This looks totally sick, really excited to pick this up.
I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.
2731 Posts
2012 is quickly coming to a close and as such Cheerful Ghost needs to select its top 5 Games of the Year. I am going to list a few big titles released this year and if I left one out you want added, please toss it in the comments. Everyone will have till 12/22 @ 10 AM PST to submit games to this post to add to our candidates for the top 5 games of the year.
After the list has been collected I will make the list available for us all to vote on. The Game of the Year will be the game that gets the most votes and so on till 5th place.
If you want any other games on the list that were released in 2012, add the them to the commets!
After the list has been collected I will make the list available for us all to vote on. The Game of the Year will be the game that gets the most votes and so on till 5th place.
- Fez
- Borderlands 2
- Diablo 3
- Farcry 3
- Max Payne 3
- The Secret World
- Quantum Conundrum
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Guild Wars 2
- I Am Alive
- FTL: Faster Than Light
- Torchlight II
- World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
- Dishonored
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown
- Doom 3: BFG Edition
- Assassin's Creed III
- Darksiders II
- PlanetSide 2
If you want any other games on the list that were released in 2012, add the them to the commets!
YouTube channel Lore made a video showcasing a bit of the story of Valve's Gabe Newell that takes a minute. Nerds rejoice.
Blizzard releases part 9 of the Starcraft Creative Development Q&A w questions by the Community. Proof that some gamers have little tact when asking questions.
http://us.battle.net//sc2/en/blog/8165399
Gaming Heads is selling some pretty awesome Team Fortress 2 stand up figurines. Now to the action figures with king-fu grip!
https://www.gamingheads.com/index.php?option=com_myphp&Itemid=3&product=105
The recent Humble THQ Bundle sold 800k copies and raked in a total of 5 million dollars. THQ is also considering Linux ports for future titles.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/12/humble-thq-bundle-ends-earns-5-million-from-885-000-bundles/
http://www.gamespot.com/news/thq-looking-to-linux-after-humble-bundle-success-6401635
Blizzard releases part 9 of the Starcraft Creative Development Q&A w questions by the Community. Proof that some gamers have little tact when asking questions.
http://us.battle.net//sc2/en/blog/8165399
Gaming Heads is selling some pretty awesome Team Fortress 2 stand up figurines. Now to the action figures with king-fu grip!
https://www.gamingheads.com/index.php?option=com_myphp&Itemid=3&product=105
The recent Humble THQ Bundle sold 800k copies and raked in a total of 5 million dollars. THQ is also considering Linux ports for future titles.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/12/humble-thq-bundle-ends-earns-5-million-from-885-000-bundles/
http://www.gamespot.com/news/thq-looking-to-linux-after-humble-bundle-success-6401635
"Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is the second feature from game culture archivists 2 Player Productions... This feature-length documentary follows the young company over the course of its first year as their profile expands across the world stage and into the homes of millions of gamers. Featuring insights from industry icons (Peter Molyneux, Tim Schafer), journalists (Geoff Keighley, Stephen Totilo), tastemakers (Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade), and players profoundly impacted by the game (Yogscast, The Shaft, Minecraft Teacher), the film serves as a time capsule for one of this generation's most unorthodox success stories."
I am really interested in checking this documentary out. Minecraft is an awesome game, but I find the story of Notch and Mojang to be equally awesome.
They have slated the release for December 23rd. If you are an XBox Gold Member you can screen it free on Dec 22nd 5pm PST / 8pm EST in the US OR 7pm GMT/8pm CET in Europe.
I am really interested in checking this documentary out. Minecraft is an awesome game, but I find the story of Notch and Mojang to be equally awesome.
They have slated the release for December 23rd. If you are an XBox Gold Member you can screen it free on Dec 22nd 5pm PST / 8pm EST in the US OR 7pm GMT/8pm CET in Europe.
A few nights ago @WhiteboySlim and I decided to get together around 8PM PST and play some games together. We didn't have a game in mind but we wanted to play.
