Latest News: 0 A.D. Development Report #14 (10 Sept-11 Oct)

Wildfire Games, the international group developing 0 A.D. - Empires Ascendant, is happy to present the 14th 0 A.D. development report (10 September - 11 October).

Wildfire Games has launched a crowdfunding campaign via IndieGoGo, with the aim of raising $40,000 within the next 9 days. If successful, the funds from this campaign will go toward paying team members to work on the game full-time (40+ hours per week)! This is a "flexible" fundraiser, meaning we get the money no matter if we meet our goals or not. For our fans, that means more features and better performance. Our stretch goals include another year of paid development so we can create an exciting single player campaign for the game! Click the logo below to check out our campaign!

Skirmish Maps
sanderd17 has worked hard to implement the new Skirmish Map feature. Skirmish Maps are like scenarios in that they are hand-crafted in our Atlas editor and are well-balanced, but act like random maps in that factions are not set in stone (the players can choose their own factions) and the game host can alter various options, like visibility and starting resources.

The New User Interface
Pureon has been working hard on designing a new, sleek user interface (see screenshots below). We at Wildfire Games believe that the user should experience a contemporary, robust, and clean atmosphere while in the game. We aim to bring a sense of historical accuracy in conjunction with a clean modern interface with a few stylistic flourishes.

Screenshots for this Report

Art

• Project leader Mythos_Ruler has added more spec maps, added a more prominent player color texture for Greek females and warship sails, condensed tooltips, started on the data files for the Ptolemaic Egyptians, added build limits for special buildings, added new armor technologies to the blacksmith building, balanced stats of units, and updated the Macedonian sandbox and many other scenarios. He's also started the process of creating Skirmish Maps for the game, based on the existing scenarios. He has also started creating Ptolemaic and Seleucid units.
• Enrique has modeled new buildings for the Gauls to differentiate them from the Britons (see above screenshot), upgraded existing Celtic buildings, fixed prop actor errors with buildings, and spruced up farm fields to be 3 dimensional and conform to changes in terrain, like hills and valleys. He has also started work on the Ptolemaic Egyptian buildings (see screenshot).
• Pureon has continued work on his new user interface (see lobby screenshot above).
• LordGood has been busy drawing new unit portraits for us and helping to design some of the Ptolemaic Egyptian buildings. (Video: Sketching and Coloring the Sacred Band of Astarte)

Music

• "Highland Mist" and "Celtica" remixed with live Celtic harp, played by Avital Rom.
• "Eastern Dreams" and "Sands of Time" completely remade by Omri Lahav, with live percussion played by Jeff Willet.
• New generic peace by Mike Skalandunas, "Tavern in the Mist".

Performance, Gameplay, and UI

• RedFox continued to work on performance, optimizing the inefficient RangeManager as well as continuing to perfect his megapatch, as shown in his development reports.
• mpmoreti implemented an notification sound for when technologies finish researching.
• Josh proceeded to work on all aspects of the multiplayer lobby, including interpolation of game reports and incorporating Pureon’s new user interface.

Programming and Bug Fixes

• Yves cleaned up the script console, helped review patches, and continued to progress on the SpiderMonkey upgrade.
• historicbruno has fixed crashes and memory leaks in multiplayer games, cleaned up BuildRestrictions, improved gamesetup UI performance, and redesigned the Atlas save UI to work with Skirmish Maps and mods. It also added ability to use map subfolders for organization, and added default options to player settings, to prevent every map hardcoding a bunch of default settings.
• Philip optimized some of the engine code, sped up compilation, fixed Windows installer behavior, cleaned out unnecessary files, plugged memory leaks, and continues to review RedFox's megapatch.
• stwf tweaked the codebase to be more Mac-development friendly and fixed a sound glitch.
• sanderd17 squashed a rare querying bug that causes OOS, fixed odd attributes with Greek bridges, improved GarrisonHolder and technology scripts in GUIInterface, fixed bolt shooters that fire in the opposite direction, and reviewed patches. He also implemented Skirmish Maps, which are a new type of maps, where you can change your civilization and other options like in random maps, while they are carefully hand-crafted and have the beauty of scenarios.
• leper pacified a saving problem in Atlas, fixed build issues with NVTT on Pentium D processors, and reviewed patches.
• alpha123 continued work on the ratings system integration with the multiplayer lobby and reviewed patches including sanderd17’s aura implementation.
• FeXoR improved the generation of random maps to make it look more realistic.
• mimo helped fix a bug in GarrisonHolder and improved hunter behavior (so they don't forget where on earth the animal is after they killed it).
• jammus added preferred classes to the BuildingAI so your buildings won't choose flinging toothpicks at walls over shooting down enemy soldiers.
• wraitii has released the latest AI version, API-v3.
• Spahbod has updated and tweaked every random map in the game.
• zoot and madmax have implemented Attack Notification for the game. You will now be notified when you are under attack.

Internationalization

• Gallaecio has been hard at work adding support for translations to 0 A.D.

We also want to thank all our contributors that are submitting patches with new features and fixes. Not all of them make it into the report, but we are grateful.

If you want to be part of this project, you are invited to head to our forums and join our active community! Importantly, we are always looking for skilled programmers who want to contribute in fields such as gameplay, AI, sound, and graphics. We are also looking for Animators and 3D artists, a Sound Lead, Video Editors, a Documentation Manager, and Scenario Designers. Feel free to introduce yourself on the forums using our recommended application format. Your contributions are crucial! Thanks in advance.

See you next time with the latest development news!