Really?

[Sundiata]

When I look at the staff directory, there's a lot of people who I'm sure have added a lot of value to the game at some point in the past 15 years, but many of them haven't even been on this forum in more than a year. Currently there is a relatively small group of high value content producers, who are all fundamental to the continued development of this game, and they're not even all staff. Wowgetoffyourcellphone is one of these, and needs to be accommodated as one of the most important mod-producers here, offering a quality alternative to the vanilla game, and in turn spurring the development of this game, generating interest and raising it's potential even further. I'm not saying he's right (I don't understand the issue, like literally, I don't understand code), but he shouldn't be treated so dismissively. 

I've only been active on this forum since December, but I've been following it for many years, and I've noticed a dark and obscure, self-defeating trend in this otherwise lovely community. High quality content producers, like artists, modders and coders barely get any kind of feedback on their work. No reactions, compliments, constructive criticisms... Sometimes nothing at all. And sometimes it can even get snarky, like now (and we've probably all been guilty of that at some point). If someone spends hours on top of hours, even week after week, or even years working on a project, all for 2 likes and an "oh, that's nice", it makes people lose heart, as if their work wasn't even worth all that effort (while it really was).

My point is that human resources are by far the most valuable resource of this game, and this shouldn't be treated so lightly. In the past few months, so much amazing stuff has been created not only for the Kushite faction or Delenda Est, but also for a Xiognu (mini?)-faction, the Thracians, the Norse, Anglo-Saxons, Hyrule Conquest and so many other things like experimental balancing mods and map-scripts, the order move indicator and a bunch of crazy code stuff I honestly don't understand, all with barely any reaction from the vast majority of people in this community. Why is everybody so silent? Stimulate development. Encourage artists. Showcase people's work. Help newbies acquire skills in the necessary fields by updating/simplifying the necessary wiki's/pages and improving user friendliness for non code-savy people. Welcome new people, ideas and content. Be patient with each other. Be patient with yourselves, and forgive one another's transgressions. 

Potatoes 

 

Edited September 28, 2017 by Sundiata

[Zeta1127]

I haven't even got around to porting 0 A.D. Empires Extended, my add-on or expansion mod that ports some Delenda Est civilizations into a RotE/Terra Magna style mod, to Alpha 22 or contributed to 0 A.D. yet, because my job search has gone so poorly, so I can't justify getting into a free project or modding.

The constant changes and wide variety of opinions definitely make doing anything for 0 A.D. difficult, but somehow the project keeps progressing and looking pretty good as Alphas progress.

[sphyrth]

Well, since Delenda Est seems to be going on a hiatus for a while I think I'm gonna have to rely on Monkey Wrench as the main Gameplay Mod.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I hope Michael will back.

[serveurix]

13 hours ago, Sundiata said:

[...]

Concerning the mods, I still don't have an accurate view of which ones are libre and which ones are not. If you could provide me with a list of the mods and an up-to-date and reliable copyright status for each of them, I would very likely take a look at the ones that are libre.

[Nescio]

1 hour ago, serveurix said:

Concerning the mods, I still don't have an accurate view of which ones are libre and which ones are not. If you could provide me with a list of the mods and an up-to-date and reliable copyright status for each of them, I would very likely take a look at the ones that are libre.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you can safely assume any mod is completely free and open source, and presumably is covered by the same copyright license as the default 0 A.D. distribution.

[Servo]

I’m sure they are all free.

I just prefer Vox if played in MP due to cavalry attack rate and 2 process before additional training can be done. The added animals in the corral are really fun in SP. 

Nescios 0abc can have more depth with most units requiring metal but his cavalry attack rate at 1 second is still quite OP. I’m waiting for his new update...

DE with many factions but too many cheap techs make the units looking like invincible with cavs having 1second attack rate also. DE cavalry accuracy seems still the same as vanilla which is really nice in SP. The aura thing is a nice meta to discourage turtling. New maps are really nice the Kushites as well.

