Alpha 17 is near

[Lion.Kanzen]

Rada all we are happy work with you, I see our mods like a laboratory a place where we make our own perspective of 0 A.D and Pyrogenesis engine.

I let you experiment with freedom Aristeia and I'm sure niektb let you same with Millenium.

Your project is big and more than main game.

I don't see why you think that. All mods are for all and by all I don't see Aristeia as my mod.

[shieldwolf23]

The outpouring of our thoughts on your sudden decision just confirms your importance in being part of the team, Radagast. The community, even our team members may have overlooked your contribution and criticisms may have been unrelenting, but it doesn't change the fact that you our dear wizard is a valuable member. LordGood and Lion made very good points. Niek, I can guarantee you is far from being the totalitarian guy. He has actually and continually communicated with me and Stan and the rest of the team, and we have in many occasions talked about giving you free rein on the projects you want to focus on.

I hope you can take a deserved break, and look on with a changed perspective, and ultimately rejoin us.

[Zophim]

Rada,

I have seen frustration, miscommunication, and hurt feelings many times on projects and endeavours during my life, and I can assure you that much of the time the situation, once all parties concerned reach a mutual understanding, is not nearly so bad as a brief assessment might lead one to suppose.

You have been one of the most unflagging supporters of 0AD and its mods, and your dedication has inspired others, myself included.

If you need to take a break from 0AD, then by all means do so, but I must ask you to reconsider what seems to me and others to be your somewhat drastic decision to depart our Council. At the very least, could you not at least postpone your resignation in order to reassess the situation and engage in constructive dialogue with any individuals whom it may be helpful to mend fences with?

Edited September 23, 2014 by Zophim

[Radagast.]

Dear friends, don't be sad, my contributions were minor and still are. Several happenings forced me to this drastic steps to increase my productivity.

Open source projects are all about consequency, criticism and dialogue. I've seen too many promising world-changing ideas to break apart, I'll stop watching and therefore I continued to simplify my workflows to make my efforts more productive.

Originally (when I joined the forum after a my 0ad-tracking period) I planned to work full-time on 0AD Extended, then everything came different and I have seen that quantity doesn't help a bit. Instead Niek told us he thinks we'll not even ever finish RoTE. Of course perfection is inpossible, but we need to finish things or we have problems.

You have seen yourself how many projects I started and couldn't finish (xml parser, complex addons with much too many features for a start, council tools, commander system, ...). That those are unfinished has left me no calm minute and I decided to simplify our tasks and workflows, but I ran against closed doors both with the 0AD team and the Council, which seemed not to see that I targeted for 1 ModDB page, as few as possible webpages and fora and a git-focused development. (Niek proposed, the file structure we may request for 0AD Part 2, but what does this mean? - It means we have to wait YEARS for that to happen, which may be what our youngsters want to do, but not my minor guy.)

Therefore I decided to grab the problems at its root and now I only work for

opensource ecology,

0AD Extended

and my day job.

(this has nothing to do with what motivates me to do so, which of course has other less-material reasons)

I couldn't stand the neverending-stories that developped in the council, and I couldn't help but feel the team was not open to my radical proposals, which 0AD Extended brings. So definitely 0AD Extended needed to be a fork, with its own team, independent of all the other games that are based on pyrogenesis. 0AD is targetting city phases, 0AD Extended is the virtual time-machine, the goal I pursue in the virtual world, probably one of the last projects I'll tackle before I shift full force back to hardware development, as this is what really influences the world.

@LordGood: I have by all means always kept and still keep the efforts of the contributors (both artists and programmers) in highest honours. I plan to create a art gallery one day with all my favourite artworks of the planet to honour all these unseen talents out there that make this world a better place (at least try to).

0AD is still underestimated, it's already quite epic. Thanks to you guys and gals.

[niektb]

[...]

Instead Niek told us he thinks we'll not even ever finish RoTE. Of course perfection is inpossible, but we need to finish things or we have problems.

[...]

I never said that. I said that we wouldn't finish RotE before Alpha 17.

Anyway, I wish you all the best with your future work.