After meeting up I had the idea to play DoTA 2. Recently I went into the game and noticed you can create a lobby match and play with bots. In fact, you can play just yourself with all bots if you want to.
After pinging a few folks on the site, @panickedthumb, @WhiteboySlim & @Jacob_Richardson joined us for the match.
After getting everyone in the lobby and spending a few minutes figuring out how to start the game we started. I had no idea what any of the characters did, so I picked one at random. Our first match went fine and in the end we won, but it contained a really steep learning curve.
The second match was more fun and we won that as well, but we spent time reading over the kinds of hero's we want to play as and for the last two matches I picked "Treeant Protector".
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Treant_Protector
It was nice having @Jacob_Richardson around because he showed us some of the ropes and that helped quite a bit. We lost our last match but we had quite a lot of fun anyway. I have heard and seen the DoTA 2 and League of Legends community is rough to new players so being able to play in a bot match helps that quite a bit.
In the end I had a good time and am looking forward to playing again.
After meeting up I had the idea to play DoTA 2. Recently I went into the game and noticed you can create a lobby match and play with bots. In fact, you can play just yourself with all bots if you want to.
After pinging a few folks on the site, @panickedthumb, @WhiteboySlim & @Jacob_Richardson joined us for the match.
After getting everyone in the lobby and spending a few minutes figuring out how to start the game we started. I had no idea what any of the characters did, so I picked one at random. Our first match went fine and in the end we won, but it contained a really steep learning curve.
The second match was more fun and we won that as well, but we spent time reading over the kinds of hero's we want to play as and for the last two matches I picked "Treeant Protector".
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Treant_Protector
It was nice having @Jacob_Richardson around because he showed us some of the ropes and that helped quite a bit. We lost our last match but we had quite a lot of fun anyway. I have heard and seen the DoTA 2 and League of Legends community is rough to new players so being able to play in a bot match helps that quite a bit.
In the end I had a good time and am looking forward to playing again.
Totally excited for this new Rage expansion and the official press drop illustrates why:
"Battle an all-new maniacal bandit clan, wreak havoc with new brutally efficient weapons and explore undiscovered areas in RAGE’s new official add-on pack, RAGE: The Scorchers™. Fight alongside new allies to thwart the Scorcher clan’s deadly plot to destroy the Wasteland.
The add-on pack also includes ‘Ultra-Nightmare’, a new high difficulty mode, as well as an ‘Extended Play’ option that allows you to play past the original ending of the game - giving you the opportunity to finish collecting items and achievements."
I appreciate the Extended Play option as it allows you to circle back and complete aspects of the game you missed during your main play through. I slated to go back after I completed the main story and take a swing at all the races but at the end of the game they locked that down and I didn't want to create a new game just to complete those races.
Rage is very pretty and these screen grabs are no exception! I look forward to the beautiful new shooting and looting. OR SHOULD THAT BE SHOOTIN' AND LOOTIN'?
http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/scorchers
http://www.bethblog.com/2012/12/14/rage-dlc-arrives-tuesday-on-ps3-360-and-pc/
Oh right, the new pack drops this Tuesday on Steam and consoles.
"Battle an all-new maniacal bandit clan, wreak havoc with new brutally efficient weapons and explore undiscovered areas in RAGE’s new official add-on pack, RAGE: The Scorchers™. Fight alongside new allies to thwart the Scorcher clan’s deadly plot to destroy the Wasteland.
The add-on pack also includes ‘Ultra-Nightmare’, a new high difficulty mode, as well as an ‘Extended Play’ option that allows you to play past the original ending of the game - giving you the opportunity to finish collecting items and achievements."
I appreciate the Extended Play option as it allows you to circle back and complete aspects of the game you missed during your main play through. I slated to go back after I completed the main story and take a swing at all the races but at the end of the game they locked that down and I didn't want to create a new game just to complete those races.
