Wildfire Games has released a new alpha of their open source real-time strategy game. Alpha 17 is titled ”Quercus” and contains numerous gameplay balance fixes and ability to place soldiers on top of walls among other things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeyrh7G7voI
This release seems to mostly focus on rebalancing the game by making technologies more expensive to research and giving more advantages to armies that consist of mixed unit types. Buildings have also been made easier to destroy and some units' stats have been modified to make them more profitable to train. Group formations have also been removed temporarily but they will return after a more balanced re-implementation.
In addition to balancing, the AI has received some fixes. The AI finally recognizes the need for transport ships on naval maps and it will use them to attack and colonize other islands. This is an important feature as before playing naval maps with the AI was pointless. The AI just hoarded tons of units and tried desperately to find a way to walk them over the sea. However, for now it will only use transport ships and won't try to attack ships with other ships.
Multiplayer lobby profiles were also added in this release. With this feature you can view other players' profiles to see their amount of games they've won and lost and their ratings and rankings. Cool stuff for the people who are looking for an equal to play against.
There is a new feature that might be very important once scenarios or campaigns are being created and that's triggers. What they do is quite simple: they cause actions based on events. For example, if a certain building gets destroyed the trigger might spawn an army of enemies or cause you to lose the game. Alpha 17 includes two maps that utilize the trigger system, so you can go ahead and test it out right now. For me this is possibly the most important of all of these features, as I'd gladly see some campaigns be made for 0 A.D. I'm not much of a multiplayer guy and the AI isn't perfect in the typical skirmish game mode so having campaigns would make the game suit me a lot better.
This release also comes with its typical set of performance fixes and two new maps.
For the full list of changes head over to http://play0ad.com/alpha-17-quercus/ Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeyrh7G7voI
This release seems to mostly focus on rebalancing the game by making technologies more expensive to research and giving more advantages to armies that consist of mixed unit types. Buildings have also been made easier to destroy and some units' stats have been modified to make them more profitable to train. Group formations have also been removed temporarily but they will return after a more balanced re-implementation.
In addition to balancing, the AI has received some fixes. The AI finally recognizes the need for transport ships on naval maps and it will use them to attack and colonize other islands. This is an important feature as before playing naval maps with the AI was pointless. The AI just hoarded tons of units and tried desperately to find a way to walk them over the sea. However, for now it will only use transport ships and won't try to attack ships with other ships.
Multiplayer lobby profiles were also added in this release. With this feature you can view other players' profiles to see their amount of games they've won and lost and their ratings and rankings. Cool stuff for the people who are looking for an equal to play against.
There is a new feature that might be very important once scenarios or campaigns are being created and that's triggers. What they do is quite simple: they cause actions based on events. For example, if a certain building gets destroyed the trigger might spawn an army of enemies or cause you to lose the game. Alpha 17 includes two maps that utilize the trigger system, so you can go ahead and test it out right now. For me this is possibly the most important of all of these features, as I'd gladly see some campaigns be made for 0 A.D. I'm not much of a multiplayer guy and the AI isn't perfect in the typical skirmish game mode so having campaigns would make the game suit me a lot better.
This release also comes with its typical set of performance fixes and two new maps.
For the full list of changes head over to http://play0ad.com/alpha-17-quercus/ Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
I'm mostly a singleplayer person too and I'm really looking forward to a campaign, so it's nice to see that they're starting to get some of the prerequisites in place. I haven't really been invested in a "historical" RTS since AoE II/AoM but I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this.
1 Likes, Who?
Segata Sanshiro Oct 13, 2014
I'm still of the opinion that some of these projects should start selling their games on Steam so they can pay developers and improve the quality and speed of development of the games. Of course, its still FOSS and can be downloaded for free, shared, etc but doesn't mean some people won't pay money.
I think SuperTuxKart were going to do something like this once they implement their new engine.
I think SuperTuxKart were going to do something like this once they implement their new engine.
3 Likes, Who?
Kallestofeles Oct 13, 2014
As commented by "seven", the game has cometh a long way since the initial alpha.
Tried it about a year ago, even then it was playable and enjoyable. Will try again now to see how much has improved. ^_^
Tried it about a year ago, even then it was playable and enjoyable. Will try again now to see how much has improved. ^_^
0 Likes
Quoting: Segata SanshiroI'm still of the opinion that some of these projects should start selling their games on Steam so they can pay developers and improve the quality and speed of development of the games. Of course, its still FOSS and can be downloaded for free, shared, etc but doesn't mean some people won't pay money.
I think SuperTuxKart were going to do something like this once they implement their new engine.
Yeah, I think that would be interesting too and it would be a good way of getting some more attention in addition to revenue. I'm sure there are many who would pay either to support the project or to be able to get Steam achievements, trading cards, cloud sync etc.
I don't think there's any precedence for FOSS on Steam, but there's at least an OSS game launching on Steam in the near future called [url=www.frogatto.com/]Frogatto & Friends[/url].
0 Likes
Plintslîcho Oct 13, 2014
Wow, I wasn't aware of this game before. It looks quite beautiful.
0 Likes
Segata Sanshiro Oct 13, 2014
QuoteI don't think there's any precedence for FOSS on Steam, but there's at least an OSS game launching on Steam in the near future called Frogatto & Friends.
Now that you mention it, there was actually an Open Source Humble Bundle a while back which I had forgotten about. Not sure which of the games are 100% OSS and which just use Open Source libraries/tools, but it's still pretty cool.
0 Likes
chaosphere Oct 13, 2014
Nice. I think this game have some great potential. I have to give a try to this new alpha release.
0 Likes
Quoting: Segata SanshiroQuoteI don't think there's any precedence for FOSS on Steam, but there's at least an OSS game launching on Steam in the near future called Frogatto & Friends.Now that you mention it, there was actually an Open Source Humble Bundle a while back which I had forgotten about. Not sure which of the games are 100% OSS and which just use Open Source libraries/tools, but it's still pretty cool.
I'm not familiar with all of those, but I'm pretty sure Anodyne, Offspring Fling! and Incredipede are all Flash games, so at least the engine isn't open source. Saira was also FOSSed back in August but it requires Multimedia Fusion 2, which is not (F)OSS, and I bet there are even more examples of this.
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Quoting: Segata SanshiroI think SuperTuxKart were going to do something like this once they implement their new engine.Yup, we hope to do something, though it's still a bit vague. Maybe Kickstarter, and possibly Steam later; we have to work that out. But still we have to actually come closer to a 0.9 release; atm we focus on getting a 0.8.2 release out soonish.
0ad have done crowdfunding in the past, and from what they say they have some money but no experienced dev with lots of free time to give it to. So money certainly doesn't solve everything (though in large enough amounts people could quit their day jobs... not likely unfortunately).
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