The simple Mil AD is fine and quite less or no bug but cavs still has 3.5 sec attack rate. I’m wondering how the Norse could fare agains any Civ due to lack in cavalry. Or maybe it’s one way of balancing teams in MP. If one team has an OP player he can use the Norse...

Probalance wild animals lure is one big contribution. 

Well I hope @wowgetoffyourcellphone comes back and cooler heads must be restored. 

Edited September 28, 2017 by Servo

[leper]

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you can safely assume any mod is completely free and open source, and presumably is covered by the same copyright license as the default 0 A.D. distribution.

That's not how things work though. If there is no license you can assume that the thing grants you no rights at all. So add a license, and take care where you get your files from.

[Nescio]

9 minutes ago, leper said:

That's not how things work though. If there is no license you can assume that the thing grants you no rights at all. So add a license, and take care where you get your files from.

You're right, in most situations that's completely true. However, many mods simply consist of slightly edited files from the default distribution and as far as I know, people can not claim copyright conflicting with the license of the original files from which they're derived.

18 minutes ago, Servo said:

Nescios 0abc can have more depth with most units requiring metal but his cavalry attack rate at 1 second is still quite OP. I’m waiting for his new update...

All human soldiers have an attack rate of 1 s; given that cavalry is more expensive, can not build nor gather most resources, and occupies two population slots instead of one, I think it's justified they have a somewhat higher attack than infantry. Anyway, I'm still making minor corrections and updates to my 0abc mod, the most recent version is from yesterday; see the github repository: https://github.com/0abc/0abc-unified

 

 

And yes, I do hope wowgetoffyourcellphone won't quite over an apparent misunderstanding and will return soon.

[Hannibal_Barca]

4 hours ago, serveurix said:

Concerning the mods, I still don't have an accurate view of which ones are libre and which ones are not. If you could provide me with a list of the mods and an up-to-date and reliable copyright status for each of them, I would very likely take a look at the ones that are libre.

Ancient Empires - independent mod

Delenda Est - independent mod

Pro Balance mod- concept test

0abc - balance

Vox Populi - balance

Monkey Wrench - balance

Ponies Ascendant - fun

and probably a few more too but these are the ones on the first page

[Lion.Kanzen]

15 hours ago, sphyrth said:

Well, since Delenda Est seems to be going on a hiatus for a while I think I'm gonna have to rely on Monkey Wrench as the main Gameplay Mod.

ita no the same... remember DE add new factions.

[leper]

You're right, in most situations that's completely true. However, many mods simply consist of slightly edited files from the default distribution and as far as I know, people can not claim copyright conflicting with the license of the original files from which they're derived.

They still own the copyright of the parts they added (and so far I don't think I've seen any non-testing mod that doesn't add new units or new technologies, where the latter is clearly the better example fo them not just changing things). So either put the modified things under the same terms (as that is what the licenses of the source material require) or they are breaking the license of the source material. That doesn't automatically put those modifications under that license. (At least that is my rough understanding, consult some copyright lawyer if you want legal advise.)

Also the licenses of the source (CC-BY-SA and GPL (for the most part) do not impose their terms on collections of things where only some of the content is licensed under one of those. And one could argue that someone writing a tech or a component is doing so against an API or a specification, and since JS code isn't linked that is where the license terms of that API ends. Then again by how JS and mods work that means one has to distribute the code to everyone and inspecting that is easy, so trying to make a non-FOSS component is somewhat pointless (given a trade secret logic).

That doesn't mean non-free (in the FOSS/FSF/CC sense) mods aren't possible, and a mod shipping art under another license (eg one of the CC-NC licenses) would be possible. Same for source code, but I suspect someone writing code would like support in case they run into issues. Which also reminds me that a certain mod which is the cause for this topic did (haven't checked for ages) ship quite a few icons from other games which is certainly infringing on the copyright of those that made them.

Also the above mod list is incomplete and lacking the mods maintained by the Council of Modders.

