Some Thoughts

[Random-Dude]

Hi,

Firstly, I'd like to say great job so far! looking good. Keep up the good work. I've only known about 0-ad for about a year and only recently installed the alpha, so I'm not completely in the 'loop' about what's happening, so forgive me if I tell you what you already know or plan to do :-).

I'd also like to say "Thank you" for making this open source (I understand, that this was not the original intention?) and cross platform. It's great to finally see such a high quality RTS game for Linux (I'm a Linux user, Fedora/CentOS.)

Now, I understand that the AI merely is not developed yet. But, for when it is, it would be pretty cool if you could make the AI take a more realistic approach to things, unlike some "other" rather popular RTS game series. For example, AI could have the same abilities as the user, for example. Build walls, focus on different things such as economy, military, or defence, depending on the 'mood' of the AI, which could be randomly selected while loading (Not by user).

I've noticed the "other" RTS series AI never seemed to build walls in the last version(3). (Well not that I saw). What's up with that?

Also, population limits. We all know another RTS series had these, and they were often considered quite low. While I am currently unsure if 0AD has these (I haven't checked) it could be handy to have a population limit, however, not how another series done this, but instead, selecting the population limit based on how the users computer would handle it before lagging out (Which can happen if to many objects are on screen at same time all doing various activates).

For example, low low end (Minimum required) around 200, Low end, 400, Medium 800, High 1000, Ultra high, 2000 or unlimited? However this would lead to one problem.. Online Multiplayer, as we alll know, everyone would have different systems so the limit would be different per system, so for online it would have to be a fixed value for all systems. After all, it would be highly unfair for a player to be stuck with 200 Pop limit, while the other player online can have 1000 Pop.

And now Options. I know these currently aren't developed (At least not in the Alpha I have). Just a few suggestions of what I would like to see in those:

Graphics Options - Various: As in options such as water reflections, building detail, model quality, terrain quality etc, kind of important ;-)

Audio Options: Music - On/off (You already have this)

Nature sounds - On/Off (These could be something like birds singing, birds screaming as they fall to the ground and die as someone accidentally fired an arrow at them, etc etc, you get the idea)

Other sounds - On/Off

Game Options

Classic Build mode - I've noticed, that you currently have a set up, where military build military buildings and civilians build, civ buildings. This is all well and good, however some people may not like it this way, it would be a neat feature to be able to switch back to a "Classic" mode where the Civilians build everything again. However this would only be effective in Single Player. In multi-player it would switch back to normal mode, so that everyone is the same (Stops anyone having some sort of advantage over another due to a setting.)

That's all I can think of for now (Plus I'm trying to keep this short), but I'll let you know if I find anything else that could be useful to you :-)

Anyhow, once again, thank you. :-)

- Jake

PS: Any spelling grammar @#$% ups is because I'm tired :-) Sorry.

[feneur]

Welcome to the Wildfire Games forums Random-Dude Thanks for your nice words and input, below are some comments. Keep your thoughts coming, I can't guarantee we'll implement/change everything you say, but we're definitely listening to everything.

AI: Our hope is of course to have the best AI possible, but what that means depends on who will be able to write it, but hopefully someone with at least some decent AI programming knowledge will join the team (feel free to find someone yourself, at the moment we're prioritizing multiplayer so we're not searching actively ourselves, but it's not like we'd be sad to have it done sooner than anticipated ).

Population limits: I'm not sure it's worthwhile to develop some automatic setting, but we will provide a variety of choices by default and if those are not enough it will of course be possible to edit a file or two yourself.

For options: There are a bunch of other options, though they are not yet included in the GUI so you'll have to edit them manually using a text editor, please see: binaries/data/config/default.cfg for more info on what options are available. Eventually these and other options will of course be available via GUI.

Who builds what: Probably not going to happen in an official version, the concept of Citizen Soldiers are one of our most important ones and I can't see that it has got any negative side effects apart from the fact that players might not be used to it at first. Everything's possible in a mod though

[Shield Bearer]

I think what he's trying to say is that the military guys can only build military buildings, but thats not the case. Citizen Soldiers can build everything. Only Female Citizen are limited to Economy buildings, but i think thats alright.

[Random-Dude]

Welcome to the Wildfire Games forums Random-Dude Thanks for your nice words and input, below are some comments. Keep your thoughts coming, I can't guarantee we'll implement/change everything you say, but we're definitely listening to everything.

Cool cool

AI: Our hope is of course to have the best AI possible, but what that means depends on who will be able to write it, but hopefully someone with at least some decent AI programming knowledge will join the team (feel free to find someone yourself, at the moment we're prioritizing multiplayer so we're not searching actively ourselves, but it's not like we'd be sad to have it done sooner than anticipated ).

Sadly I don't know any developers who specifically work with AI.

Population limits: I'm not sure it's worthwhile to develop some automatic setting, but we will provide a variety of choices by default and if those are not enough it will of course be possible to edit a file or two yourself.

Fair enough.

For options: There are a bunch of other options, though they are not yet included in the GUI so you'll have to edit them manually using a text editor, please see: binaries/data/config/default.cfg for more info on what options are available. Eventually these and other options will of course be available via GUI.

Cool! Never noticed that file till I looked for it Thanks. (The correct location for me however was: /usr/share/0ad/config/ )

Who builds what: Probably not going to happen in an official version, the concept of Citizen Soldiers are one of our most important ones and I can't see that it has got any negative side effects apart from the fact that players might not be used to it at first. Everything's possible in a mod though

Yeah

I think what he's trying to say is that the military guys can only build military buildings, but thats not the case. Citizen Soldiers can build everything. Only Female Citizen are limited to Economy buildings, but i think thats alright.

See now, this is where my understanding of the game got me a tad muddled up here, you see, I thought that "Citizen Soldiers" were merely soldiers, and "Female Citizen" where plainly citizen. (Eg thought that there would be male versions at some point)

But I think I understand now Seems good to me

[feneur]

Ah, ok. Good we were able to sort out some of your questions