Is it done yet?

[Vaevictis_Music]

Achilles, are you sure that it isn't frustration with the waiting time that's carrying over into frustration with the communication? I'm not really seeing what it is you want that you're not getting.

You're getting visual representations of the game's progress whenever we release screenshots and showcases. And you're getting the intricate progress details from our feed on the front page. Yes, they're technical and not always understandable to anyone. I know I don't have a clue what many of those updates mean. But that's just the thing: Development consists exactly of thousands of little baby steps like that which only make sense to the person or the department that contributed them. Now can you see why we can't give you a date for completion? That would require that someone translated updates like:

- "improvements to app_hooks"

- "added sound cone functionality"

- "Tidied up some code."

into an overall percentage. No one's doing that at the moment. Normally, a game company would have to gauge their overall progress in order to satisfy publisher demands. We don't have those. Therefore, we keep building the game brick by brick without giving a fig about whether "fixes for vc8 optimization" pushes us from 74% complete to 75% complete.

So to sum up - you're getting visual feedback through the screenshots, and you're getting technical, day-to-day feedback through the front page feed. You're requesting more than that. Fair enough. Suggest to us in which form we should give further feedback. If it's reasonable, we could implement it for you.

About the calc image - you're suggesting that it was intended as a slap in the face. It wasn't - it was meant as a joke. You might be offended because you don't expect to see such frivolities from real game companies. Well, we're not one. We reserve and deserve the right to lighten up the mood and keep the tone light - not only for you, but for ourselves too. We're just as much unpaid users as you are, and we have to deal with the waiting time as much as you. We've had internal team discussions about how much professionalism to exude, and we believe we've found the right balance between actually getting stuff done, and still being able to laugh a bit at ourselves and each other in public channels. I think most 'fans' hanging around here have adapted that stance very well, resulting in free and open discussion between team and non-team people instead of viewing us as two separate entities. But if you feel that tone is lacking in seriousness or professionalism, I can understand why you'll want to leave.

Finally, to actually answer your many questions:

Once again - I simply have to ask - should we stop waiting?

To be honest, yes, I believe you (personally) should. From your posts, it seems like the waiting time gives you more frustrations than pleasures, and that's a good reason to give the 0 A.D. forums a rest, in my opinion. If the waiting type is no longer a positive experience, which it actually *can* be, when you're in good company, then yes, you should start thinking about other things, for your own sake.

I personally have gone back to playing Age of Mythology and I also play AOEIII Warchiefs - AOM is suprisingly easy to get a ladder game and AOEIII is getting plenty of play.

This is what I'm talking about - diverting your attention elsewhere instead of waiting on a project which you don't feel gives you enough feedback.

Can you help some of us put into perspective the 0AD project in terms of just the raw ability to play super competitive games online?

No. No one has played a full game of 0 A.D. yet, let alone a multiplayer game. We have some ideas for how we *want* multiplayer to work, of which some are outlined in our released documentation, but that doesn't sound like what you're looking for.

2008?

If we're finished.

I think it's time to give you guys a dose of reality here - according to the fact this project is 6 years old

Even disregarding that development started a lot later, I believe this is where the *real* flaming started. All team members have gone out of their way to be civil towards you, but to 'give a dose of reality' to a team of over 20 members of whom many work daily on this game for no pay, in areas that you probably don't even know exist - this is where the thread went from civility to plain arrogance. We, as a 20+-member entity, have some *very* accurate ideas of what 'reality' entails. We've learned the hard way over the years. We also exchange doses of reality regularly in our private communication channels, when new problems come up and new challenges have to be overcome. If you feel that 'reality' equals reminding us that "this project is 6 years old", then thank you, but we know exactly how old the project is, and it is of absolutely *no* relevance to our current situation.

- we hear "rumors" of something happening - but that has been going on since rumor was mid summer 2006...