Edited October 1, 2014 by niektb

[Lion.Kanzen]

We need keep togheter Rada, we need you.we are few, and our projects are big, we sincerely do not end up separating.even we need increasing our members

[Radagast.]

Maybe you are right and I just misunderstood your message. Maybe you are wrong and you did just state that you wanted to polish it to perfection which for me means it will never be finished, because perfection is impossible. So this argument is a subjective matter.

I agree my recent flame war against you is inappropriate and just results from long frustration and your steady overruling. I hence wish you the very best for your ventures too. Lead the council to the glory it deserves.

Last thing I want to do is sacrificing quality because we want to get rid of the project. In fact, this is the perfect project to show of. I think our civ has already higher quality than the most other civs in the game (art-wise) but I think we can do even better and become the most awesome faction that exists ATM (hence I might be a bit nitpicky).

I made a full comprehensive list of it.

This is what I currently think that needs to be done. I sorted it out in 'full' tasks and 'fixing/enhancing' tasks (that require less work on paper):


Tasks:

• We haven't found a good, working solution for the rice fields atm, but we surely need one.
• I feel the units lack in texture variety. For example, the basic crossbowman is hardly distinguisable from the basic bowman.
• All civilizations have at least 3 heroes. I think we need a third one too.
• We currently don't have our own palisade.
• Do we want champion soldiers, and which?
• I think the trader needs a human walking along with it (currently it is a sole camel). Camel is apparently a not accurate one too.
• Government Center. I think it is better to push the Iron Casting tech to the blacksmith and make the Government Center bonus territory size and farm gathering rate.
• Ships are not done yet.

Fixing / Enhancing:

• I actually like only two of the four houses that are currently in-game. They could use some eye-candy (and maybe some small changes in the proportions). 2 houses do also not stretch into the ground. House obstructions are incorrect.

• Storehouse could use some props and the obstruction/footprint size is incorrect.
• Farmstead decal is too small. Props should be drop-propped. Should stretch into the ground.
• Corral decal should follow the terrain shape, props should be drop-propped. Should stretch into the ground.
• Market should stretch into the ground. Props should be drop-propped.
• Siege weapons are not animated.
• I personally don't like the outpost too much (but Stan says it is fine) what do the others think?
• Gates obstruction sizes are incorrect: Units can walk through a locked gate.

  

Last update: 16:54 GMT 19/09/2014

I tried to fix remaining issues of your list in a rush just before I retired (I also gave reasons as of why some of the items of your TODO list are optional like the hero count, but reasons seem not to matter). Essentially we even fixed the rice field terraces and showed the Scion 3D model for the government center too and Stan even adapted the outpost despite me trying to resurrect him by stating that the outpost is fine. Almost 80% of the list items were gone by then. But what you were able to say was just "Pssst. It's Scion that created the houses." while stan fully reworked them as he told us + UV re unwrapped them for the new texture of Enrique which is heaps of works anyway (and we made them stretch farther into the ground too recently which also needs quite some re-UV mapping). Something like that really makes me feel that you only listen to the - in your eyes - powerful (like Scion or 0AD team) and not to us, your comrades, which only added to my frustration and finally led to the explosion. It just made you appear a bit totalitarian.

So I hope you become more active in the art department yourself before you criticize other people's work. e.g. you destroyed all of Stan's work within few sentences when you stated that RoTE is all but finished (despite Stan's huge efforts over his holidays) or when you stated the ships were not yet added. That was not very careful, but don't worry I had to learn this too and I'm still a minor guy .

Therefore we best separate: you lead the Council of Modders of our dictator Romulus and my minor self cares for 0AD Extended that you tried to free the Council from.

@Lion + Councillors:

We need to stop thinking of recruiting and instead becoming active ourselves, then recruits will be inspired automatically, won't they?

The world doesn't need trailers, the world needs engines.

@LordGood: Generally creating assets for a mod, means you create them directly in the mod and test them in there. So no need to later rearrange the files. But I get the picture that the inconsistent file structures of 0AD and mods makes it no easier for our artists. I beg your pardon for that and it's clearly my fault that I chose Aristeia to experiment with a simpler and more coherent file structure.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Radagast.

