Surely the main problem here is if each level takes more and more time to progress to?
I'd say a better system is where progressing to higher levels occurs in approximately constant time (each level takes more XP, but because you're stronger, you should be acquiring XP at a faster rate). This is how the games I've played seem to work.
So if you make a poor choice for a skill bonus when you go to level 2, it doesn't take any extra time to go up an extra level later on.
I've now released version 0.15, which fixes graphical problems on ATI graphics cards. The Linux version also now supports proper installation, and there are now binaries for Ubuntu (at https://launchpad.net/~mark-harman/+archive/conquests/+packages ). For the gameplay, many improvements and units now require various elements (stone, iron, etc) which have to first be acquired by the city.
It might be biggest in terms of raw number of games (though that just means more competition for us developers!) Not biggest in terms of number of users (Symbian is probably still the biggest installed userbase, and Android is the largest selling now I believe).
But obviously, it's fine to write for what you want. People write for OS X or Linux, even though it isn't the largest platform :)
Re: open source, I guess what people are getting at is that since this is a site for Free art, although it's perfectly fine for many free media files to be used in non-Free projects, many people may be unlikely to work for free, producing free content, specificvally for something that isn't itself going to be free. Also, are your games going to be sold for a fee, or are they free-as-in-beer?
http://zooboingreview.blogspot.com/ - currently seems to be full of Ipad and Iphone wallpapers, as if for some reason those were the only devices that can have desktop images, but there are some texture packs on the site too.
http://www.imageafter.com - free including for commercial use, but doesn't appear to use a "standard" licence.
Deviant Art and Flickr also have some stuff on free licences, if you search.
I agree this would be a good change. When making a note of licence details of content I'd downloaded recently, I found that for some I'd accidentally written down the submitter as the author, for the attribution! So I think it's important to make sure the author (i.e., the one who should be attributed) is displayed most prominently.
I think the low performance may be a factor in the sluggish response. What CPU / graphics card do you have? I'm wondering if there's a problem on some systems for some reason, or if the required spec is just higher than I thought.
What's the frame rate in the 2D mode (can be changed during the game, with "View 3D/2D"), and is the UI response any better? (A different rendering algorithm is used in 2D mode.)
I also wonder if running in full screen mode (from the Preferences) is any better?
Slightly off-topic, but I was shocked to come across a similar issue with wedding photographers - that it seems standard practice for them to retain the copyright, even though you're paying them for the work. For my brother's wedding, they received the full batch of photos he'd taken, but they were stamped with an ugly "copyrighted" watermark, the idea being they'd have to pay extra for each and every photo. Couples would be committing piracy just to give a copy to their friends, or upload to Facebook.
So although it's not a game related thing, I do wonder if there does seem to be a philosophy among artists that's different to programmers. I get paid to program for my day job, but that means I don't expect to keep the copyright too.
It's only when I go to preview or edit. The Rich Text box is 7 lines high; the non-Rich Text box is 5 lines high. This is on Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit). My screen is 1680x150, with browser window full screen - but I had same problem on my netbook at 1024x600.
Also some other issues I've noticed (on my other computer at the moment with Opera 10.10 - I can try testing with the latest version if you like):
If I type some text in non-Rich Text, then go to preview, it's reverted back to Rich Text - but line breaks are removed.
If I only use the Rich Text editor, and post (even without previewing), it strips out the new lines.
I've uploaded version 0.14. Regarding the points above:
1. Settlers no longer enter enemy territory when at war - should fix the Settler invasion problem.
2. I've switched to using a proper event model for mouse clicks. As I say, it's unclear why it was so slow - would be curious to know if this fixes or improves the problem.
4. The problem was when units were building roads/railways - they'll now attack an adjacent unit if the odds are better than being attacked.
5. The map is now a minimap that can be onscreen all the time; it's less blurry, and has clearer, softer colours. You can also click on it to change the viewpoint.
6. There was a crash I've now fixed with listboxes, where it would crash if you clicked in the scrollbar area, when no scrollbar was displayed (this is a recent bug - in the last version I'd rewritten the routines for scrollbar drawing and input). So possibly this is what you were seeing.
