0 A.D. Rise of the East Mod

[Kimball]

Today, we are proud to announce the first design team dedicated to 0 A.D. Scion Development is a collection of ambitious developers and game enthusiasts who have come together to develop third-party content for Wildfire Games' real-time strategy title. Our group of talented, tight-knit designers donate their free time to development with a common goal in mind: to contribute to the 0 A.D. community and further the limits of the game.

After extensive construction of the team's logistic aspects, we are thrilled to announce our debut project, The Rise of the East, introducing a brand new faction to the game: China. As a team, our mission is to deliver quality modifications and scenarios to the game community, all while adhering to a policy of high expectations and strong work ethics. Through our dedication to development, we hope to become an integral part the 0 A.D. community.

The Team

Rob Kimball is a texture artist from Solana Beach, CA.

Mikhail Filimonov is a marketing representative and scenario designer from the Bay Area, CA.

Robert Schultz is a 3D modeler from New Jersey.

Matthijs de Rijk is a 3D modeler from the Netherlands.

Joining the Team

At the moment we are open to any person willing to contribute to the team, particularly those with artistic abilities or those who possess some form of experience with Atlas. Obviously, anyone wishing to join must have a genuine passion for mod development and must be able to actively contribute to the team on a regular basis. If you think if you have the mindset, and more importantly the skills to become a part of our team, fill out and post an application in our forums. The form and job descriptions may be found in this thread.

Rise of the East

The Rise of the East is a modification that strives to bring China as a civilization into the game, meticulously researched to be as historically accurate as possible. In addition to the civilization, we plan to implement a full campaign, featuring recreations of famous historical moments, new random maps, and more. As development progresses, we will periodically update the fans with the latest news, and release promotional media although it will take some time before the entire modification is finished. To commemorate our debut, we've released a small unit pack to give the fans a preview of what is to come, which can be downloaded below.

Follow us on our official Twitter for the latest updates and news. Also, be sure to stop by our forum and introduce yourself to the community and the rest of the team. We'd love to hear from you!

Downloads

Below, you can find a small demo of our progress so far. We've included three infantry units from our Chinese faction in this demo release: Dāo Fú Shǒu (刀斧手, infantry swordsman), Cháng Máo Bīng (长矛兵, infantry spearman) and Nú Shǒu (弩手, infantry archer). We've also released the Bīng Yíng (兵营, military center) so you'll have a building from which to train your three new units.

• Download Rise of the East Demo Release : Infantry (0.1)
  

[SMST]

I saw that coming since I've found the Chinese Spearman texture in the 0 A.D. texture folder and saw the Chinese ships on Michael's photo gallery. However, I didn't see it coming THAT fast.

Looks great, and I am certainly interested in a Chinese faction. One question: Since the mod's title is "Rise of the East" and not "Rise of the Middle Kingdom" (or something), can we expect more eastern factions of the Ancient Period? (Yamato Japanese, Three Kingdom Koreans, even Xiongnu or Yuezhi perhaps?)

Keep it up!

[Kimball]

Thanks for your feedback! Good to hear that China has been anticipated too..

One question: Since the mod's title is "Rise of the East" and not "Rise of the Middle Kingdom" (or something), can we expect more eastern factions of the Ancient Period? (Yamato Japanese, Three Kingdom Koreans, even Xiongnu or Yuezhi perhaps?)

Potentially. It depends on how large the team grows and how quickly we can collaborate on the project. Initially it was three factions, but we've cut it down to just China for the time being so we don't get lost in an over-ambitious project.

[SMST]

Potentially. It depends on how large the team grows and how quickly we can collaborate on the project. Initially it was three factions, but we've cut it down to just China for the time being so we don't get lost in an over-ambitious project.

Gah. There's nothing wrong with ambitious projects.

Which three factions would've been there? China, Japan, Korea?

[Kimball]

Nope, but there is a problem with dead projects.

We were planning for Mauryan India, Han China and probably Yayoi Japan.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Wow! this is really incredible. I wish the team good luck

[Almin]

Which license do you use to publish your models and the graphics? The same like the 'official' 0 A.D. or another one?

edit: Good Luck, anyway!

Edited December 28, 2010 by Almin

[kkaallllee]

Niiice! The far east at this time is very interesting and ther arent so much good games about the east.... maybe AoE 3 Asian Dynasty but I didnt find the fun in that game...... whathever heres a sudgestion:

Maybe a Mongol faction shulled do good?

[Kimball]

Fun fact: In mandarin, the character 中 means "of China." When combined with the 0 A.D. logo symbolizing 'earth' or 'atlas', we get 中 A.D.

Which license do you use to publish your models and the graphics? The same like the 'official' 0 A.D. or another one?

We use a slightly different license than 0 A.D., as our project already is a derivative work. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.

Also, feel free to troll around our forums if you have any questions, problems or requests: http://forum.sciondevelopment.com Introduce yourself. We're friendly.

[Ykkrosh]

Sounds neat . (Maybe you could add a mirror for the download for people who want to try it out now, without waiting for ModDB to authorise the release?)

We use a slightly different license than 0 A.D., as our project already is a derivative work. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.

