Fork AD

[fatherbushido]

Greetings!

As some of you might have noticed development has nearly come to a halt a while ago. This was not only caused by issues around the initial attempt at releasing Alpha 23, but also regarding how development was done, and a certain number of internal conflicts. A few people were not quite happy with where the development was going, or how the team "interacted" with each other. A long time ago the team at least had each other's backs in cases of conflict. Apparently this ceased to be the case a while ago.

You might now wonder why this sad story above is the start of this communication. Well, some of us decided that we were not happy with this, and after each and every one of us stopped considering the current team in this state to be good steersmen we decided to give the whole community an alternative.

Please let us introduce you to Fork AD.

The amount of changes that have been made to the code since we forked is greater in number than the amount of changes to WFG's SVN repo since May. That may not sound like a lot, until you consider that we've been at this for less than a month, and WFG allegedly has a lot more active members.

Now we know you've been craving to know some details of what we've changed so far. Apart from fixing some glaring bugs in the code that were even pointed out to WFG when they were noticed, we are updating a lot of things so we don't place users of our code at risk. There also is a lot better Single Player support, though one could blame that on most of said code effectively being unmaintained, better mod support, improved development tools, a bunch of housekeeping that was needed, and more.

If you now ask yourself when and where you can download Fork AD, we still have to defer you to a later point. We will release for all supported platforms, which are still Linux, macOS, Windows, and BSDs, once we are confident that we are releasing something that fullfills your expectations, and is something we can be proud of.

Although the progress has already been substantial, we are always open for reinforcement, either from new people or from those disappointed or demotivated by the WFG direction. Artists in particular are very welcomed.

As said before, the state of that fork is not yet publicly available, but all information will be given on our website when available.

Meanwhile, you can reach us at https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=forkad

Kind regards,
fatherbushido, leper and mimo.

Edited December 22, 2018 by fatherbushido
edit irc link

[Guest]

(That the final name?, not saying it’s bad or anything.)

[Nescio]

Finally some good news!

[Lion.Kanzen]

I translate the new to Spanish community this way you can have more attention.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Kind of an odd announcement. Nothing to show. Best wishes though.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Kind of an odd announcement. Nothing to show. Best wishes though.

Maybe counter could  back...

[nani]

Is this to be taken as a final stance on no longer collaborating in the main branch or could there be some resolution? I'm out of the loop on the past events ... pity.:(

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

So I guess there are a few questions regarding this.  Are there any substantial design differences in mind?  How does the fork AD team hope to create a different culture from the WFG team to ensure that both individual voices are relevant while also pushing towards a common goal?  

[Rolf Dew]

It's kind of sad that 0ad will be split, but alas some things happen. What are the advantages of this fork? Will new features be developed to diffenteriate this from the main game? @fatherbushido

[Guest]

2 hours ago, nani said:

Is this to be taken as a final stance on no longer collaborating in the main branch or could there be some resolution? I'm out of the loop on the past events ... pity.:(

It’s just three guys deciding to continue on the project on their terms. Which isn’t bad. After all, all three left this one quite some time ago. And this is what makes OpenSource so great.

While I also have no clue on what exactly happened, I did had a general idea of whats going on through reading logs and stuff. Especially before mimo left. (The other two were long gone before I got here).

[Rolf Dew]

5 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

It’s just three guys deciding to continue on the project on their terms. Which isn’t bad. After all, all three left this one quite some time ago. And this is what makes OpenSource so great.

While I also have no clue on what exactly happened, I did had a general idea of whats going on through reading logs and stuff. Especially before mimo left. (The other two were long gone before I got here).

True! I just hope this doesn't split the community or potential contributers to the code. (As in delay the release of new alphas in 0 ad)

[asterix]

11 hours ago, fatherbushido said:

Greetings!

As some of you might have noticed development has nearly come to a halt a while ago. This was not only caused by issues around the initial attempt at releasing Alpha 23, but also regarding how development was done, and a certain number of internal conflicts. A few people were not quite happy with where the development was going, or how the team "interacted" with each other. A long time ago the team at least had each other's backs in cases of conflict. Apparently this ceased to be the case a while ago.

You might now wonder why this sad story above is the start of this communication. Well, some of us decided that we were not happy with this, and after each and every one of us stopped considering the current team in this state to be good steersmen we decided to give the whole community an alternative.

Please let us introduce you to Fork AD.

The amount of changes that have been made to the code since we forked is greater in number than the amount of changes to WFG's SVN repo since May. That may not sound like a lot, until you consider that we've been at this for less than a month, and WFG allegedly has a lot more active members.

Now we know you've been craving to know some details of what we've changed so far. Apart from fixing some glaring bugs in the code that were even pointed out to WFG when they were noticed, we are updating a lot of things so we don't place users of our code at risk. There also is a lot better Single Player support, though one could blame that on most of said code effectively being unmaintained, better mod support, improved development tools, a bunch of housekeeping that was needed, and more.

If you now ask yourself when and where you can download Fork AD, we still have to defer you to a later point. We will release for all supported platforms, which are still Linux, macOS, Windows, and BSDs, once we are confident that we are releasing something that fullfills your expectations, and is something we can be proud of.