I honestly don't see what you're getting at. Even if there had been 'rumors of something happening' since 1980, that still doesn't change where we are now, which challenges we're facing, what tasks we still have to do, etc. We try to limit ourselves in making actual promises, and when we do make them, we try to keep them. But we can't really be held responsible for 'rumors of something happening', because frankly, we're too busy making a game.

Don't you think your fans deserve a clear and candid statement on this game and it's future?

Absolutely not. The fact that a group of people come together to make a game doesn't put obligations upon them to share *anything* with non-team-members. Hell, if we wanted to, we could develop this game solely for the purpose of playing it ourselves.

That we offer people the chance to comment on forums, or make a webpage with info, or give regular updates, or respond to questions, or actually *play* the game one day, should *not* be confused with any duty to do *even more* to *anyone*.

Take a look at http://www.limbogame.org/ - a website for an upcoming game. The released information on the game so far is pretty much limited to what you can find on that website, and it has been like that for maybe 2 years. The game could be abandoned at this point with no one knowing. Now, do you feel that the makers of this game are betraying their fanbase by not giving regular updates? Personally, I think it's commendable that they've actually taken the time to create a website and share at least little bit of information. They should be able to do this without being under obligation to give more and more. Similarly, I don't see why our taking the time to put up a comprehensible 0 A.D. website and a channel of communication can actually be taken as a reason for demanding *even more*.

Now, if we received funds from fans, or planned to take money for the game, or if you had contributed *anything* to the project, then you might have a point. In that case, we would be under moral obligations to 'give back'. But you're asking if we feel we owe you something. The answer is unpleasant, but honest: We only owe something to the people who have given their time to the project.

As a final word, I'd like you to go back to post #43, written by you. It says:

Wow.

That is a really impressive way of turning off a fan in a permanant way. -1 0 AD fan.

Good luck.

Preceding that post, no one has made anything that even came close to a snide remark towards you. Rather, team members have gone out of their way to be civil and polite. I'd advise you to read through the thread and find even *one* instance of anything that can be construed as a flame against you. I'd say that this post is the first with even a hint of brutal honesty from a team member. Which brings us back to my first line - that I think your impatience with the game is carrying over to impatience with extremely civil, friendly and dedicated team members.

In any case, good luck with your absence from the 0 A.D. forums, and I hope that you'll come back again to play the game when the day comes - and that, even if the year is 2008 by then - you feel recompensated and that maybe waiting was part of the experience after all.

Edited January 14, 2007 by Vaevictis_Music

[Belisarivs]

Hi.

I wish you much luck and fun with your development.

Don't feel ashamed in any way. From your artwork and screens you post it is obvious to me that you enjoy development and work around 0AD. That is something, that isn't as natural as someone could think of and there are many games where I have feeling that it was done by machines not by people who love their work (err, something I see when I look at Vista).

Although non-opensourcing is something what disappoints me a bit. I know, decision is up to you. And I'm happy that you do game which will run fine in Linux.

I just think, that opensourcing will not remove control over the product from your hands. All it does is, that anyone with read access to the CVS or SVN (or anything like this) will be able to download, compile and play your game. And read access can be limited by password and other mechanisms, too.

Have a look at development of Linux kernel. It is Open Source software, yet its developers have hierarchy and only few are allowed to commit changes of the code to the dev tree. Others have to send them their patches and these have to be reviewed by someone who has rights to commit it. So, control over development style and vision is IMHO definitely not an issue.

But as I said, decision is up to you. I just want to defend OS idea, not to rant.

Just a question, for which architectures will be final 0AD game compiled?

I ask because advantage of OS is, that you can compile your code to fit your hw best. And there is another question. How significant would this be on different architectures (P4, Athlon64 ..., perhaps even PPC) if you compile your game for i686?

I have an idea. I did brief look if there is some RSS feed, but I've found none. Honestly, I visit 0AD web-page quite rarely. Perhaps RSS with info about development and so won't hurt. If there's one, I apologise for blindness .

Edited January 14, 2007 by Belisarivs

[Mythos_Ruler]

RSS feed has been discussed. Possibly implemented in future. Others will answer your compiling questions.

