Ykkrosh

How about a race of cyborgs? I bet they could teach those Romans a thing or two.

I've used Sunbird since about 2004 (version 0.2a - I don't fancy upgrading since the newest version (0.3) sounds like it has less features than 0.2, and everything would probably break) - it doesn't seem like a particularly great program, so I wouldn't really recommend it, but it works well enough for my simple needs of specifying individual or recurring things. Then in a morning I just look at what I have to do for that day, and try to remember as much as is necessary, which is usually easy since there's only one place-time that needs remembering. Or in extreme cases, where there's two or more things to remember, I make rough notes on a piece of paper and only have to avoid losing it for one day

I'm guessing this file is that rules.ini? Our unit data is split into lots of XML files - so it's not quite as trivial to get started (since you have to work out what file to open), and not quite as easy to read (since it's XML, and since we have a lot more data per unit than Red Alert). But we might end up with a GUI tool for editing that data (particularly for customised units in scenarios), so you wouldn't have to care about those details. Our data files are distributed in a standard .zip file (instead of RA's .mix) so they're trivial to extract, and our textures are probably easier to edit than RA's sprites (since we're using standard DDS files while they probably made up their own file format); and we want to make it as easy as possible to create and distribute mods, so you can e.g. make unit mods and include them with scenarios, and players won't have to manually copy lots of files around to install the mods. So it's probably harder in some ways (because 0 A.D. is a more complex game), but easier in others, and we're actively trying to design and write the game to be easy and powerful for modders

That's not literal 'housekeeping' as in dusting the floor and vacuuming the walls or whatever people do around their homes - it's just tidying up the game's code for cleanliness and consistency . (The full log has more technical details as to exactly what was changed, but the publicly-visible version just has that summarised description.)

That's a good idea, and is actually already part of the design . Scenarios and campaigns and mods will all be handled in the same way, as a set of files inside a single distributable .zip file, which are loaded by the game and added onto its standard set of data files. As a designer, you could be creating a new scenario, then decide to create a replacement texture - you just add it into your 'workspace', tell it which texture to replace, and it'll be distributed and used with your scenario whenever someone plays it.

I think AoE3's cliffs are still based on tiles, just with some added tricks - the tiles are split into some number (4x4?) of smaller tiles to get a higher resolution, a displacement map is added to adjust those tiles' vertices up/down, the texture mapping is changed so the cliff textures don't get stretched so much, and extra meshes can be stuck on the sides. Or something roughly like that - there are more accurate details elsewhere (maybe the GDC talk?), which I've forgotten now I don't have any memories of cliffs from the demo, and can't play around with the scenario editor, so I'm not quite sure what the end result looks like, or what are the most effective tricks that we should implement. I do remember some discussions we've had about cliffs, but unfortunately can't remember any conclusions (or if we reached any firm ones). And I don't know anything about bridges either. So, er, either somebody else knows, or we'll work it out once we get there

The unit data is actually a standard XML file, located somewhere like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III\data\proto.xml, and AoE3Ed isn't needed. That file is readable in a text editor, and contains all the information that is used for the game simulation, which sounds like what you want. There might be quicker ways of getting the data into Excel (rather than copying it all manually), but I'm not sure exactly how - it might be worth asking on AoE3 Heaven, since other people have done similar things with the stats and might be able to offer advice there.

There are no plans for that. My opinion is that it's fairly gimmicky - in AoE3 it doesn't actually affect the gameplay (probably since that's very difficult to make work in multiplayer games (because the simulation needs to be precisely the same for every player, and physics often gets into chaotic situations) - though I suppose they could have enabled it in single-player without many problems), and it's not something you even see very often. It also seems like a huge pain for the artists - someone at ES had to go through every single building in the game, chopping them into dozens of pieces and setting all the physics properties. And it takes time to write all the code, and we can't use commercial physics libraries (since we have no money ), so it doesn't seem like a productive use of our time. If you just want to play with physics, there are simple free games which let you do just that, without requiring the developers to make a whole RTS when all you want is to blow things up . (The Reactor preview in 3ds max is also great for wasting time - catapulting ragdolls through brick walls is always good...) I've not seen the trailer, but that sounds like a much simpler form of physics, which would be more feasible - just accelerate the units downwards and activate a 'falling' animation (tumbling, flailing arms, lip-syncing the words to 'I believe I can fly', etc). That could be a nice idea when we get around to implementing bridges It's possible to make quite steep terrain. It's strictly tiled-based, and so the slope has to be the width of a tile, but you can hide it behind rocks and chocolate bars like in that screenshot, so the sharp edges aren't visible. There's also quite a lot of space between the maximum and minimum height limits - I don't know the exact dimensions, and the scale of the game world isn't entirely realistic anyway; but there are already some small mountains, and you could add flattened paths and move the camera closer and hope the perspective works out alright. (And the current scale is fairly arbitrary - we could expand it to allow higher/lower terrain, at the expense of some vertical resolution.) You can have fake ravines, which are close enough - just push them down to the lower height limit so they're in shadow, and paint the bottom with a black texture, and nobody will notice the difference That shouldn't be a problem in the normal RTS top-down view, since you're never looking over the horizon, so it's a fairly limited amount of the map that is visible. When creating cinematics, you just have to be careful not to aim the camera so that the entire map with ten thousand trees and bits of grass and rocks is visible at once