Rage is very pretty and these screen grabs are no exception! I look forward to the beautiful new shooting and looting. OR SHOULD THAT BE SHOOTIN' AND LOOTIN'?
http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/scorchers
http://www.bethblog.com/2012/12/14/rage-dlc-arrives-tuesday-on-ps3-360-and-pc/
Oh right, the new pack drops this Tuesday on Steam and consoles.
The latest Starcrafts Episode is a promo for the North American Starcraft League. As I was watching the video on the YouTube page I noticed this comment:
"Why did the Infestor fall down the stairs?
because its imbalanced"
ZING! :D Good one Fenix855!
"Why did the Infestor fall down the stairs?
because its imbalanced"
ZING! :D Good one Fenix855!
One of the grand daddies of MMO's, Everquest went free to play. It was the first video game I heard tethered to the idea of video game addiction. It was also the first game that, according to rumor caused the end to many relationships as one partner spent so much time playing Everquest the relationship flew apart at the seams. Whereas I had no known proof of this, the stories seemed real enough. It was also coupled with a new concept to me that people could spend "too much" time playing video games. I sort of dismiss that sort of notion now as digital life is all encompassing and one can spend the same if not more time simply reading news articles, looking at Facebook or a Smartphone.
That said, my first throws with this game was largely from a negative "this game will suck your life from your bones" perspective. Needless to say, I totally wanted to lose my life to it, I just never got the opportunity. One reason for that was at the time my wife and I were quite poor and we had no money for the subscription. I was able to flirt with disaster a few times though and I loved every second of it.
I was able to play it a bit over at a friends house that played religiously. He let me create a character and I picked an Elf Necromancer. I remember summoning my pet from bones I collected from killing Skeletons and then hoarding more bones to sell to other players in a stack. Doing those simple things in the game were so awesome and I badly wanted to join the ranks of Everquest players, but it wasn't meant to be. I took out my Everquest angst on Telnet MUD's and spent many an hour huddled around my screen slaying creatures and leveling up in a text based world.
The last few years I have hoped Sony would release Everquest as a Free to Play game and recently noticed my wish came true. The details of how that works are on the Everquest site.
http://www.everquest.com/free
I created a Gnome Wizard and eagerly started the game. Right away I noticed a few things I hadn't before. Early on, there was a bit of BBS / Internet drama about Everquest stealing from MUDs. Some people accused Sony of stealing code from MUDs to make Everquest. I never really understood the argument, Everquest is a 3D game and MUDs are all text. As I played the game now I notice Everquest does draw heavily from MUD's and as such requires much more typing than any new MMO. A staple of modern RPG's / MMO's is to click a NPC to initiate dialog. In Everquest you must type "Hail" and click. Then you have to read the dialog and parse out words you can use to continue the conversation. As I realized these mechanics were central to the game, I remembered the old calls of Everquest "borrowing" from MUD's and the argument made more sense to me.... 13 years later... Not saying Sony actually stole anything, but I understand the argument better now.
That all said, if you have never played Everquest or wanted to come back to it after being years apart now is a great time to do that. It is available from download from the Everquest site and is a new entry in Steam under Free to Play.
That said, my first throws with this game was largely from a negative "this game will suck your life from your bones" perspective. Needless to say, I totally wanted to lose my life to it, I just never got the opportunity. One reason for that was at the time my wife and I were quite poor and we had no money for the subscription. I was able to flirt with disaster a few times though and I loved every second of it.
I was able to play it a bit over at a friends house that played religiously. He let me create a character and I picked an Elf Necromancer. I remember summoning my pet from bones I collected from killing Skeletons and then hoarding more bones to sell to other players in a stack. Doing those simple things in the game were so awesome and I badly wanted to join the ranks of Everquest players, but it wasn't meant to be. I took out my Everquest angst on Telnet MUD's and spent many an hour huddled around my screen slaying creatures and leveling up in a text based world.