[Zeta1127]

There is also my mod, 0 A.D. Empires Expanded, but I haven't updated it to Alpha 22 or released it to the public.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Zeta1127
Adding forum thread link.

[Sundiata]

And Rise of the East/Terra Magna. (new civilisations) and Hyrule Conquest (Zelda)

See, these mods really need to be showcased in an easy to find and access directory. Particularly the most stable/popular mods, with descriptions, clear download instructions for all operating systems, and pretty screenshots . 

Allowing newer alphas to play mods built on older versions would be really nice, so that mods that aren't updated regularly are still playable after alpha-releases. 

Edited September 28, 2017 by Sundiata

[WhiteTreePaladin]

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

Allowing newer alphas to play mods built on older versions would be really nice, so that mods that aren't updated regularly are still playable after alpha-releases. 

I really like this, but I doubt it can be done. There are too many changes from one release to the next for a mod of a previous alpha to work.

[Stan`]

Though if it's only a content mod and doesn't change much it should work. 

[sphyrth]

22 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

ita no the same... remember DE add new factions.

Sure. But I have to at least hold on to something. We'll just have to see how the other balance mods fare out.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Delenda est was more than regular game, most like an expansion. good counters.

the first attempt to have Mercenary camps ans working slave system.

 

good maps Michael/Justus @Mythos_Ruler was great modder from AoM and he join to the project, he desing mostly of desing documents.

at last @DarcReaver have reason. the actual game haven't any charming... he try give more differences between factions.

 

the good thing is a save his work in my mod Delenda Est still life. even if he delete his files.

[DarcReaver]

On 9/28/2017 at 7:05 PM, Hannibal_Barca said:

Ancient Empires - independent mod

Delenda Est - independent mod

Pro Balance mod- concept test

0abc - balance

Vox Populi - balance

Monkey Wrench - balance

Ponies Ascendant - fun

and probably a few more too but these are the ones on the first page

 

On 9/28/2017 at 11:03 PM, Zeta1127 said:

There is also my mod, 0 A.D. Empires Expanded, but I haven't updated it to Alpha 22 or released it to the public.

So many mods, so many people working on essentially the same - making the graphic demo somewhat playable. Some a bit more design oriented, and others stats oriented. But still. If the dev staff would actually at least use one of those concepts as a base game this would be honestly a huge milestone. But obviously it's better to stick with an unenjoyable mess than to make soemthing out of the potential. Also, see below.

On 9/27/2017 at 7:29 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yeah, good luck on this fecking game. I'll take a look in 5-6 years to see if you've finished it yet. Done wasting my time trying to improve this on this pice of chit.

 

"Good bye and good riddance." There, said it for you.

tbh after the announcement of AoE II DE, AoE I DE and AoE IV I don't see much reason to work on this unless the dev staff gets their guts together to build something different than a mediocre AoE clone. I said it in the past that it's a waste of time, remember guys? And no, I'm not sarcastic at this point. I'm pretty disappointed tbh.

On 9/27/2017 at 2:35 AM, leper said:

So don't. Where's the problem? If you decide to change intermediary templates in a mod instead of adding new ones you have to deal with changes anyway. So either deal with them or don't deal with them, but stop complaining.

 

This comment was extremely rude. This attitude breaks communities and ultimately damages the project you're working on.You pretty much showed that you have absolutely ZERO apprecation on wow's hard work on DE. ESPECAILLY considering that 0 AD without any gameplay related mod literally is a piece of @#$% to play, more like an (admittedly pretty) tech demo than a game at all.

If someone on my staff in Eastern Front would show this kind of attitude would be kicked off the team immediately, unless a proper apology and reasoning is given - and the issue would not be repeated again.

