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0 A.D. Goes Open Source

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-on-ya dept.

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."

30 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. This is the problem! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Waiting over 2000 years for the port is not a sign of success.

  2. Wow, quite impressive looking game by Zakabog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Wow, quite impressive looking game by Hyppy · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's a bit of an understatement. Most people would probably agree that Nethack looks a lot better than Freeciv.

    2. Re:Wow, quite impressive looking game by godrik · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't know. My 80x24 serial terminal does not allow me to play Freeciv.

  3. What the devil? by CorporateSuit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:What the devil? by godrik · · Score: 3, Informative

      mmm, the date on the calendat never was 1 BC. :)

    2. Re:What the devil? by andrewd18 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      If you would read the FAQ:

      Are you aware that the year 0 A.D. did not technically exist?
      Indeed. Think of 0 A.D. as a hypothetical time period that never existed. It is a snapshot in time where major players of the classical ages were placed in an observatory. This is your chance to see them 'duke it out'. Your job as the player is to create the hypothetical and recreate the historical.

      It's called suspension of disbelief, and there are times when it's a good thing. Situations may include books, movies, video games, and other works of fiction.

    3. Re:What the devil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      If utilising your imagination leads to automatic loss of all of your self esteem, perhaps you need more self esteem.

    4. Re:What the devil? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fine. They magically created the concept of "0 A.D." to illustrate that while attempting to be historically accurate, it is still essentially fiction and fantasy ultimately designed to be fun. How's that? Good enough for the ol' ego? Okay, wait, I've got a better one...

      The only reason there wasn't a year "0 A.D." is because the people who created the calendars back then weren't as smart as you are and didn't fully understand the concept of zero-offsets, and this game gives you the chance to see what an ancient civilization -- including its calendar -- would have been like if they had been ruled by someone so amazingly intelligent that mentioning "0 A.D." in the context of the real history that was not ruled by their stunning intellect is, to them, insultingly dumb.

      There ya go. That has to be at least as good as invisible entryways to magic universes, which I should point out is implicitly implying that you, a stupid muggle, are too dumb to see even when crowds of rambunctious children vanish into them.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    5. Re:What the devil? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, the game developers did actually:
      "How historically accurate will 0 A.D. be?
      As much as we can make it. Our dedicated historians oversee all of our content to ensure it's historically accurate. Ancient history is a rich resource to exploit, and we hope to promote greater interest in it. However, there are various factors we have to take into account that won't allow us pure realism and authenticity:"(insert obvious things related to this being a game).

      Which still makes "0 A.D." a silly thing to find requiring an ego-destroying suspension of disbelief. I think it works perfectly to both establish the game's period in history, and to designate that it is still outside of that history and somewhat fantastical as a game requires. The name works by assuming you are aware that the date does not exist, rather than assuming ignorance.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    6. Re:What the devil? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      mmm, the date on the calendar never was 1 BC. :)

      Nor was it ever AD 1 in any sense other than retroactively. Wednesday, the 28th of August, Diocletian 247 was immediately followed by Thursday, the 1st of January, AD 532. (The Diocletian calendar started with August 29.)

      Retroactively, 1 AD, the 1st of January was a Saturday, so the last day of BCE was a Friday. TGIF! (cal 1 1)

      Determining what calendaring systems were observed contemporaneously with our CE 1/1/1 and the corresponding dates thereto is left as an exercise for archæochronologists.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    7. Re:What the devil? by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The only reason there wasn't a year "0 A.D." is because the people who created the calendars back then weren't as smart as you are and didn't fully understand the concept of zero-offsets

      Actually, retroactively re-dating the dates before AD 1 wasn't considered until the Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius, used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731. In this same history he also used another Latin term, "ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus" ("the time before the Lord's true incarnation"), equivalent to the English "before Christ", to identify years before the first year of this era, thus establishing the standard of not using a year zero (i.e. ordinal, not cardinal numbers), even though his work did show that he did grasp the concept of zero.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    8. Re:What the devil? by sgt+scrub · · Score: 2, Insightful

      you forgot marriage.

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
    9. Re:What the devil? by Xtifr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Really? So what about this "Authentic Roman Coin(tm)" I have that is clearly stamped "34 BC"?

      (Apologies to Terry Pratchett for mangling his joke.)

  4. Lines of code.... by RisingROI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any project that has progress measured in lines of code scares me a bit.

    1. Re:Lines of code.... by Hyppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not sure if it's a progress metric, just an interesting factoid. I think about it as a developer releasing 175 thousand lines of possible solutions to coding problems that game developers may face.

    2. Re:Lines of code.... by Eudial · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's a metric used to give you a fair idea of how big something is. Like libraries of congress, or Olympic swimming pools. Naturally, just how much actual useful code there is per line varies.

      • If you set a physicist to write a program, he will give you 15,000 lines of Fortran code that (probably) runs reasonably fast, but is completely useless for any other task, and contains copypasta from previous programs in which what little comments there are make no sense what so ever in this new context, and 80% of the code has nothing to do with the current problem at all.
      • A professional programmer does the same in 150 lines of C++ code. It runs reasonably fast, and it's easy to use it to solve similar problems.
      • A computer scientist writes a koan-like one-liner in Haskell. It runs 100 times faster than any of the above solutions, but unfortunately, since nobody knows what the hell the code is doing, it's not re-usable.
      --
      GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
  5. Finally... by rtilghman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Access to the often overlooked and underappreciated "Make Dude" command. And on the lord created The Dude, and it was good.

    http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/album_image.php?pic_id=10984

    -rt

    1. Re:Finally... by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Funny

      And on the lord created The Dude, and it was good.

      http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/album_image.php?pic_id=10984

      -rt

      Shut the fuck up, Donny.

  6. Re:What a great thing for Open Source! by Shinobi · · Score: 4, Funny

    The first map hack patch will be out in 1 hour instead of 8 hours.

  7. Oh dear.... (/me wipes drool) by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Oh dear.... (/me wipes drool) by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Informative

      I found a paypal link off the main site page:

      http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/page.php?p=6438

      --
      www.eFax.com are spammers
  8. Re:What a great thing for Open Source! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Coders with enough time and skills will look at the code. If they will find things that can be improved they'll improve them, if they find things that can improve other games they will port them. Open sourcing stuff is like allowing people to communicate, before we have each person and his/her own idea, after we have each one evaluating others perspectives. That's how human knowledge progresses.

  9. Usefull link by coolsnowmen · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GettingStarted

    ...
    Playing 0 A.D. - details on how to run the game. ...
    How to build 0 A.D. ...

  10. Looks spectacular for an OSS game... by TerranFury · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:What a great thing for Open Source! by Antidamage · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  12. Could it be Glest? by WheelDweller · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Glest is OpenSource, too...and if you change the textures on the people and the 'world' a little, you'd have a pretty nice start at a different game. Just another thing to love about OpenSource.

    --
    --- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
  13. Actual game? by Taulin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  14. Re:Business model? by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!
  15. Re:What a great thing for Open Source! by bh_doc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That sort of approach is wonderful for science, since science has a target: the true state and function of the universe. But it's not so simple for something that amounts to a work of art like a game. There is not an absolute target; the target is arbitrary fiction. Without good central leadership the artistic expression risks becoming fragmented. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible for the open approach to work, but suggesting that it's equivalent to the progress of human knowledge is missing an important complication.