The last few years I have hoped Sony would release Everquest as a Free to Play game and recently noticed my wish came true. The details of how that works are on the Everquest site.
http://www.everquest.com/free
I created a Gnome Wizard and eagerly started the game. Right away I noticed a few things I hadn't before. Early on, there was a bit of BBS / Internet drama about Everquest stealing from MUDs. Some people accused Sony of stealing code from MUDs to make Everquest. I never really understood the argument, Everquest is a 3D game and MUDs are all text. As I played the game now I notice Everquest does draw heavily from MUD's and as such requires much more typing than any new MMO. A staple of modern RPG's / MMO's is to click a NPC to initiate dialog. In Everquest you must type "Hail" and click. Then you have to read the dialog and parse out words you can use to continue the conversation. As I realized these mechanics were central to the game, I remembered the old calls of Everquest "borrowing" from MUD's and the argument made more sense to me.... 13 years later... Not saying Sony actually stole anything, but I understand the argument better now.
That all said, if you have never played Everquest or wanted to come back to it after being years apart now is a great time to do that. It is available from download from the Everquest site and is a new entry in Steam under Free to Play.
Was able to talk to the 0 A.D. project, something I have wanted to do for some time. 0 A.D. touts itself as "A free, open-source game of ancient warfare" and has been in development since 2001. Its totally free and available for download at the site right now:
http://play0ad.com/
jdodson: I have been tracking the progress of 0 A.D. for years! I think Age of Empires II, beyond some balancing is practically a perfect game. It sucks because it is really broken on modern Windows now. Getting an entirely free software version of this kind of game that can be modified by anyone and updated for modern systems interests me. I view Free Software as preserving culture. Its easy to see in cases like Doom where the source is available and it has a life well beyond its early years. This isn't so much a question as a thank you for doing what you do, its really important work.
Aviv: Thanks, we really appreciate it. We think of 0 A.D. as something that anyone can tinker with and add to, and your insightful comment shows that future-proofing may be one consequence. Indeed, there's something to be said about FOSS's ability to endure over time.
jdodson: I understand you get this often, that said when you do guys expect to release 1.0? :D
Aviv: It is very hard to predict. We are currently revising the game design and setting aside money to support paid development to make sure we can complete it soon. We will keep everyone posted on developments as soon as matters are finalized.
jdodson: When you look at 0 A.D. now I wonder what you are most proud of?
Aviv: We are proud of attracting a global fan base of thousands of people, often from different online communities, from classic RTS game aficionados to FOSS and GNU/Linux enthusiasts. We love the comments we get, like, "It's like Empire Earth, Age of Empires, and Rise of Nations had a baby and it came out free!" and "This can't be open source. It rocks too much!" We hope to live up to these expectations and ship a complete game ASAP.
jdodson: How many people work on 0 A.D. right now? What do they all do for the project?
Aviv: It varies over time. Usually there are about twenty official members of the team, doing everything from drawing portraits of ancient Persian kings to programmers teaching the AI how to rush human opponents. Contributors from outside the team also range from musicians playing the flute and drums to artists making 3D models of Mauryan buildings. Over time, the cumulative number of people who have contributed to 0 A.D. easily grew into the hundreds.
jdodson: What's the funnest game of 0 A.D. you played? What did you learn from that match?
Aviv: Once we played a match and one player was seeing a state of the map that was totally out of sync with the other players. He thought he was doing quite well, but on everyone else's screens he was being totally destroyed. On other occasions, we learned we needed to improve the in-game chat interface, we made many balancing changes etc.
jdodson: As development of 0 A.D. has progressed, I wonder if playing a game along the way evolved 0 A.D. development in some way?