The crash when no shaders were used is also fixed.
And various other improvements - you can now create custom maps using Tiled Map Editor ( http://www.mapeditor.org/ ) - it was a thread somewhere on these forums that suggested Tiled; simply making my game compatible with the Tiled file format was certainly much easier than writing my own editor from scratch.
I suspect the reason why artists often aren't willing to work for free on someone else's game are the same reasons why many programmers like me aren't willing to work for free on someone else's idea. We all have are own ideas to work on, and if it's something done for fun and for free, we'd rather do that, than do it for someone else.
Game art probably involves more work that's uninteresting to artists - it's not enough to draw a 2D character, you have to draw a whole load of frames, each in a whole load of orientations. For 3D, you have to make sure it can be animated. They have to work with the programmer to make sure it's in a format that's suitable for the game engine.
There's also consistency - a game ideally needs a whole set of work in a vaguely consistent manner, both from an aesthetic point of view (the same theme etc), and a technical point of view (e.g., 3D games ideally want meshes in the same format, with things like animation being done in the same way; if characters can hold objects, wear clothes etc, this needs to all work together too). I suspect many artists may prefer to simply work on different ideas, rather than putting their effort all into one massive project.
"My thoughts is that in the case of open source there are many games that are either uninteresting or just clones so you don't get excited about the game thus no motivation to participate"
I don't know if being clones is an issue. Games like FreeCiv and Widelands seem to have attracted plenty of people to produce content. In the commercial world, many games are clones but still attract much interest (the many FPS clones; or the ever growing Civilization franchise, as well as the unofficial Call To Power games). If anything, I'd argue clones may attract more interest, as people know and love the commercial equivalents, where as an original idea is untested - and what sounds good on paper, often doesn't work out in reality.
I think it's probably the case that artists are more likely to be attracted to established projects (or at least a playable game with placeholder graphics), than doing work for a programmer's new project that may end up going nowhere.
Surely the main problem here is if each level takes more and more time to progress to?
I'd say a better system is where progressing to higher levels occurs in approximately constant time (each level takes more XP, but because you're stronger, you should be acquiring XP at a faster rate). This is how the games I've played seem to work.
So if you make a poor choice for a skill bonus when you go to level 2, it doesn't take any extra time to go up an extra level later on.
I've now released version 0.15, which fixes graphical problems on ATI graphics cards. The Linux version also now supports proper installation, and there are now binaries for Ubuntu (at https://launchpad.net/~mark-harman/+archive/conquests/+packages ). For the gameplay, many improvements and units now require various elements (stone, iron, etc) which have to first be acquired by the city.
It might be biggest in terms of raw number of games (though that just means more competition for us developers!) Not biggest in terms of number of users (Symbian is probably still the biggest installed userbase, and Android is the largest selling now I believe).
But obviously, it's fine to write for what you want. People write for OS X or Linux, even though it isn't the largest platform :)
Re: open source, I guess what people are getting at is that since this is a site for Free art, although it's perfectly fine for many free media files to be used in non-Free projects, many people may be unlikely to work for free, producing free content, specificvally for something that isn't itself going to be free. Also, are your games going to be sold for a fee, or are they free-as-in-beer?
Here are some sites, which all have files compatible with open/free licences (though some sites also mix them with non-free licences, so be careful).
Sounds:
http://soundbible.com/
http://free-loops.com/
http://simplythebest.net/ - has some public domain ones.
Graphics:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
http://free3dstextures.com/
http://www.openfootage.net/
http://zooboingreview.blogspot.com/ - currently seems to be full of Ipad and Iphone wallpapers, as if for some reason those were the only devices that can have desktop images, but there are some texture packs on the site too.
http://www.imageafter.com - free including for commercial use, but doesn't appear to use a "standard" licence.
Deviant Art and Flickr also have some stuff on free licences, if you search.
I agree this would be a good change. When making a note of licence details of content I'd downloaded recently, I found that for some I'd accidentally written down the submitter as the author, for the attribution! So I think it's important to make sure the author (i.e., the one who should be attributed) is displayed most prominently.
