0 A.D

[Zewp]

Bump.

Seems this has had a change of management and they're going to start a crowdfunding campaign.

Erik Johansson (“feneur”) has announced he will step down from managing the development of the free, open-source game 0 A.D., citing his wish to focus on his writing and other hobbies. Johansson, 27 from Sweden, has been the project lead since 2008, and the team thanks him for his sustained leadership of the project. Back in ’08, 0 A.D. was a small, proprietary freeware project, but under Erik’s watch, the project has gone open-source and developed tremendously to a global community with thousands of fans and supporters. Erik has emphasized that he wishes to remain on the team, and he will continue to assist with certain administrative tasks, including serving on the Treasury Committee, a committee of contributors who make financial decisions for the project.

Longtime 0 A.D. contributor Michael D. Hafer (“Mythos_Ruler”) has agreed to take over leadership of the project pending the success of a crowdfunding campaign, tentatively set for May and June 2013, which he will plan and carry out. If the campaign succeeds, Hafer will work in a full-time capacity for one to two years from his home in Indiana, USA to promote all aspects of development of 0 A.D.

Starting from now, Michael will be replacing Erik on the Design Committee, which decides which features will be included in the 0 A.D. software. He will still answer to the Treasury Committee for all decisions concerning raising and disbursing project funds. If the crowdfunding campaign succeeds, the Treasury Committee will pay Michael’s salary according to the terms of a pending contract.

Current committee members are:
Design committee: Enrique, Michael (“Mythos_Ruler”) and Jonathan (“quantumstate”).
Treasury committee: Erik (“feneur”), Kieran (“k776″) and Aviv (“Jeru”).

Edit (April 5, 2013): The new project liaison to SPI is Aviv Sharon (“Jeru”).

We invite contributors to advise our upcoming crowdsourcing campaign and help with related tasks. If you are interested, please let us know on our forums or on our contact form. Thanks!

 

[Zewp]

Meh, played the alpha today. It's nothing more than an elaborate Age of Empires clone. Don;t know why I was expecting more, but it's pretty disappointing.

 

[Johannes]

AoE clone could be good, but at least back when I last tried it it simply didn't feel near as good as AoE2 does.

 

[Mastermind]

downloaded this, played for 5 minutes, looks a bit too spergy. greatly opposed to the "innovation" of having military units able to hunt and chop wood.

 

[Lagi]

I give it a shot: random nation:
play as Mauryan

start with worker elephant that its moving storage point + help building structures ( elephant building animation is awesome). This unit is much fun.
like that female and male villager (who are also military) has different function (it has nothing todo with breeding ) - it feels relieving after all that recent gender bullshit in media.
metal instead of gold - its very rationale.
idea of houses creating villagers are also sensible
you can create domestic animals to be butchered - miss this feature in AoE (like it in Tzar)
soldiers instead of razing enemy structures, capture them. If you wish you can after that, destroy them.
scout horseman can be used for hunting
tower can not be build too close to each other + req. territory border to be build. Limit the AoE "distorted" tower tactics.
you can rotate building when you construct them + few different model of houses - allow you to do unique looking base, if you care about esthetics.

"3d" blee...
maps feel very small, like there is nothing to explore.
maps are littered with free resources, that you dont need to harvest. Horseman just stare at them 1 sec and viola; +100 wood to your "global" stock. Instead of building eco, you scout map and collect stamps.
combine function of military and workers create needless pressure to constantly switch between eco and war. I would rather want to "one direction" retrain worker into military unit (with no way back) - or just create new in barrack.
markets - setting caravan between 2 point to generate resource income is odd, that in my opinion hurt the old-school rts idea of resource gathering.

after few games I go to AoE1

 

[Mastermind]

aoe3 lets you build livestock.

 

[Serus]

Technically there is no 0 AD.

True. It's either 1 BC or 1 AD, and only one year passes when you go from one to the other, which means you must subtract a year to get the correct amount if you go from one time period to the other [ e.g.: 1 - (-1) = 2, which is wrong ].

Let's put it the codexian way - the title is retarded.

 

[JarlFrank]

It tries to innovate but AoE2 and AoM are still the better games overall.