Aviv: The big influence, of course, was Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires series, specifically Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings. We want to imitate some of the gameplay of the medieval-themed AoE2 in an ancient setting, like the original AoE was set in, and with improved graphics. Many of our members and fans remember those games fondly, and the classic RTS gameplay and historical focus of the series is something we'd like to capture with 0 A.D. A tall order, we admit. Other influences come from Creative Assembly's hardcore Total War series, Stainless Steel's classic Rise of Nations (like the territory system), and Activision's dynamic The Battle for Middle Earth franchise. Other concepts in 0 A.D., like ranks, heroes and our technology tree, derive from games like Generals, Warcraft III and Civilization, respectively.
jdodson: What feature of Age of Empires or the like did you want to keep out of 0 A.D.? Something you felt could be better?
Aviv: The original Age of Empires games were excellent, so there weren't so much features we wanted to leave out as much as features we wanted to add, like the citizen-soldier concept, batch training and the technology trade-offs. We have also paid meticulous attention to historical authenticity and given each faction unique building designs and many unique units. Other planned features that build upon the AoE series, some of which were implemented in other RTSs, are: capturing buildings, formations with combat bonuses, running/charging, real ship movements, and concealment/ambushing.
jdodson: I wonder if you could highlight some of the tech behind 0 A.D.?
Aviv: We have our custom engine, Pyrogenesis, built in C++ on top of certain libraries (OpenGL, OpenAL, ENet, SDL, SpiderMonkey, FCollada, wxWidgets, Vorbis, CxxTest, Boost, libxml2, libjpg, libpng, zlib, ...). Scripts are written in JavaScript. The 3d models and animations can be created in any software, as long as it can export COLLADA files (.DAE). This includes Blender, 3DS Max, and others.
jdodson: Wildfire Games released Rome at War mod for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. Is this actively maintained now? How many people from that project are still with Wildfire Games?
Aviv: Rome at War is not maintained anymore, but it was recently packaged as part of the Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires mod. The only contributor left from those days is Jason Bishop (Wijitmaker), who handles finances and pops in on the forums every now and then, as an adviser and a go-to person for those questions only an old-timer could answer.
jdodson: Wildfire Games was also working on The Last Alliance a game set in Tolkien's Universe. Did any of the work make it to 0 A.D.? Do you anticipate this work might make it to a 0 A.D. mod?
Aviv: TLA was an idea that was born at about the same time as 0 A.D., but was abandoned over time. After the mid-00's we put it informally "on hold" and forgot about it. This September we got around to formally announcing that the development of TLA would be discontinued until further notice. (We also announced that original content created during the design of TLA would be preserved as a cultural asset for Tolkien devotees, and as inspiration for those interested in fantasy mods and games.)
We do hope people make fantasy and other mods for 0 A.D. in the future, though. We also advise modders to make sure they draw on original settings, civilizations, stories etc. This is the best approach to avoid infringing on other people's intellectual property. (Thankfully for 0 A.D., nobody can claim copyright for ancient history!)
jdodson: As you are making progress on the project to the eventual 1.0 I wonder what you guys need? Developers, donations, testers?
Aviv: We're glad you asked that, because we're always looking for new contributors to join 0 A.D. and help promote the game to a more complete state. We are always seeking new programmers in all fields of programming, from low-level code to AI and random map scripts and higher-level programming. We are always looking for graphic artists, both 2D, and textures, and user interface, and also 3D models and animation. We're looking for people to help us organize the development, document it, manage contributions in sound, and many more openings.
jdodson: 0 A.D. launches and is well received. What's next for Wildfire Games?
Aviv: Probably some patches, and also starting to design an expansion pack with new civilizations spanning 1 A.D. - 500 A.D., new gameplay features that didn't make the cut for version 1.0, and more.
jdodson: When the game is launched have you considered Greenlighting it on Steam?
Aviv: It's definitely an option. As soon as we feel comfortable marketing 0 A.D. as a finished game, we'll look into all sorts of new distribution methods. That is still a little far off.
jdodson: What are some other Free Software projects you guys really respect?