[Ykkrosh]

something I see when I look at Vista and Beryl, difference is just immense.

I bet Vista doesn't have the window decorations disappear at random intervals, and doesn't have windows occasionally be entirely black until you minimise and restore them. But Beryl is much more fun to use . (I had 0 A.D. running on the rotating cube desktop a while ago, which was nice, though it took a couple of days to compile enough of Gentoo...)

for which architectures will be final 0AD game compiled?

I think currently the only plan is for x86 (so not PPC or x86-64), though it shouldn't be impossible to port the code onto others. We don't have any plans at the moment about processor-specific compiler flags (optimising for i386 vs pentium4 vs pentium-m or whatever) or even about what compiler to use (gcc vs icc) - the difference in performance will probably be quite small, so it's not terribly important, but I guess we'll just experiment and see what works best.

I did brief look if there is some RSS feed, but I've found none

There's one on the forums here which has the news from the front page. But it'd be useful to know if there's other kinds of information you'd want to see.

[Belisarivs]

I bet Vista doesn't have the window decorations disappear at random intervals, and doesn't have windows occasionally be entirely black until you minimise and restore them. But Beryl is much more fun to use . (I had 0 A.D. running on the rotating cube desktop a while ago, which was nice, though it took a couple of days to compile enough of Gentoo...)

I wrote it wrongly. That is why I did decent corrections to the text. I was disturbed several times and wrote it under impression of IMHO rather impolite request for revealing exact date when 0AD is out.

Back to the Beryl. I meant it that for me it is quite obvious, that developers of Windows did not enjoy their work. You can not compare of stability of Final product (it sounds weird as we all know that none Windows are final product, at least until several service packs are released) ready for stores and experimental subversion snapshot under heavy development where new features are added still even when it has many already.

What we can compare is number of features. None can argue, that Aero is no match for Beryl in this.

I thing, that M$s attempt to go with Linux and Mac OS on par with desktop had little affect and it will last only short time.

And it is obvious to me, that MS is clearly copying from Mac while adding almost none own desktop features.

It surprises me a lot that while it has so few features, it is so hardware hungry.

I think currently the only plan is for x86 (so not PPC or x86-64), though it shouldn't be impossible to port the code onto others. We don't have any plans at the moment about processor-specific compiler flags (optimising for i386 vs pentium4 vs pentium-m or whatever) or even about what compiler to use (gcc vs icc) - the difference in performance will probably be quite small, so it's not terribly important, but I guess we'll just experiment and see what works best.

x86? And which architecture? I think, that it should i686. I thing, that all processors able to run 0AD are compatible with it.

There's one on the forums here which has the news from the front page. But it'd be useful to know if there's other kinds of information you'd want to see.

I think, that is would be cool to put in RSS feed with revision log. Just to show that there is progress in RSS.

BTW, I wasn't looking for RSS at forums page but at 0AD page. Perhaps putting it here, too won't hurt.

Thanks for answers.

Regards.

Edited January 15, 2007 by Belisarivs

[Ykkrosh]

And which architecture?

Unknown at the moment. I think our code should be able to work on anything from i386, since all the SSE-using parts are optional, though I wouldn't want to try playing it on a real 386

I think, that is would be cool to put in RSS feed with revision log. Just to show that there is progress in RSS.

Like http://wildfiregames.com/~philip/svnlog.xml ? I only just added that so I'm not sure if it works reliably, but if it seems alright then I could move it and link to it from the main 0 A.D. page.

[Tathar]

i would wait for this game if took another 5 years.

[Achilles_Knee]

I freely admit that I had to purposely stay away from this site until now - I was so offended by the response to my query - but I am offended for reasons that some of you will likely never fully understand.

Can I help out? Not sure - I have Photoshop and Illustrator - have written lots of rms scripts for AOM including a Land Nomad rms that I am very proud of - and am in the middle of launching a new company with my girlfriend - but in the end - I realize that I am just a fan - so other then donating money, which to me seems problematic as the disclaimer you guys make is pretty much that there is no schedule or no real commitment in terms of said donator getting something to play anytime soon - there is nothing I can do.

