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Posts
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Posts posted by Brent
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Funny that the art is almost done, but not the programming. In many opensource games its mostly the other way round: good engines, but not art. Maybe opensourcing the engine/game could attract some of those developers.
Just look at the amount of shooter-style engines out there, surely a coder among them could be interested in picking up a RTS-engine /with/ art to boot.
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Kickety kick! If it's still possible, I'd like my nickname to change to "Brent", without the quotes
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The trick is to make our ways sustainable so that we can keep doing it. Also, in order to preserve the natural world as much as possible, which is imho a thing we should do because we can, try to give room to nature. For example: why not live in places like the Sahara or Gobi desert, where's no life at all, so we'd leave no footprint. If we can have stations on the moon, we can certainly live in the desert I'd think.
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I was going to mention ODE, looks pretty kewl too. I was simply responding to the monetary issue.
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@Fred
If you can find a way of giving us $250,000+ to license a physics engine we would love to impliment it into the game.
AGEIA's engine is free. http://www.ageia.com/developers/index.html
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putting the code in a tarball doesn't mean one can compile it... the make and config scripts is where the magic happens, and that doesn't even take in account the obvious differences between all the platforms, for which the actual gamecode has to be tuned to get things to work.
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First off: I think it's great you're considering an opensource license. The community can use such topclass work.
But I do think you are not up to snuff on the intricacies of opensourcing. (which is very understandable, license-issues can be minefields). There are hundreds of licenses for starters, which can mean very different things, for end users and you the creaters.
I read that you fear people 'stealing' the game. With viral licenses like the GPL this is impossible. The 'new' game would have to be GPL too, and then pointing out that they're just copycats would be easy. Then again, if they're effectivily just redistributing, whats the problem? One of the points about opensource is that these things should be possible. If you just don't want that, maybe it's just better to keep it closed after all. If people cant effectivily do anything with the code/art, then no use making it OS under some prohibitive license.
About 'losing copyright'. Copyright is something that lies automatically with the original writers/artist. No action required on your part, ever.
I know many people equate open source with GPL, but that of course nonsense. You could choose BSD, LGPL or as I said, hundreds other or your own custom license.
I sincerely suggest contacting a legal advisor from (for example) the FSF (http://www.fsf.org/licensing). AFAIK they provide advice to developers for free for precisely these kinds of issues. Maybe others know of even more places to obtain advice (I'm not really into this either).
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He liked AOE2. He was talking about AOM, I believe. His wording was poor.
Yep, my bad. The lameness was directed at AoE3, AoE2 rulez!
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I'm not sure if the 20-30 people will be all fans (how many people are actually active here?), but some lucky fans will get beta.
I'm not very active here, but I sure as hell a big fan! Have been since 2003/2004 I think? Here's to hoping I'll be selected
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1. What is the most important thing in your life?
Don't have a single one thing I consider most important for me personally. What I think is important is
2. How do you determine right and wrong?
Somehow I have the feeling that there can be universal good and bad, but I know that's just genes/education playing tricks on me/us. What's right and wrong is determined by the sum of experiences and judgements by the people who made up society, eg everyone. That's why I generally don't think along the lines of right and wrong, because it doesn't tell me much I don't already know.
Ultimately, right and wrong are human concoctions, and so I choose to lay things along the lines of: who affected by this and how much, what's affected by this and how much, what will this mean in the long run? etc etc. Still, even after breaking down, when I decide between a go or no-go: its difficult to explain. Maybe in the end it's just randomness that decides. Interesting stuff now that you mention it.
3. Are you a good/bad person? How do you know?
I don't know, but I think I am. I don't harm people, I respect each and everyone, life in general.
'4. What is your goal in life?
I don't believe in 'goals in life', at least real explicit ones. Although I can't offer a good defenition: doing right, not wrong.
5. Are all people's beliefs equally true?
You mean religion? I think they totally false regarding the Real World, but tell us something of the human mind and social working of huge 'hurdes' of men. I choose to respect all choices made by anyone that I don't think impart others in ways that I think are harmless. That means that I give most people an A-OK on whatever they believe, but not in principle.
6. Do you think mankind is getting better?
Absolutely. How can we not? Maybe sometimes it looks like two steps forwards and one step back, but thats humans for you. We're not perfect, but generally aren't so bad.
7. What is the purpose of mankind?
It has none, nothing has purpose in the ultimate sense of the word. Only observers like humans can attribute purpose. Like a car has a purpose or the powerlines. The only thing that I can say it that everyone/thing brings about entropy as it 'is'.
8. How did the world come into existence?
Earth? Collision of interstellar gas-/matterclouds it the most accepted explanation I think.
Universe? Big Bang, although not everyone agrees. I think we'll never really know for sure, like we will never know for sure what ape was the first to walk upright or who was the first Chinese. We can make (reasably well) estimates, but they're still estimates. Some theories provide explanations that are so precise and consistent that I believe them to be true. Sometimes they don't, but that doesn't mean anything apart from that we can investigate further. It's still a matter of what you believe, and thats personal and therefore of limited relevance.
9. What happens to people after they die?
They decompose I think Converted to earth by worms and such.
10. Why do bad things happen to good people?
Randomness, chance. It's reasonable that bad things (unforseen things with negative outcomes) are equally 'distributed' among men, thus among good men too.
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Real mathmaticians dont use calculators
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Preview? You mean the game play video? If that's what you're talking about, then it's already out. But I think you have the beta and the public preview mixed up. They're the same.
But that beta is in no way public, as only a handful of people will get to play it right?
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So first theres the select beta, later the public preview? All this year?