Aviv: Blender has been a huge help for 0 A.D. art development in recent years. We also use GIMP and Tortoise SVN, and I am typing this on Notepad++. Also, OpenAL Soft have been very responsive to our bug reports.
jdodson: What games are you guys playing right now?
Aviv: First, of course, we are playing 0 A.D. Alpha 12, due in just a few days, to test for any bugs. Some of us are also playing games from the Total War series, etc.
jdodson: Do you want to believe in the Loch Ness Monster?
Aviv: It would be interesting if what people saw was actually a relic of an ancient civilization in Loch Ness.
http://play0ad.com/
jdodson: I have been tracking the progress of 0 A.D. for years! I think Age of Empires II, beyond some balancing is practically a perfect game. It sucks because it is really broken on modern Windows now. Getting an entirely free software version of this kind of game that can be modified by anyone and updated for modern systems interests me. I view Free Software as preserving culture. Its easy to see in cases like Doom where the source is available and it has a life well beyond its early years. This isn't so much a question as a thank you for doing what you do, its really important work.
Aviv: Thanks, we really appreciate it. We think of 0 A.D. as something that anyone can tinker with and add to, and your insightful comment shows that future-proofing may be one consequence. Indeed, there's something to be said about FOSS's ability to endure over time.
jdodson: I understand you get this often, that said when you do guys expect to release 1.0? :D
Aviv: It is very hard to predict. We are currently revising the game design and setting aside money to support paid development to make sure we can complete it soon. We will keep everyone posted on developments as soon as matters are finalized.
jdodson: When you look at 0 A.D. now I wonder what you are most proud of?
Aviv: We are proud of attracting a global fan base of thousands of people, often from different online communities, from classic RTS game aficionados to FOSS and GNU/Linux enthusiasts. We love the comments we get, like, "It's like Empire Earth, Age of Empires, and Rise of Nations had a baby and it came out free!" and "This can't be open source. It rocks too much!" We hope to live up to these expectations and ship a complete game ASAP.
jdodson: How many people work on 0 A.D. right now? What do they all do for the project?
Aviv: It varies over time. Usually there are about twenty official members of the team, doing everything from drawing portraits of ancient Persian kings to programmers teaching the AI how to rush human opponents. Contributors from outside the team also range from musicians playing the flute and drums to artists making 3D models of Mauryan buildings. Over time, the cumulative number of people who have contributed to 0 A.D. easily grew into the hundreds.
jdodson: What's the funnest game of 0 A.D. you played? What did you learn from that match?
Aviv: Once we played a match and one player was seeing a state of the map that was totally out of sync with the other players. He thought he was doing quite well, but on everyone else's screens he was being totally destroyed. On other occasions, we learned we needed to improve the in-game chat interface, we made many balancing changes etc.
jdodson: As development of 0 A.D. has progressed, I wonder if playing a game along the way evolved 0 A.D. development in some way?
Aviv: The big influence, of course, was Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires series, specifically Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings. We want to imitate some of the gameplay of the medieval-themed AoE2 in an ancient setting, like the original AoE was set in, and with improved graphics. Many of our members and fans remember those games fondly, and the classic RTS gameplay and historical focus of the series is something we'd like to capture with 0 A.D. A tall order, we admit. Other influences come from Creative Assembly's hardcore Total War series, Stainless Steel's classic Rise of Nations (like the territory system), and Activision's dynamic The Battle for Middle Earth franchise. Other concepts in 0 A.D., like ranks, heroes and our technology tree, derive from games like Generals, Warcraft III and Civilization, respectively.
jdodson: What feature of Age of Empires or the like did you want to keep out of 0 A.D.? Something you felt could be better?
Aviv: The original Age of Empires games were excellent, so there weren't so much features we wanted to leave out as much as features we wanted to add, like the citizen-soldier concept, batch training and the technology trade-offs. We have also paid meticulous attention to historical authenticity and given each faction unique building designs and many unique units. Other planned features that build upon the AoE series, some of which were implemented in other RTSs, are: capturing buildings, formations with combat bonuses, running/charging, real ship movements, and concealment/ambushing.
jdodson: I wonder if you could highlight some of the tech behind 0 A.D.?