Which is why in the end - the "I'm done" response seems to be the only one really. Other people probably have done the same thing - they just don't feel a need to post about it - I'm doing this I guess to maybe try to help you understand that the pace of this project - regardless of what the circumstances are - is now in my opinion your biggest flaw. I'm not telling you that to be mean or to vent and flame on my way out the door - but to hopefully on some small level point out that the project is potentially eroding its fan base.

I am certainly passionate about what 0AD represents because in my opinion this game has come to represent the last hope for this genre - other attempts at this time period are either failed games - very old - or not true RTS games - certainly Age of Mythology and The War Chiefs give us something close - but I think many people feel like Greece and Rome have never really been properly done - so 0AD represents that - and that is really the only source of my passion - in terms of the RTS expereince ltself - ESO and BFME give me plenty of satisfaction - my real and genuine beef here with you guys is that there does seem to be an incredible amount of complancency here - both in attitude and in dealing with your fans.

As I have pointed out - the fake screen shot joke in my opinion was incredibly arrogant - and I think while obviuosly a joke - a very real and telling cliche on the situation here with 0AD and the people that want to play your game. That single event has opened my eyes to what is really happening here...like you say - you have zero obligation to your fans - this is a project for the sake of a project - not for the end result. The zero obligation sentiment - as repeated several times and seems to be a consitent theme in a lot of your responses - I wonder if any of you realize who incredibly arrogant that comes across. In terms of donating money to the project - I can tell you, that sentiment is a serious roadblock to anyone considering it.

I think some of the rhetoric in Vaevictis_Music's response to me is frankly a rather graphic and at times almost juvenille display of just more arrogance - all of you seem to get offended by people who want to actually play this game - and as pointed out before - the queries on status have come like once a year or so - you are hardly being pestered - yet you universally react that same way to an innocent request. It's almost like you have a blind spot relative to the way basic human nature works - that blind spot is really evident in the claim that nothing was said to warrent my reaction of being turned off - telling a fan they are here for all the wrong reasons is about as harsh as it gets gentlemen - that's basic alienation 101. You can decide all you want the time isn't a factor and you have zero obligation, not even in your own head to keep fans happy - and a lot of people I guess will jump on that band wagon and agree - but to call me arrogant and a flamer for simply pointing out that you've generated excitement about the game and people who want to play have been waiting for years - that's ridiculous. Whether you come to terms with this or not - the longer the project goes - the more people will just say "meh - tired of waiting." That's not arrogance or flaming - it's just a description human nature. Some people will wait around 10 years for something I guess - but you know - most people probably won't - they will go away and come back, or, just write the whole thing off.

It is what it is - but I can't really be all that apologetic here in this final post - I think there is a very valid and resonable response to all that you guys say - in that this thing is taking a very, very, long time - by anyone's standard. I think some people people really wanted to see something tangible - and the fact that this surprises you is just a jaw dropper to me - in terms of being patient - everyone has been more then patient - you've exhasted that request - you can't really say that to us anymore. That was the line you used in 2005 to placate people - now it's two years later. That's just a human reality. I think it is a bit ridiculous to state that all this content and this message board is here just for people who like to develop games - and I certainly think I and other people saw the content as sneak peaks into a playable game that we want to play.

If your response in 2007 after all this time is basically 'shut up and wait' - I think more then just me will need to shelve this thing in terms of rooting for you and encouraging you and look to quite frankly early 2009 for any real fruit and to I guess put the pom poms back on and cheer - but the response from you guys at this point is not only "don't tell us how long its been" - but now "how dare you even ask" - someone in your team I have to believe will understand that this is a really harsh and certainly passive aggressive stance for you to take. A better response would be some verbage on what the current challenges are - and a rough date as to when the public will see a playble alpha - to basically sneer at people who have been around for years is just a bad way to treat people. It just is. You know, I'm only one person - but one person becomes two, becomes three, and before long people will just say - "hey forget it".