Hi,
I think the low performance may be a factor in the sluggish response. What CPU / graphics card do you have? I'm wondering if there's a problem on some systems for some reason, or if the required spec is just higher than I thought.
What's the frame rate in the 2D mode (can be changed during the game, with "View 3D/2D"), and is the UI response any better? (A different rendering algorithm is used in 2D mode.)
I also wonder if running in full screen mode (from the Preferences) is any better?
Thanks for taking a look.
Slightly off-topic, but I was shocked to come across a similar issue with wedding photographers - that it seems standard practice for them to retain the copyright, even though you're paying them for the work. For my brother's wedding, they received the full batch of photos he'd taken, but they were stamped with an ugly "copyrighted" watermark, the idea being they'd have to pay extra for each and every photo. Couples would be committing piracy just to give a copy to their friends, or upload to Facebook.
So although it's not a game related thing, I do wonder if there does seem to be a philosophy among artists that's different to programmers. I get paid to program for my day job, but that means I don't expect to keep the copyright too.
It's only when I go to preview or edit. The Rich Text box is 7 lines high; the non-Rich Text box is 5 lines high. This is on Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit). My screen is 1680x150, with browser window full screen - but I had same problem on my netbook at 1024x600.
Also some other issues I've noticed (on my other computer at the moment with Opera 10.10 - I can try testing with the latest version if you like):
If I type some text in non-Rich Text, then go to preview, it's reverted back to Rich Text - but line breaks are removed.
If I only use the Rich Text editor, and post (even without previewing), it strips out the new lines.
I've uploaded version 0.14. Regarding the points above:
1. Settlers no longer enter enemy territory when at war - should fix the Settler invasion problem.
2. I've switched to using a proper event model for mouse clicks. As I say, it's unclear why it was so slow - would be curious to know if this fixes or improves the problem.
4. The problem was when units were building roads/railways - they'll now attack an adjacent unit if the odds are better than being attacked.
5. The map is now a minimap that can be onscreen all the time; it's less blurry, and has clearer, softer colours. You can also click on it to change the viewpoint.
6. There was a crash I've now fixed with listboxes, where it would crash if you clicked in the scrollbar area, when no scrollbar was displayed (this is a recent bug - in the last version I'd rewritten the routines for scrollbar drawing and input). So possibly this is what you were seeing.
The crash when no shaders were used is also fixed.
And various other improvements - you can now create custom maps using Tiled Map Editor ( http://www.mapeditor.org/ ) - it was a thread somewhere on these forums that suggested Tiled; simply making my game compatible with the Tiled file format was certainly much easier than writing my own editor from scratch.
I suspect the reason why artists often aren't willing to work for free on someone else's game are the same reasons why many programmers like me aren't willing to work for free on someone else's idea. We all have are own ideas to work on, and if it's something done for fun and for free, we'd rather do that, than do it for someone else.
Game art probably involves more work that's uninteresting to artists - it's not enough to draw a 2D character, you have to draw a whole load of frames, each in a whole load of orientations. For 3D, you have to make sure it can be animated. They have to work with the programmer to make sure it's in a format that's suitable for the game engine.
There's also consistency - a game ideally needs a whole set of work in a vaguely consistent manner, both from an aesthetic point of view (the same theme etc), and a technical point of view (e.g., 3D games ideally want meshes in the same format, with things like animation being done in the same way; if characters can hold objects, wear clothes etc, this needs to all work together too). I suspect many artists may prefer to simply work on different ideas, rather than putting their effort all into one massive project.
"My thoughts is that in the case of open source there are many games that are either uninteresting or just clones so you don't get excited about the game thus no motivation to participate"
I don't know if being clones is an issue. Games like FreeCiv and Widelands seem to have attracted plenty of people to produce content. In the commercial world, many games are clones but still attract much interest (the many FPS clones; or the ever growing Civilization franchise, as well as the unofficial Call To Power games). If anything, I'd argue clones may attract more interest, as people know and love the commercial equivalents, where as an original idea is untested - and what sounds good on paper, often doesn't work out in reality.
I think it's probably the case that artists are more likely to be attracted to established projects (or at least a playable game with placeholder graphics), than doing work for a programmer's new project that may end up going nowhere.
Pages