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No 0 AD for D/L yet, but there is a progressive public release coming up
Oooeeh, aaaahh, yeahhhh!
But, somewhere else I read something about a release for select people, which is it exactly if you dont mind me asking
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Oh really? And why do you say that?
Even on low level it's a whole heap better than AoM. So's the gameplay. But yeah, I 'd love to know why you don't like any of AoE3.
I think so. Yeah sure, AoE3 on graphics high looks sophisticated, but it's just bloom+HDR for the hell of it in my opinion. Like so many games these days (Need For Speed anyone) throw some pixelshader3 over to cover up that fact that its a bad game. Step a notch down to where bloom etc is off (which looks better imho, nice crisp and sharp), and you're left with graphics on par with AoM.
And gameplaywise: pulease... Play the darn game, it much worse than AoM and let's not talk about AoE2 (which is King, pun intended). Lame tech-tree, lame map-mechanics and a lame campaign.
Theres much better (graphically and gameplay-wise) RTS'es out there, some even older than AoE3.
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I definitely hope I'm selected as one of those 20-30 people.
After all, I was Angel Mod at Rise & Fall Heaven for 2 years. Does that count?
Because of that, I was also selected as one of the few to fly down to Ensemble Studios and play Age3 before it was released.
And you didn't see the abomination that is AoE3 coming and warned us? Bad journalism...
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I want it all, I want it all. I want it all, and I want it NOW!
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There's very little information/screens on the website that make me think that it's still on the drawing board. Also, what exactly is on the drawing board is not enterily clear to me: a real expasion that requires AOE1?
Although I appreciate the idea, I will have to see some 'evidence' first before I think this'll get anywhere.
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In AoE3 it sucked indeed. Can't imagine how anyone could play like that. And one tad below that in gfx looked like AoM-level sophistication to me, but then again, the whole of AoE3 wasn't very good.
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But I remember reading 2-3 years back that th release was gonna be more like 2007 than 2006. So I hope we can expect something this year
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Excellent piece!
For those interested in the development of Carthage and early Rome, and Hannibal's tactics in particular (and how Scipio Africanus essentially copied Hannibal), i can recommend "Hannibal: One man against Rome" by Harold Lamb, though I'm sure the sources mentioned here are also good reading!
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Do you have any idea how incredibly beautiful that is?
_drool_____
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That's a complete misjudgement.
OK, but I think not entirely. When you guy's are done, there will be a fine-tuned and polished 3D engine suited for RTS'es (and for RPG's and adventures too I guess?). Pretty much all OS-RTS'es are 2D (nothing wrong with that of course).
But, on top of that (I should have left 'graphical' out) there's a bunch of other usefull stuff (thinngs like fog of war) that's already done. And you're right in saying that most project lack artists and have plenty programmers, but from what I can see there's a heap of models and textures and sounds available in 0AD and modding is easier than creating (and yes, you already support that, hmm, what was my point again ). Of course, this depends on what parts will be opensourced, if any.
In any case, I think there's nothing to lose when making the code available. And instead of some CVS/SVN repo, just putting a source tarball up every now and then, will cost you hardly any effort and possibly gain us new games.
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First, let there be no doubt that I (and probably a lot of people) think that you are doing a great, if not one of the greatest jobs ever, on this project and that you really don't require the hassle that comes with being a truly Open Source project. I think that you'll produce one of the best RTS's ever and do not need any extra help with that, the 0AD team is fully capable of doing so. When I looks at the screenshots (which appear to be not working right now ) and read the backgrounds, it's clear that you know what you're doing.
That said, I think that, as an Open Source fan, as a gamer and as a gamer that would love to switch permanently to Linux, opensourcing the game and/or it's engine in one way or the other would be a fantastic push for the open source gaming-scene. The 0AD project is a project of the scale of major commercial game projects and by unleashing your code you could contribute a earthshaking way to the development of more (competative) open source.
My main point is that most games and pretty much all commercial games are Windows-only. There is a pretty big gap between commercial games and OS-games. Take Civilisation 4 and Freeciv for example. Not only graphically is it a big difference, also gameplay wise, and, I'm sad to say, in favor of Civ4. Of course, this is only one game, if one looks closer, you'll find genres like RTS/Race/Adventure are underrepresented and thus underrepresented on Linux.
The culprit with pretty much all OS-games is the accessability and eye-candy. People like to play pretty games and there's nothing wrong with that. The downside of that is that, apart from a small but loyal group, most people avoid OS-games and just pick up a game from the shop, even if the game in reality is crappier.
I'm not saying you, as the 0AD-dev-team have any obligations towards doing something about this, but I do think you have a great opportunity to do so. You're developing a free game that breaks with all preconceptions and truely is a game that competes (and, judging from the backgrounds articles, possibly even surpasses) in almost all aspacts of games.
Therefore, releasing this would very probably mean landslide in the game-landscape. The few OS RTS'es could easily upgrade their graphics, since the hard part, a decent graphical engine, is done. Anyone with modelling and texturing capabilities can go create a custom game. Of course this will be possible, to some extent, out-of-the-box with 0AD through modding, but still.
Since you'd like to keep at least the development of your own game indoors, you could come up with a creative way to opensource it all. Perhaps by update the source package every month and leave it at that. I f anyone wants it, they can get it and fork it if they want. Whatever. The point is it'll be available (and by the way could easily end up in a lot of Linux-distro's repositories!). My point is that OS-ing it would not automatically mean that you'll soon be in trouble that has nothing to do with you want: building a great game!
Of course, I'm not forcing anything, just trying to convince
I love you all, peace.
Changing nickname
in Help & Feedback
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Ha, thanks! That was fast