Although the progress has already been substantial, we are always open for reinforcement, either from new people or from those disappointed or demotivated by the WFG direction. Artists in particular are very welcomed.

As said before, the state of that fork is not yet publicly available, but all information will be given on our website when available.

Meanwhile, you can reach us at https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fork-ad

Kind regards,
fatherbushido, leper and mimo.

It saddens me when I see splitting of forces, however, since I have been following this project since its beginnings this move was quite inevitable. Nonetheless, as it was already said by @(-_-) the advantages of opensource approach are limitless if you give your soul into it, that is.   Moreover, I wish that you guys will bring us a new outlook, additions on RTS genre being it big or small as it was in the past decade which I would be grateful.  ( I may visit you sometime to see how things are or if you need some help as well)  So I wish you guys fare thee well and luck in your journey and I hope we will hear from you sometime  @fatherbushido @mimo and @leper.

[av93]

I just hope that both teams would have a pacific even a good relantionship. 

What happens if one of the two teams make an advancement that can benefit both? Just hope that splitting doesn't mean stopping sharing

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 hours ago, Rolf Dew said:

True! I just hope this doesn't split the community or potential contributers to the code. (As in delay the release of new alphas in 0 ad)

Then we are more now. They were retired.  1+1=2 two game devs...

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

8 hours ago, av93 said:

I just hope that both teams would have a pacific even a good relantionship. 

What happens if one of the two teams make an advancement that can benefit both? Just hope that splitting doesn't mean stopping sharing

The thing about open source is that you can't really stop others from using "your" code as long as they adhere to the original license. Both WFG and Fork AD can and will likely mix and match code and assets just like the mods have.

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The thing about open source is that you can't really stop others from using "your" code as long as they adhere to the original license. Both WFG and Fork AD can and will likely mix and match code and assets just like the mods have.

Yes they can even use our factions from the mods.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The best they can do quickly for starting a community is maybe instead of a forum, make a Reddit community and use discord.

So then start recruting artist and programmers, then an community manager and don't forgot use Indiedb. So youtuber can start to videos about new project.

Easy, quickly , cheap.

[Guest]

(History tells us that the most common way a fork succeeds is if/when the original one dies. XFree86 among others. This doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions. 0AD and fork AD could hopefully be something like OpenBSD and NetBSD.)

[Servo]

I will support both groups as I support the continued development of the game. 

0ad is quite strong already but for me I will play the game that has features of my liking. Likewise the remaining dev team is really doing well to keep players enjoy the game. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 12/11/2018 at 9:03 PM, nani said:

Is this to be taken as a final stance on no longer collaborating in the main branch or could there be some resolution? I'm out of the loop on the past events ... pity.:(

In think this was internal, the users and non team collaborators are aware of this things.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

13 hours ago, Servo said:

0ad is quite strong already but for me I will play the game that has features of my liking.

If Fork A.D. doesn't do anything significantly different to the gameplay, then what would be the point? Real question to mr bushido. 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I think that there are a couple things to be gleaned from the opening post.  First, it seems that the team of fork can commit changes more easily than through WFG, leading to bugs and other issues being fixed.  Since these three presumably trust each other well, they are able to work uninhibited, making the overall pace of development considerably faster it seems.  While these seem to be minor, they are quality of life improvements by far that need to happen at some stage.  

In honesty, I along with others am intrigued by how substantially the gameplay will change though.

[Guest]

On 12/12/2018 at 2:09 AM, fatherbushido said:

The amount of changes that have been made to the code since we forked is greater in number than the amount of changes to WFG's SVN repo since May. That may not sound like a lot, until you consider that we've been at this for less than a month, and WFG allegedly has a lot more active members.

Which is sadly accessible just to those three at the moment. But yes, it is intriguing.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Guest

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

I think that there are a couple things to be gleaned from the opening post.  First, it seems that the team of fork can commit changes more easily than through WFG, leading to bugs and other issues being fixed.  Since these three presumably trust each other well, they are able to work uninhibited, making the overall pace of development considerably faster it seems.  While these seem to be minor, they are quality of life improvements by far that need to happen at some stage.  

In honesty, I along with others am intrigued by how substantially the gameplay will change though.

• But the problem they start without art department... Will be very hard attract players without gameplay mechanics or features. They need some kind of advertising... Or publicity likeMayorcetegaming or MssterofRolfness or any other big youtuber in RTS genre.
• A IRC kind of chat is very rare in this time, probably for programmers or geeks but... Not for an artist.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[Itms]

We welcome the constructive approach chosen by the creators of Fork AD. We didn't, indeed, agree on the design of the development environment, on the communication methods, and on how to ultimately make the process enjoyable for all team members. We are happy that they can still contribute to 0 A.D. as a project, even if it is as a separate group. We are grateful for their many past contributions and we hope that the new situation brings balance to both teams.

Nevertheless, Wildfire Games wishes to clarify that we have been making progress on the game continuously and continue doing so. Much of the recent work was either administrative, or targeted at the future Alpha 24, thus could not be directly seen in the number of commits made. Members of the community have expressed a desire to be more involved and informed, so we are taking measures to open up some internal discussions. This will allow our hard work to be more visible.

On behalf of the team,