As you say - you are not a commercial entity - and you make no commitments - so I guess there is nothing left to do other then leave you guys alone and check back in a couple of years - its a bit ridiculous to me - and here you will insert comments about how unreasonable that is - but you really need to remove yourself from what you are doing and understand that - guess what - it isn't. Not from member number 100 and something who joined in 2003.

I'm sorry that offends you - but if in fact a publisher approached you and you said no - I have to openly wonder about that decision now - especially since there seems to be an adversion to making this public domain so at least someone like me could host a subversion server and even hack away at it and provide some kind of acceleration in a small way - add up all those would be contributors and you would get a game that is playable a lot sooner.

But basically the message has turned into "this is a proprietary project with no set schedule and if your a "fan" that wants to see the game - your here for the wrong reason."

So in the end - I guess that is true - I was here for the wrong reason - I wanted to play.

I wonder if any of you actually get how ridiculous it is to tell people 5 years and running into the project that only fans of the development process need be here...I hope at least one of you can see a small sliver of sunlight of truth to the fact that in the end - its the players of 0AD that will truly make it a great game (or not).

Edited January 18, 2007 by Achilles_Knee

[Matei]

Achilles, I think I understand your point, but I think that your form of fandom really can't apply to our project. Your attitude is closer to that of a loyal consumer or a sports-fan - you make a commitment to an organization, but you want something back. What we mean by a "fan" is just a friend or supporter. Like it or not, our project really *is* volunteers working on something in their spare time, and if you think it's possible to have people to do that at the same rate and with the same level of commitment as a company, I think you've got yourself a very nice business plan . I don't know, to me this sounds like a reasonable way to run a project, but maybe there is some culture difference between us that makes the idea of running this kind of project for fun seem irresponsible or arrogant to you. Surely you've done some things as a hobby in your spare time? What's wrong with deciding to create a game in this fashion if you can put together a team with the abilities to do it?

In the same vein, there really *are* things that are more important to us than this project. I'll talk a bit about my own view, since it may be different from other members'. I personally don't *want* to be a game developer for the rest of my life, but I do like developing games for fun. If I got a job offer from a game development company, I would decline it, because I'd rather work somewhere else. Does this make me a bad game developer? Maybe it means I'm less good than I could be if I dedicated all my time for it, but it doesn't mean I can't develop games, and it doesn't mean I'm not passionate about doing so. Again, I think you're viewing us with the same expectations as a professional sports team or corporation, whereas we're more like your neighborhood basketball team or band. Think about how your neighborhood band would react if you told them you want to see them on Broadway by next year, and that furthermore, you would be disappointed if they don't go there.

About making the game public domain, as we've said before, one problem is that this will make cheating in multiplayer trivial. There's simply no way to make a peer-to-peer multiplayer game hack-free while open-sourcing a large portion of it. For example, it literally takes one line of C++ to reveal the map, and maybe a couple of days of work to make an AI play for you. This is a very different situation from something like a Linux kernel or web browser: for us, open-sourcing breaks vital functionality of the product. I think a free game with competitive, fun multiplayer is much more valuable than an open-source game with no community. Our development is far from closed though. If people want to help out, they can simply apply. I don't think we've ever turned down a competent programmer or artist. If you know an open-source programmer who loves games, by all means point them to us!

I fully accept your point about monetary donations however. It's a very valid concern. Hopefully that will be fixed when we release some kind of demo version. I also accept that we could be doing more "PR", but there has to be a balance between PR and actual development of the product.

If all you want is to play the game, rest assured that you will hear about it when it is playable . So will other people. Hopefully the wait doesn't stop people from downloading a free game and giving it a whirl. And we *do* hope to have something more interesting than screenshots quite soon.