 

On 9/27/2017 at 8:51 AM, LordGood said:

That's just the nature of an open source project. Everyone has their own vision and they collide either creatively or destructively. I know I quit 'solo modding' after I honed my skills enough to get a feel for how things work. Modding is a waste of time at this point if you're looking for an end product. The thing is Terra Magna is a testing ground for civs so it wont break so often, Delenda Est and other balance mods are gameplay mods so you're going to be locking antlers with the dev team when we make any kind of progress/clean up code.

You have to understand too, I'm sure many of the devs are just as embittered about this. I know I haven't really had fun playing 0 AD since A16 did away with multiplier counters, and later PA. Not to say I didn't have a smattering of fun games along the way.

My job here is easy enough in that I just have to make things look pretty. I have my own vision for this game, but I'd rather see things centralized and strong than contribute to this 'warring states' period we're going through now.

That's the main reason why the resources (the limited time/motivation of modders contributing) must be used as efficiently as possible. The issue is that there should be people on the staff who actually concentrate and channel the "free contributions" into a proper game concept, and then work towards finishing it. This is the main issue with 0 AD, and has been this way since years. And after so many years I think the development has lost all its momentum - and it's unlikely you'll get it started again.

Maybe restarting the project completely with a new staff, using the current 0 AD as a base and recruiting new people would help.

Edited October 5, 2017 by DarcReaver

[fatherbushido]

7 minutes ago, DarcReaver said:

But still. If the dev staff would actually at least use one of those concepts as a base game this would be honestly a huge milestone. But obviously it's better to stick with an unenjoyable mess than to make soemthing out of the potential. Also, see below.

tbh after the announcement of AoE II DE, AoE I DE and AoE IV I don't see much reason to work on this unless the dev staff gets their guts together to build something different than a mediocre AoE clone. I said it in the past that it's a waste of time, remember guys? And no, I'm not sarcastic at this point. I'm pretty disappointed tbh.

 

7 minutes ago, DarcReaver said:

This comment was extremely rude. This attitude breaks communities and ultimately damages the project you're working on.You pretty much showed that you have absolutely ZERO apprecation on wow's hard work on DE, and opposed to vanilla 0 AD it has a proper gameplay concept behind it. If someone on my staff in Eastern Front would show this kind of attitude would be kicked off the team immediately, unless a proper apology and reasoning is given - and the issue would not be repeated again.

Rudeness is a relative concept.

[av93]

I will just point that this is not a waste of time, it's a game engine. A lot of people have throw a lot of effort, not only modders.

But a proper game design will make the game shine or not. 

[DarcReaver]

4 minutes ago, av93 said:

I will just point that this is not a waste of time, it's a game engine. A lot of people have throw a lot of effort, not only modders.

But a proper game design will make the game shine or not. 

That's the point. As long as the aim is to make a mediocre AoE clone (that's what I've written and what I refer to as "waste of time") - and this is what the game could be compared to (at best and with a lot of goodwill) it indeed is a waste of time to work in this while the "real thing" is coming. It was already problematic when AoE II HD was announced, but now it's even worse.

Edited October 5, 2017 by DarcReaver

[Nescio]

Yes, 0 A.D. is quite similar to Age of Empires, as are Command & Conquer, Cossacks, Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, and many other games, which is probably unavoidable. Citizen-soldiers, capturable buildings, and territory are rather minor points. There are just two fundamental differences:

• 0 A.D. is free and open source (and available for many different operating systems) and can thus be adapted, modified, or serve as a basis for future games.
• 0 A.D. has been in development for years and is unlikely to be finished in the forseeable future.

Those looking for an end product might regret the second point; personally I think it's actually the greatest strength that the game is in constant development and will possibly never be finished. 0 A.D. can always be changed, updated, improved, and expanded, unlike commercial games designed for profit, which have to be released at a certain date and won't be changed afterwards.

Yes, 0 A.D. is far from perfect, I'm the first to admit that. However, keep in mind it's still an Alpha. Nevertheless, the game is already playable, enjoyable, and modifiable, which is simply great. We should be grateful for everyone who has contributed in the past and for everyone who's currently helping to improve the game.

