Talk:Wikinews interviews 0 A.D. game development team

Original reporting notes
This interview have been produced within the framework of French Wikinews. Many informations can be found on the preparation page.

Emails, Phone call transcripts, other written evidence
Dear Mr. ....,

Thank you for this opportunity and please excuse us for the delay in getting back to you.

Please find our answers enclosed.

Sincerely,

Aviv Sharon Wildfire Games

--

We are Wildfire Games, a group of approximately 15-20 people from around the world developing 0 A.D., a free, open-source game of ancient warfare. Cumulatively, about 100 different people have contributed to 0 A.D. over time. Our ages have ranged from 15 to >65 and our locations range from North America and Europe to India and New Zealand. The contributions to 0 A.D. are coordinated by a team of department heads led by a lead producer, Erik Johansson (feneur), who is 25 years old from Sweden.
 * 1) Could you introduce yourself ?
 * 2) What's your role in 0ad's development ?
 * 3) What's Wildfire?
 * 4) How many participants are there on 0 A.D. ?
 * 5) What's the role of Wildfire in the development of 0 A.D.?

The answers to this article have been compiled by Aviv Sharon, a 24-year-old student from Israel who handles the PR for 0 A.D., but have been made available for review and approval by all team members before release.

All contributions to 0 A.D. so far have been on a voluntary basis only. To speed up development, however, we have decided to raise enough money to support 160 hours of paid development of the 0 A.D. codebase. We have tentatively selected the team member who will receive this compensation, Philip Taylor (Ykkrosh), but decided to hold off for a few months until we start using these funds to wait until he has more time to dedicate to 0 A.D development. Otherwise, 0 A.D. development will continue to be voluntary, and all funds donated to 0 A.D. will be used for team expenses only, such as website hosting costs.
 * 1) Who are they ? Salarieds or benevolents ?

There are several different reasons. Originally, 0 A.D. was born out of a desire to innovate within the RTS genre. We felt, and still feel, that this genre has a lot of potential for innovation and we wish to explore that with some different rules. 0 A.D. started out as a total conversion mod for Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, until team members at that time ran into the limitations of changing a closed-source game. Hence, as a wish to break free from the limitations of other games' engines, the standalone version of 0 A.D. was conceived and its development continues to this day.
 * 1) Why did you want to make games?

Some other reasons include a deep appreciation of ancient history; the wish to improve our skills and be recognized for our talents; and a determination to prove that a group of volunteers collaborating over the internet can make a game that rivals the commercial, proprietary AAA titles.

People are spending more money, time and attention on playing computer games than ever before, and games are constantly evolving into a more nuanced medium of expression and a greater part of our culture. Just observe how much people play on Facebook and their mobile devices. We think this culture should allow gamers to learn how their games work, change them, share them and redistribute their works. This freedom to tinker is what Free, Open-Source Software (FOSS) is all about and so we hope a lot of people tinker with 0 A.D.
 * 1) Why did you choose a free license?

We mostly coordinate over a forum system we have, as well as a Trac system for task management and technical documentation. We also conduct discussions over IRC (#0ad and #0ad-dev on QuakeNet), that get more concentrated on the weekend, and Saturday afternoon in particular, when we have our weekly meeting.
 * 1) How do you coordinate ? What technical and financial resources has 0ad?

Amateurs can definitely help with tasks like documentation and spreading the word about 0 A.D. For other tasks, we do require some prior knowledge in fields such as software development, 3d animation etc. Our main personnel needs are in three fields: Programmers, artists and sound people. We have many applicants for sound contributors but need a manager to oversee them. For programming we need capable gameplay, AI, sound and graphics programmers, proficient in C++ and/or JavaScript. Finally, in the art department, we could use some more texture artists, 3D artists, animators, and illustrators to draw 2d icons for the game's user interface.
 * 1) Which type of participants do you need?
 * 2) 'Amateurs' can they participate?