[Vaevictis_Music]

AK -

First of all, I'd request that you drop the strategy of making it seem as if you've been personally attacked. It hasn't happened anywhere in this thread in the way that you describe it. You keep using rhetorical special effects like 'sneer', 'arrogant', etc. I'll repeat: Every team member who has participated in this thread has gone out of their way to be polite to you, to stress how they respect your opinion, etc. My last response to you was definitely the only direct one. Already before that, you had told us how you felt that fans 'get their head ripped off', how you had felt it as a 'direct slap in the face', etc. Very intense rhetoric.

And *all this* from a bunch of polite answers, always peppered with smilies to make sure you understand this is not personal, and lots of consolidating disclaimers (Michael makes sure to note that "we appreciate your stance", and ends his post with a "thanks for your patience".)

I'm sorry to actually have to spend the time dissecting the chronology of the thread, since everyone can just go back and read, but as far as I can see, *this* is what you refer to as having your head ripped off and slapped in the face?? People respond to you with civility, and you feel personally injured?

That is why I think you need to take a breather and that you're making this way too personal. Not because we don't want questions about the game, but because there is a line beyond which we can't really give any answers, and everyone needs to be able to calmly accept that. I stress 'calmly'.

Now:

The zero obligation sentiment - as repeated several times and seems to be a consitent theme in a lot of your responses - I wonder if any of you realize who incredibly arrogant that comes across.

It's only arrogant if you operate from the fallacious standpoint that there *must* be some sort of obligation somewhere, and that we're neglecting it. Otherwise, it's simply a description of how things are. I'm beginning to think that *if* there really are that many who feel as strongly as you do, then putting up a forum and a website was our real error. It seems that they represent a 'promise of more' to you. We don't have any obligations, because we're careful to communicate that we're unable to promise much. What you seem to forget is that people aren't here in this forum because of some grand PR campaign that we've conducted, or advertisements all over the web. People stumbled in here because of word-of-mouth, or by a random search, perhaps. They found us, saw what we were doing, and decided to stick around and watch. To talk about a 'fanbase', really, isn't very helpful, because that brings to mind what Matei calls "loyal consumers or a sports-fans". Frankly, given a choice between a dedicated fanbase and some quiet-time to finish the game, we really need the latter a lot more than the former. That's what the 'fanbase' needs to understand. Later, once we have a product, we can talk about building a fanbase, but to feel that we have obligations because of how the company > fanbase relationship *normally* works, is simply premature.

all of you seem to get offended by people who want to actually play this game

It's strange that you would write this, when you're smart enough to know that there's no *reason* for us to be offended by people who want to play our game. Why would you suggest that? It should be easy to separate 'being offended by people who want to play our game', from 'being unable to do a whole lot for them at the moment'.

yet you universally react that same way to an innocent request.

I'm going to ask this once, and only once, since it's usually a sign of a completely deteriorating debate - but can you provide any substantial evidence of team members universally reacting with arrogance, or is it just more rhetorical groundwork for justifying dissatisfaction that the game isn't ready yet? I frequent these forums a lot, and I only see team members behaving with the utmost civility and friendliness to fans - mainly because that's how fans behave towards us. Michael even went as far to apologise to you - for telling how things actually are at the moment. This is definitely the first time I've seen this kind of hostility towards us, and I believe it's the first time a team member has ever had to be frank with a fan.

telling a fan they are here for all the wrong reasons is about as harsh as it gets gentlemen - that's basic alienation 101. You can decide all you want the time isn't a factor and you have zero obligation, not even in your own head to keep fans happy - and a lot of people I guess will jump on that band wagon and agree - but to call me arrogant and a flamer

Here's some more nitpicking. You keep complaining that you were called a flamer and arrogant. I made that statement in response to you 'giving us a dose of reality', which I still think was an arrogant comment. (Don't you?) Apart from that, the only instances of the word 'arrogant' and 'flamer' occurs in your *own* posts, the former repeatedly describing our team members and their actions. That's food for thought.

Alright, bottom line:

We have no obligations to fans. In fact, we're not actively trying to make new fans at the moment. If people drop by and decide to stick around, that's great, and that's what the forum's for, but they need to understand the premises if they are to have an enjoyable time.