That's not a slightly different license, it's a fundamentally totally different license . The NC and ND clauses mean it's not open source (see the definition, points 1 and 3), and would prevent it being distributed by most Linux distros (who only want open source content) or e.g. magazine coverdiscs (if such things still exist) or similar channels. Also it prevents you from basing any of your mod's content on the game's CC-BY-SA content (without permission from whoever originally made the game's content), since the SA clause means any derived work must be CC-BY-SA too, as well as preventing the game from ever making use of any of your content. It's about as incompatible as it's possible to be.

[fcxSanya]

That's not a slightly different license, it's a fundamentally totally different license . The NC and ND clauses mean it's not open source (see the definition, points 1 and 3), and would prevent it being distributed by most Linux distros (who only want open source content) or e.g. magazine coverdiscs (if such things still exist) or similar channels. Also it prevents you from basing any of your mod's content on the game's CC-BY-SA content (without permission from whoever originally made the game's content), since the SA clause means any derived work must be CC-BY-SA too, as well as preventing the game from ever making use of any of your content. It's about as incompatible as it's possible to be.

I was intended to wrote something like this, but Philip was faster

Few additional notes:

* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8051 - post on creative commons web site about cc licenses and free cultural works;

* "as our project already is a derivative work" if you mean that since you make a mod it is derivative work it is not make so sense I think: if you create your models/textures from scratch you can use any license which you want; otherwise if you derive from some materials from 0 A.D., as Philip wrote, you should license it under cc-by-sa.

In any case I like your mod and I look forward to see the progress in it, good luck!

[Kimball]

Well although we reference 0 A.D. models in our actors, none of the assets we ship with the mod include or derive from 0 A.D. models. For some reason my thought process was that if our project is a derivative, we can't have a license that enables further derivatives. I can see where that'd be essentially wrong though.

(Maybe you could add a mirror for the download for people who want to try it out now, without waiting for ModDB to authorise the release?)

Ah, I hadn't thought that it would be unavailable but it seems you're right. In the mean time, download the mod from here: http://sciondevelopment.com/rote/china.zip Feel free to check out the demo map, entitled "Rise of the East Demo." Enjoy!

Edit: ModDB file approved!

Edited December 29, 2010 by Kimball

[Ykkrosh]

Referencing the main game's content is fine - you could make and sell a proprietary commercial mod if you wanted (though everyone would probably pirate it ). The problem is just when looking at the game's CC-BY-SA model/texture/XML/etc files and modifying them or reusing any parts of them to make your new content, because then the new content must be released as CC-BY-SA too. Easiest solution is just to release everything as CC-BY-SA anyway, since there's no problem doing that for either new or derived work, unless you specifically want it to be proprietary instead of open.

[Kimball]

Ah, I see. Does that sort of license force us to release content constantly as 0 A.D. does with public SVN or can we still stick to occasional release packages? Since we have no real code changes here, there's no source to "close" per se.

[oshron]

i say yamato japan instead of yayoi; thats when they were more or less united as a power

[fcxSanya]

Does that sort of license force us to release content constantly as 0 A.D. does with public SVN or can we still stick to occasional release packages?

No, license just describe what people can do with particular content. You can release next package (or even the same package) under different license, but as soon as you released something with some license you can't prohibit people from using this package under this license. For example:

* you release package v0.1 under cc-by-sa;

* then you release the same package v0.1 under some EULA; but you can't prevent people from using package under cc-by-sa;

* then you release package v0.2 under EULA; people can use new content from package v0.2 only under EULA, but they still can use package v0.1 content under both cc-by-sa and EULA.

I hope I don't confuse things, correct me if I wrong

[Kimball]

I'll be sure to make a note of that in case we decide to expand. It all depends on how quickly we accrue a contributor base and how well we work together. So tell your developer friends that we need all the help we can get (if, of course, they're not interested in developing with WFG for some reason).

Edit: @Alexander thanks for the info. I think we may consider CC-BY-SA for our project then - seems like the only option for compatibility with 0 A.D.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Kimball

[fcxSanya]

I think we may consider CC-BY-SA for our project then - seems like the only option for compatibility with 0 A.D.

Yeah, also with this license you will get additional gratitude from open-source community

[Brightgalrs]

Omg this looks so cool!

[Kimball]

Just wanted to let you guys know, the file has been approved on ModDB, and the zip is no longer available on our server. Enjoy!

[Gallaecio]

Hope you change your mind with the license guys. Anyway, good work, and good luck!

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

Hope you change your mind with the license guys. Anyway, good work, and good luck!

What difference does it make with the license? (Just wondering)

[MrEmjeR]

well we first did the licence that didn't allow people to mod our mod. but since we're just a mod of a freely editable game. we should actually use the same licence.

[Aldandil]

This is a great idea. I really hope you're able to get enough contributors to add India and Japan at some point, too.

What is the reason you decided to have a separate forum instead of using a Game Modification sub-forum over here?

Edited December 31, 2010 by Aldandil

[Kimball]

The separate forum allowed the team to operate privately in preparation for the release and have control over groups permissions. More importantly though, we were able to escape from use of IPB. I gotta be honest, I hate this forum software.