The biggest obstacle we have run into is underestimating the scale and complexity of an RTS game. When embarking upon this journey in 2001, nobody thought that completing this endeavor would take this long. Evidently, making an RTS game requires a great deal of programming features, art assets and more. And, as we discovered the hard way, the first draft of anything is seldom good enough. For example, one of the most important engine components, named "Simulation", was simply planned wrong the first time around. Simulation is in charge of changing the state of each entity in the "world" represented in the game, like handling harvesting resources, doing damage to stuff and handling death. Sadly, over time it got implemented in such a haphazard way it devolved into an unstable, unpredictable ball of mud. Debugging became difficult and attracting new programmers from joining the development effort became impossible. Over time, fewer and fewer developers stayed on with 0 A.D. and it seemed as if the project was in grave danger of ending, the way many initiatives on the internet spontaneously do.
 * 1) It's been 10 years since 0. AD is developing, what obstacles have arisen and how have you resolved?

Thankfully, one of our programmers, Philip Taylor (Ykkrosh) from the UK, fixed this situation almost singlehandedly over the course of a few months in 2009-2010. Ever since simulation was fixed, it's been smoother sailing and the pace of development picked up considerably. We have recruited several programmers and are constantly adding new features, most recently a prototype opponent AI, which is a big milestone for us.

We are proud of the way our fans go "wow" over screenshots, in-game videos and their direct experiences with the game. We get comments 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're proud we've built a community of enthusiasts on our forums, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, and continuously generated some buzz around 0 A.D. We hope to justify this hype and lead the project to completion.
 * 1) What are you proudest of about your game?

One big upcoming feature is random map scripting, which allows for much more variety in gameplay without having to manually draw new maps all the time. Our prototype opponent AI is set to get even smarter at all aspects of gameplay, and, with time, will be able to execute any of a variety of strategies to win the game. However, generally speaking, we don't make long-term plans because they never seem to work out. So far, since August 2010 we have released an alpha version every 70 days on average, and we intend to keep releasing more alpha versions until the game is feature-complete. Then we will enter a beta phase, playtest and fix bugs until a point when we decide the game is done, hopefully sometime in 2012. On 27 February 2011 22:58, ......... <..........> wrote: Dear Mr. Sharon, Thanks for your interest. Please find below all our questions about 0 A.D. ; there isn't a particular deadline. The interview will be published on our website http://en.wikinews.org/ and will be translated in other langages (french, spanish...). Best regards, ...........       --        # Could you introduce yourself ? # What's your role in 0ad's development ? # What's Wildfire? # What's the role of Wildfire in the development of 0 A.D.? # Why did you want to make games? # Why did you choose a free license? # What are you proudest of about your game? # How many participants are there on 0 A.D. ? # Who are they ? Salarieds or benevolents ? # How do you coordinate ? What technical and financial resources has 0ad? # 'Amateurs' can they participate? # Which type of participants do you need? # It's been 10 years since 0. AD is developing, what obstacles have arisen and how have you resolved? # What is the schedule for 2011?
 * 1) What is the schedule for 2011?

Confirmation of email receipt by accredited reporter

 * I confirm that the email transcript has been emailed to scoop. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Reviewable
Running out of time here, but I'm satisfied this is ready for publication. I would like to see a resized video, but any other reviewer should feel free to publish this. The required email transcript has been forwarded. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Video content
This is, by-and-large, just a FYI for any video contributors, or those who come across such content:


 * MediaWiki does not re-render at the desired display resolution.

Yes, for static images, the collection of duct tape and bailing twine that makes up the WMF server farm saves the - usually lower res - image and serves that to visitors. However, video content is sent to the viewer at uploaded resolution and the client left to resize.

This is problematic when HD stuff is uploaded; it may "stutter", buffer, and otherwise misbehave when viewed. Ideally, the very hi-res version should be resampled to match the quality appropriate to the context. The process is relatively simple with several FLOSS tools - if you're comfortable with a little command-line trial-and-error. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:01, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Anonymity of the interview
I'd like my name on this interview to be replaced by "Wikinews". --Savant-fou (talk) 11:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * WN:Water cooler/policy. --Pi zero (talk) 11:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems there is no opposition. Can it be proceeded? Thanks.--Savant-fou (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)