Aviv: We have our custom engine, Pyrogenesis, built in C++ on top of certain libraries (OpenGL, OpenAL, ENet, SDL, SpiderMonkey, FCollada, wxWidgets, Vorbis, CxxTest, Boost, libxml2, libjpg, libpng, zlib, ...). Scripts are written in JavaScript. The 3d models and animations can be created in any software, as long as it can export COLLADA files (.DAE). This includes Blender, 3DS Max, and others.
jdodson: Wildfire Games released Rome at War mod for Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. Is this actively maintained now? How many people from that project are still with Wildfire Games?
Aviv: Rome at War is not maintained anymore, but it was recently packaged as part of the Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires mod. The only contributor left from those days is Jason Bishop (Wijitmaker), who handles finances and pops in on the forums every now and then, as an adviser and a go-to person for those questions only an old-timer could answer.
jdodson: Wildfire Games was also working on The Last Alliance a game set in Tolkien's Universe. Did any of the work make it to 0 A.D.? Do you anticipate this work might make it to a 0 A.D. mod?
Aviv: TLA was an idea that was born at about the same time as 0 A.D., but was abandoned over time. After the mid-00's we put it informally "on hold" and forgot about it. This September we got around to formally announcing that the development of TLA would be discontinued until further notice. (We also announced that original content created during the design of TLA would be preserved as a cultural asset for Tolkien devotees, and as inspiration for those interested in fantasy mods and games.)
We do hope people make fantasy and other mods for 0 A.D. in the future, though. We also advise modders to make sure they draw on original settings, civilizations, stories etc. This is the best approach to avoid infringing on other people's intellectual property. (Thankfully for 0 A.D., nobody can claim copyright for ancient history!)
jdodson: As you are making progress on the project to the eventual 1.0 I wonder what you guys need? Developers, donations, testers?
Aviv: We're glad you asked that, because we're always looking for new contributors to join 0 A.D. and help promote the game to a more complete state. We are always seeking new programmers in all fields of programming, from low-level code to AI and random map scripts and higher-level programming. We are always looking for graphic artists, both 2D, and textures, and user interface, and also 3D models and animation. We're looking for people to help us organize the development, document it, manage contributions in sound, and many more openings.
jdodson: 0 A.D. launches and is well received. What's next for Wildfire Games?
Aviv: Probably some patches, and also starting to design an expansion pack with new civilizations spanning 1 A.D. - 500 A.D., new gameplay features that didn't make the cut for version 1.0, and more.
jdodson: When the game is launched have you considered Greenlighting it on Steam?
Aviv: It's definitely an option. As soon as we feel comfortable marketing 0 A.D. as a finished game, we'll look into all sorts of new distribution methods. That is still a little far off.
jdodson: What are some other Free Software projects you guys really respect?
Aviv: Blender has been a huge help for 0 A.D. art development in recent years. We also use GIMP and Tortoise SVN, and I am typing this on Notepad++. Also, OpenAL Soft have been very responsive to our bug reports.
jdodson: What games are you guys playing right now?
Aviv: First, of course, we are playing 0 A.D. Alpha 12, due in just a few days, to test for any bugs. Some of us are also playing games from the Total War series, etc.
jdodson: Do you want to believe in the Loch Ness Monster?
Aviv: It would be interesting if what people saw was actually a relic of an ancient civilization in Loch Ness.
This cartoon totally nails how I felt going to Toys R Us to get a Nintendo game. Walking down the aisle, looking at all the boxes and picking that one game I obsessed over until my next birthday.
Thanks Mom!
Image from Zac Gormans Blog:
http://tmblr.co/ZyT1fxZ9x9_j
Thanks Mom!
Image from Zac Gormans Blog:
http://tmblr.co/ZyT1fxZ9x9_j