Yes, 0 A.D.'s “Empires Ascendant” default distribution certainly has to be improved. However, different people have different ideas, and in group projects such as this it's often quite hard to find concensus on how to change the status quo. Far more important than the actual content (art, factions, templates, unit statistics, etc.) are the efficiency and performance of the underlying engine and the need for a capable and flexible AI. Everyone who watches https://code.wildfiregames.com/ can see that every day several people work on improving the game. Undoubtedly many persons have left over the years, but others are still contributing, and new people are always welcome. As long as that remains the case, progress is constantly made, and 0 A.D., which already is a great game, can only get better.

[Sundiata]

11 hours ago, Nescio said:

personally I think it's actually the greatest strength that the game is in constant development and will possibly never be finished. 0 A.D. can always be changed, updated, improved, and expanded, unlike commercial games designed for profit, which have to be released at a certain date and won't be changed afterwards.

My thoughts exactly... It's ever-changing nature is it's greatest strength. 

I do understand the frustrations shared by a lot of people, and I do actually think that the team isn't putting enough effort in to attracting new content producers and maintaining the current community of active members, or showcasing peoples' work and promotion for the game in general. The same issues also keep popping up incessantly by new players, and not much is done with it outside of the mods:

• citizen soldier-concept needs a remake: people that work and fight is awesome, but there need to be common labourers, better at economic activities (not only women) 
• destroy needs to be the default over capture
• counters are impossible to understand for new-comers, and experienced players trip over this as well
• battalions, formations and armies need to be implemented convincingly 
• overly aggressive AI (there should be two more, equally competent AI's: a reactionary one, and a defensive one)  
• more variety/options in general, like DE

Yes, I understand, these things need competent people to work on them. But what is the team doing to attract those people? Don't get me wrong, I know there's a lot of silent heroes coding away: @elexis, @mimo, @fatherbushido, @leper, @Pureon, @bb_, @Imarok, @Itms, @fabio, @implodedok, and many others... Shout out to you all for the amazing work so far. I've really enjoyed watching 0AD evolve and improve over the years. I just think you could use some help seen as the to-do list is still quite considerable, and valuable people like @wowgetoffyourcellphone leaving isn't helping development of new content.

I think the true potential of 0AD is often overlooked, and we end up with a game trying to stream-line itself for competitive online game-play, but will feel empty without expanded single player options. 

Bottom-line, the game can be a lot more than it is now (expanded economy/technologies, modest city-building elements, battalions and armies and improved battle-mechanics, updated and more realistic maps/smoother terrain textures, etc). It's often remarked how much this game looks like AOEII, but the truth is, 0AD has the potential to be much greater than Age of Empires ever was, or ever will be! I'm very confident we can wipe the floor with the upcoming Age of Empires releases! We just need the right people working on the right things... 

Now really wouldn't be a bad time to set up a "game-plan" for the next release. An expansive, and clear, public discussion on the forums about what absolutely needs to be added/changed in the next release and how to go about it, with more considerations for the recurring issues listed above (and the various "requested features" topics). With active participation from the development team, so that people in the community can feel they're being listened to by the people actually implementing changes. Maybe someone like @feneur could start and moderate this discussion, with the first post keeping track of the agreed upon changes.

 

Edited October 6, 2017 by Sundiata

[Lion.Kanzen]

For now I'm not worried, Ms aren't solving user problem in their games and the beta of DE. With problem with this Definitive edition is the money. Ms don't want put game in steam and is exclusive to Win10. Their developers don't care ask. AoE4 will fragments their community. (Competitive vs hardcore old style)+casual public.

The developers are the same, that ruined Dow series but who make CoH. And probably don't have any advanced.

 

I'm part of forums of Aoe, but AoE series never satisfies my desires, like 0 a.d or RTW.

Well portrait of ancient civs isn't easy.

by other side developer can't be react in that way. I people come and quit since 2012. some are really missed.