[Radagast.]

@LordGood: The lack of commit-capable artists in the 0AD team shows that there quite some starting problems and I try to simplify the process by simplifying the file structure and making it more coherent. By no means I want to force you to think like I do, but the people that know both the programming and the art side of 0AD are few since some 0AD giants retired. So I don't expect anyone to see the anomalies and changes that are necessary to fix those.

But the anomalies are clear to new-comers. And the lack of commit-capable artists shows that we have reached too high a complexity and need to simplify and make more consequent use of the single-source principle. (I have already worked on a C++ addition to the Actor system to allow for better modularity.)

By all means I admire your work and the Mycaeneans are pure epicness. To me it not even matters if it gets into the game or not. For me it's enough if you created these artworks. That already added value to this world. Thanks for that.

I agree that I'm not up to waiting and waiting until my works get adapted. I just fear that I could be grey before things happen and thus I prefer to solve things immediately whenever possible (while devoting time is still the most awesome present you can give).

[Lion.Kanzen]

I have a idea to in order be more active why not create a schedule and write a serie of goals per project ? One weak or two per project

[Radagast.]

Schedules won't increase our efficiency, they'll decrease it. It's all about efficiency. Everyone is responsible for his/her efficiency and should work on what he/she likes to work on - no restrictions, so if you like to create fancy logos, go ahead, if you like to create new textures for RoTE units, go ahead - but try to be efficient and not lose too much time with it. That's what I mean.

[Lion.Kanzen]

May be you are right.

[niektb]

Ah, I haven't updated the list. Thanks for pointing me out.

Can you quote me on the word 'perfection'? I can't remember I used that. And I really hadn't the ambition to drag RotE on endlessly, I assure you (Why would I?). But I think achieving High Quality is a good thing to do (and doable considering our current state).

Edited October 2, 2014 by niektb

[Radagast.]

That I offended you publicly was another act of barbarism (rather like Saruman) by me and I wish to apologize for that. It was just that I felt you should know how I (mis)understood how you commented, which always made a very self-confident impression to the contrary of Stan who was the opposite. And thus he easily broke and thought his work now was hated which I fully understand.

e.g. instead of 'I don't like the houses.' we could say 'The houses are fine. They could extend farther into the ground. It might even be better if we added more props.' and so on. You surely get the point, your critic can sometimes be misunderstood as too harsh and subjective, because those open source contributors and artists are pretty sensistive people too. You know, they already have to defend themselves against permanent criticism in society because they work for 'nothing' for projects with high goals. Not many people accept this and it's really a downfall if any of these works are downplayed.

I agree perfection was what I understood. At any case, I wanted to finish RoTE ASAP because Scion's feedback was negative despite our efforts and because running aginast closed-doors is no easy task and makes reaching goals pretty difficult.

By all means I will stop my flame war. You are one our motors. We need to stick together. Now we have removed all discrepancies and will continue to try to reach the stars.

For a good cooperation of Council (where I'm still willing to help as much as possible), 0AD and 0AD Extended, which I hereby announce will be called 0BC.

[feneur]

For a good cooperation of Council (where I'm still willing to help as much as possible), 0AD and 0AD Extended, which I hereby announce will be called 0BC.

Are you now a part of the council again? (I.e. should I give you your forum privileges back?)

[Radagast.]

Thank you feneur. I'll try to help, but 0BC probably needs my humble self in the art department and therefore my time for helping organizing the forum or other webpages or being on IRC will be few. :/

I'd wish the Council to replace me. There must be a punishment for me and removing me from the moderators is appropriate. I also don't want to be in the way of Niek as our arguments are neither healthy for him nor for me. Therefore I wish to be noted as external contributor, friend of the council, or similar. The Council is in order now, it's time to hand the command over to our youngsters, they gave evidence for great talents and have deserved developing their own vision and goals.

My Overview topics have turned out to be failures (difficult too maintain, not an accurate enough reflection of historical reality, civilization interaction is more complex than I expected at first, it can't be structured, it's all interconnected).

[feneur]

Ok, it's up to you how you do things.