For one, we can't regularly give any more updates than the many updates we're already giving.

Secondly, we can't give any dates. If people who already know that still ask about a date, we won't be offended, or rip their heads off, but we won't give any dates either, and if someone takes offense at that, that's their own call.

Finally, we want a friendly and civil attitude around here, and do our best to foster it, but if we're being insulted, we're still only human beings doing voluntary work, and as such, we might give a frank and direct response.

That's all there is to it. If people have anything new to add to the debate, they're welcome, but more of the same will be deleted.

Edited January 18, 2007 by Vaevictis_Music

[Ykkrosh]

There's simply no way to make a peer-to-peer multiplayer game hack-free while open-sourcing a large portion of it.

As a minor technicality, I believe that is untrue - you just have to design the whole game (not only the implementation) around the concept that anybody can modify the client code, so any modification is (by definition) not cheating and (if the design was good enough) not a problem. You can't hide units in fog-of-war since anybody could make them visible, so you don't have any fog-of-war (or any other form of hiding information). You can't stop people writing AI code to automatically micromanage all their resource collection and combat, so you remove all that automatable micromanagement. You can't stop bad players replacing themselves entirely with less-bad AI, so you remove any ranking system and you make sure the game is still fun when you lose. But that's irrelevant in this case - you might end up with a game design that could still be called an RTS, but it wouldn't be the traditional AoE-style RTS that this project has always been trying to create, and the AoE-style RTS with AoE-style synchronised-simulation multiplayer will always be vulnerable to people cheating by modifying the client code to reveal information, and so we need to make it hard enough that not many people do that.

[Vaevictis_Music]

- [Post by Achilles_Knee Moved.]

Since this post was solely addressing me and consisted of advice for me personally, I've moved it to my Inbox. I've read it, understood it, and basically disagree with it. Let's leave some room for the actually constructive debate that's going on parallel to ours. Further personal messages can be sent via the Personal Message function.

Edited January 18, 2007 by Vaevictis_Music

[Vaevictis_Music]

- [Post by Achilles_Knee Deleted.]

One-line flames contribute nothing to this. Consider it an official warning.

[Aeros]

Regarding the drama, I'd like to point out that 0 A.D. has never officially gone on a public press release. We have put up some humble snippets and the general gist of what we are doing to the public but never gone on an all out marketing campaign to attract fans that want to play a quality RTS game for free.

Why? Because we don't actually have the game we are promising them yet.... you see... .... , it takes time to throw 500,000 lines of code together (and make it work!), as well as time to create an estimated 2,000 textures and 1,000 models for the game (more if we can muster it), time to compose hours of music and hundreds of sound effects, not to mention one of the hardest tasks in the world to manage this efficiently over the internet, type up 600 pages of design document with many thousands of more pages of discussion online, and then distribute all the tasks among members, work around their schedule - forget the meaning of a deadline (the laws of the 0 A.D. universe make deadlines an impossibility without working full time)

All the people on this forum have picked up on 0AD from very discrete hearsay and "word of mouth" on the internet. We can bring in thousands of fans into these forums, the reason why we haven't yet is because there is no point in getting everyone hyped up just so we can tell them "well we're still working on it and it takes a long time because no one has ever done this before, not even us, so please wait until its done."

We know this

All I'm trying to say is, is it that unreasonable what we're trying to accomplish? This isn't easy. Every single person who joined this team with the intent of finishing this project will agree that this is the hardest undertaking they have ever attempted, and are still attempting.

