be amazing. Essentially a sparser variant of 'Desert plants b persia' (and if of 'Desert plants a' too that would be even better!) @wowgetoffyourcellphone maybe?

Oh, I totally forgot about this last post I made here. Regarding icons, I will try to incorporate existing ones (like the resource types), but I don't think there'd be much value in creating new, specific ones, if players don't see them anywhere outside of the tutorial later too. Regarding the instructions, I have spent a good amount of time thinking about it and here's my plan: I want to split up all instructions currently stuffed into the tutorial panel into four different categories (each displayed on their own panel - with only one or maybe two visible at once): - Simple Tasks. Basic instructions like "Left-click on your Civic Center", "Train _____ units", "Order them to build a storehouse". Only the active one needs to be displayed at once. - Basic Information and Tips. Everything that doesn't directly help players progress through the game, but just teaches them how to do something. For example, how to select units, how to build structures, or how to read the minimap. This could still be done in an interactive way, but these sections need to be skippable. - Game Objectives. Larger tasks like "Explore the map", "Repel the attack", or "Capture the Civic Center" that take more time to complete. I plan to add this functionality to scenarios and trigger scripts in general, and not just the tutorial. Objectives can be given, completed or stopped at any point during the game, all of which is announced by fading in some sort of "banner" in the top center. They don't need to be required for ultimately winning the game and could instead function more like "side quests" too by providing other rewards (like unlocking certain units, receiving some resources - stuff that can be done in trigger scripts already) But I haven't really thought about how to connect them to the current "victory conditions" (conquest, wonder, etc. - which are called "objectives" in the game right now) yet. - Plot Points. There is no interface in place right now to tell a story to the player. At all. This would in first instance become relevant at the start of a game, of course. But I imagine it would also be cool to have the possibility of advancing the plot during a game as well, maybe even depending on player decisions... (this interface too could be made available to all scenario scripts, and not just the tutorial) At the moment, I'm trying to come up with good UI designs for each of these. Ideas, design concepts, or UI mockups are much welcomed, as always.

Continuing this.. Currently, new instructions are just added below previous ones. It feels kinda cheap to me. Maybe only the current one should be displayed at a time. Stuff like important hotkeys or game concept explanations could be moved somewhere else (and always stay accessible). What do you think?

Not really. As far as I remember, 20595 is only chosen as the port on the host side and on the first gateway (in the case of CGNAT, your own router). The ISP's router at the head of that second, larger network, should ensure to consistently forward packets over and to the same ports. They just often do a terrible job at this. As soon as this consistency is lost (between contacting the STUN server and the target host) is precisely when STUN breaks. Whether this actually means that STUN would work with an ideal Double NAT / CGNAT: I don't know. It's difficult to reliably test stuff like this.