Slashdot Mirror
0 A.D. Goes Open Source
DoubleRing writes "Wildfire Games has announced that it will be moving its previously closed development process for 0 A.D. to open source. All code will be released under the GPL and all art under CC-BY-SA. 0 A.D. is a historically-based RTS, and while it's not yet complete, this trailer is purportedly actual gameplay footage. With a codebase of over 150k lines of C++ code plus 25k lines in development tools, this is looking like a fairly promising entrant into the open source RTS field. The screenshots are definitely pretty, to say the least."
I'm very impressed by the graphics of a game that was never meant to be commercial. I haven't spent much time looking for open source games lately but from the screenshots this looks a lot better than free civ.
There never was a 0 AD... it went from 1 BC to 1 AD... Did I wake up in an alternate universe? Am I in Star Trek?
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
RTS like this are my addiction - I've gotten more fun out of Civilization:Call to Power (under Linux) than just about any other game I have, and was saddened when no more Civ games came out for Linux. I have Civ for the PS3, but it's not quite the same: too video-gamey, not enough strategy.
This looks very interesting, and I plan on sending some money these guy's way when I get home tonight.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It looks like there's a fairly large amount of artwork involved in this game -- and it looks good; this isn't just programmer art! My only suggestion (if any of the authors read Slashdot) would be that in general the contrast and saturation of the various graphics could be increased. It'd make the graphics "pop" out a little more, and go a long way.
They'll be able to get more precious lines of code in.
I wonder how many lines of code slashbot editors feel is enough to make it a triple-A title.
How close is it to being an actual game? Just having an engine that runs simulation code (fighting, harvesting, etc) is actually just one of the many pieces. There still needs to be all the setup menus and tools for networking, map designs, and everything in between.
They don't really address that, I can see it as:
1) Great advertising for the companies other games!
2) Get OSS development kickstarted on their engine, once they have a kickass engine they can release 100 A.D with proprietary game-data.
3) Package and see this in shops, the uninformed masses will probably buy it anyway, many of the informed will anyway just to support the company.
The don't really lose much either, so even if the gains are marginal the loss is just the cost of some bandwidth.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!