This? That page links to a technical explanation of how it was written, avoiding all of MySpace's blocks on HTML and JS code - I think it demonstrates that blacklists of dangerous strings can never work, since you don't know what weird things browsers will accept; the only secure solution is to support a subset of HTML, then parse each message, reject anything that's not valid within that subset, and reconstruct the HTML for display. That's what all forums seem to do (except they have non-HTML syntax) - it seems much more robust, and doesn't assume that users won't be more ingenious than the system's programmers

I spend about 50 minutes (in total) a day walking to/from where I have lectures (which is actually the William Gates Building, though there's about as much use of Linux as of Windows in there), and that's more than enough exercise for me . Usually I'm out at about nine in the morning and the ground is icy and the grass is covered in frost and my hands freeze inside my gloves, and I do get tempted to take the bus instead; but I've resisted that temptation so far, and I've almost survived

I'm fairly certain they have a GUI tool for editing their equivalent to our actor files, since that'd be horrible to edit by hand (unlike AoM's anim files, which were designed for hand-editing) - but I imagine it's unlikely that they'd think about releasing it, since they don't seem to be interested in spending much time helping modders . (Incidentally, I can only see six downloads of AoE3Ed from *.ensemblestudios.com, and ten ES people who looked at the thread [or at least the images in it] on AoE3H; so they don't seem exceptionally interested in how modders help themselves either...) But, in any case, I bet they don't have as many pretty colours as our Actor Editor

What shiny new features are there that make the upgrade worthwhile?

I don't know what the cost would be, but it would be non-zero - it needs more textures on each unit (and so more video memory), as well as doing more calculation per pixel. It'd also need the artists to do more work (e.g. creating high-poly versions of every unit, and using them to generate the normal map) and learn new skills, which takes time. And all the existing art would have to be updated. We're not aiming to make the best looking game ever, and have limited resources, so unfortunately I don't think we can afford to use shiny new effects throughout the game. (Shiny things are still nice, though ) Not again, not again!

No - only irregular and inexplicable maps will be allowed, preferably set in at least four dimensions with non-Euclidean geometry. (The game might be more lenient about topology if the map's storyline involves sponges.) For graphical normal maps, also mostly no - they might be used for some effects (like water), but not for general terrain or units.

Unless anything unexpected happens in the file-distribution world, I would imagine BitTorrent will be our primary distribution method; though we will also have to provide some web mirrors (preferably not the WFG server, since then we'd have to pay for it ) for people who can't use BT. Distributing CDs (and charging for them, to cover the cost of delivery to faraway countries) would be a bit trickier; for those without fast internet access, a simpler solution would be to convince a friend to download it for you and copy to CD, which also works as advertising for us (But, as was said, we don't have any concrete plans - SVN is sufficient for all our distribution requirements at the moment, and we'll try to find the best solution when we're closer to the first (beta?) release.)

The even better source is to join us, which also has the advantage of speeding up our progress . (At least the intention is for it to speed up progress, which is why there's a non-trivial application process - we can't afford to waste resources on organisation and management of unproductive members... But if people have the skills and time and energy, I think we'd be happy for more help )

If it's illegal, then no . But the copy on their web site seems to have the same text as the printed version; the only difference is a few screenshots and bits of concept art that you've probably seen before, so you won't be missing any exclusive information

0 A.D. is (according to the current plans) going to be 'free' as in no cost, but not all 'Free' as in freedom (or even as in open source) (though some components are likely to be) - so it can't be called 'free software', and would probably not be accepted by GNU people.

Like Sauron?

Your nut-based attack shall not succeed, for I have antihistamines and adrenaline!

If I'm looking at a discussion containing something like , and then log out and go back to the same discussion (or to any other one), it just shows "" instead, which doesn't seem like it ought to happen.

I don't think we'd be able to stop modders from changing all the screens and text, without us going to a lot of trouble. To alter textures, you just create a mod containing a file with the same name as the original; and for words, even if they're hard-coded into the game, you could just override the localisation system's data files so it 'translates' into completely different words or names. And if all else fails, make the font invisible

I can't remember whether I've mentioned this before, but World Wind can show this detail anywhere in the world, which might be useful (Incidentally, it seems quite surprising how flat the world's suface is - even the tallest mountains are just little bumps...) I guess the Romans didn't have any decent permanent storage media to retain the images from their photographic satellites

I first heard of Duke Nukem Forever in a magazine while on holiday in America, and it sounded rather interesting at the time... Judging by this, that was seven and a half years ago; I think I've now lost the enthusiasm that I had when I was twelve

The main problem with showing details of the Atlas design (like the concept images) is that someone has to actually implement it all, and will probably want to change things around and remove the difficult parts, and then everyone will complain about missing the features that they were expecting Still, I think it would be nice to have explanations of the thought processes that have gone into the design of the game (rather than just detailing the design itself), as you suggested; though I'm not sure how to do that without going into at least a few details, and almost everything is subject to change in the future, so it'll be hard to avoid giving misinformation... But I would be interested in reading such things, so maybe it's worthwhile anyway