Its not like we're just sitting around luring people with an elaborate hoax just so we can slander them with images of calculator programs on our forums. I believe this subject of debate is finished but I simply want to chip in saying that we never sought out a fan-base, that would be one of the worst moves in PR ever if we went public with a press release when we have 4 more years of development time to dish out. We know fully well that people will become disappointed for waiting so long, I don't blame you Achilles, infact this response was one of the most predictable from a devoted fan, if anything it can be seen as a compliment that we have managed (without doing anything but news updates) to gain an immense amount of respect from someone, to the point where they start to forget exactly who we are and why we are doing this. I understand what you mean fully, its frustrating, its annoying, its even seen as inconsiderate of us to not release an update for a month...it makes it seem like we just twiddle our thumbs and play minesweeper all day long because. Trust us, we know what our fans think more than you imagine. We're glad you are so interested and are waiting so long to play this game. But...

Try to imagine how much we want to play it too.

If you want to take a break from the forums by all means do so, this is a very quiet place either way, but it is after all available to our supporters who are here to help in whatever way they can, down to the simple yet vital action of giving feedback on progress and sharing their ideas with us. Believe it or not but in this way you take part of the development of the game too, there are many ideas from fans that we have seriously considered or planned to implement...yet at the same time, many ideas people give we've actually already thought of years ago and have elaborated on much more...this phenomonen is much more common and it always makes me smile knowing we really have thought this all through so well...

When it comes time for playing....when 0ad gets closer to the door, you won't have any trouble at all hearing about it, don't worry about that! 6 months before we release and it starts looking like we're nearly there thats when we'll go full out letting everyone know about our game, where to get it, why its free, and just exactly what we were doing for 6 years, and how we did it (I want to write some literature after the game is done how we all managed to pull this off, I've been collected images of production since I joined, I've got 300 or so :-P).

Now don't go saying you've been waiting 4 years for this game, thats not true. You've been minding your own business living your life day to day, playing a few video games, hanging out with friends, going to school, wasting time doing math homework, seeing movies occasionally, and so on. You don't actually sit on your computer connected in IRC, MSN, SVNs and forums with a group of people contributing 20-30 hours a week thinking that maybe if you work 2,000 to 3,000 more hours the game will be nearly complete. We are the ones who know there is no such thing as 0AD unless we maintain this discipline and work ethic. Now 15 to 30 hours is alot... in reality it can waver from 5 hours a week to up to 40 hours for some members - but I want to point out that this 15 to 30 hours is the equivalent of a part time job. A part time job to people who have full time jobs, full time school, and full time relationships.

The only people who trully have been waiting this long for the game is us, on a daily basis we're reminded of how much is left to do, and better yet, how much we've already passed. We understand your dissapointment, I mean its downright outrageous that two dozen people are working daily for 3 years without any compensation to make a free game for you and they won't even tell you how long it'll take because they don't know... but I won't hesitate to tell you personally, [from me, not my association with WFG] that it wouldn't be a bad thing if you were abit more modest towards this team's efforts and vision Gaging from the personal responses from nearly half the development team I think it shows just how much we care to try to ease the mind of one understandably disgruntled fan, and might I say a notably enthusiastic one at that. Don't think for one second that this team doesn't know what you guys are feeling, everyone here watches and values the feedback you fans provide, and I already know you guys are well aware of that judging from our responses and discussions all done on very short notice. We know how much you anticipate the game, and if you've been here for more than 6 months we very likely know your opinions and ideas/expectations too.

But when some weird feelings like this show up and someone doesn't have the same amount of respect for us, we just remind them that all we need is to understand eachother. We understand where the fans are comming from, but we ask our fans to understand where we're comming from too, I for one am just an 18 year old highschool student coming from a small suburban city in the mountains north of Los Angeles sitting in a little black chair facing my desk next to my bed, currently being pestered on the phone by my girlfriend to finish up what "work" I'm doing so I can talk to her and say goodnight at around 12:00AM this friday night, 2 hours after I came back from a 6 hour work day and an 8 hour school day

...To exclusively spend an hour to address you, Achilles

You can't forget we're real people too, man

And with that I think this debate is concluded, if there are more issues kindly send a PM or try and catch one of us on MSN messenger.

Edited January 20, 2007 by CheeZy

[Vaevictis_Music]

Good post, Bobby. Let's close this thread up and end the drama on that note.