Age of Conquest III

[noblemaster]

I finally managed to release the next installment of Age of Conquest (previously: Aevum Obscurum)!

The game is distributed by GamersGate, Intel AppUp & myself. The official release date is November 17! Hope things work out well...

Webstart Link for Singleplayer Demo:
http://www.ageofconquest.com/webstart/standalone/Main.jnlp

Multiplayer Webstart (requires registration):
http://www.ageofconquest.com/webstart/multiplayer/Main.jnlp

Homepage:
http://www.ageofconquest.com

Screenshot:

[Riven]

This is going to be my honest response: GREAT!

There are a few minor flaws: boring tutorial, OK/Cancel buttons out of viewport (needs scrolling to click). The "remaining battle points" should be WAY bigger! Like >50px!

Being a Risk fan, I absolutely loved it.

BTW: did you change the name? "Age of Conquest" is so 'normal' that I fear people won't remember your game by the name, and it won't pop out in google search queries. Why did you abandon Aevum Obscurum? Too hard to remember?

[CommanderKeith]

Congrats, looks really good.

Honestly I got a bit frustrated with it, I just wanted to move units on the map with the mouse and I couldn't. But I lazily tapped next all thru the tutorial without really reading it. I suppose if you could make the controls more intuitive it would be better.

Very polished looking, and yep I love Risk too.

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[Riven]

Congrats, looks really good.

Honestly I got a bit frustrated with it, I just wanted to move units on the map with the mouse and I couldn't. But I lazily tapped next all thru the tutorial without really reading it. I suppose if you could make the controls more intuitive it would be better.

That's directly related to:

The "remaining battle points" should be WAY bigger! Like >50px!

Maybe even make it flash / highlight when it is too low.

[noblemaster]

Thanks for the feedback 

I put "battle points" onto the to do list! I'll make the avatars smaller and increase the size for both the battle points and the gold.

In regards to the name: I like Aevum Obscurum too but it was impossible for people to spell or to pronounce. I would tell people about it and the conversations derailed to the exact pronunciation/spelling rather people wanting to know more about the name. Also, it was hard to find the game in the internet because people wouldn't know how to type the name, e.g. in Google! Luckily, somehow I managed to purchased ageofconquest.com for cheap.

[heX-]

one word. AWESOME!!! can't wait till I try it

[Terminalord]

Very well done. I just finished toying with the demo. I love the artwork. The whole feel of the game is solid. Good luck.

[noblemaster]

I actually hired an artist (Sergey) to do all the graphics. I just gave up doing all the graphics myself. Sergey did an excellent job with the user interface and map item graphics   

[heX-]

All it matters is the Coder. it's not a tough job to get some books for photoshop/blender (only exampels) and learn them. in my crew I also have some Graphic artists who help me with the models.

[Riven]

All it matters is the Coder. it's not a tough job to get some books for photoshop/blender (only exampels) and learn them. in my crew I also have some Graphic artists who help me with the models.

I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions under programmers.

With that reasoning you can also say:

All it matters is the Artist. it's not a tough job to get some books for scripting/coding (only exampels) and learn them. in my crew I also have some Coders who help me with the logic.

1. is it a good idea to spend time on graphics?
2. will you be good at it, regardless of how much time you spend on it?

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[krasse]

With that reasoning you can also say:
1. is it a good idea to spend time on graphics?
2. will you be good at it, regardless of how much time you spend on it?

I think that it is good to learn at least some basic graphics stuff. Then you can communicate better with the artists and also not get screwed that easily by low quality crap.
I have the same opinion about learning music and sound effects as well when it comes to raw efficiency. When it comes to quality of life, I prefer to do things that stimulate both my left and right part of the brain

[Eli Delventhal]

I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions under programmers.

With that reasoning you can also say:
1. is it a good idea to spend time on graphics?
2. will you be good at it, regardless of how much time you spend on it?

For maximum productivity, you're right, but for an indie/hobby dev I find spending some time on art is a welcome change. I definitely enjoy switching between different things: code, art, story, music, etc.

[noblemaster]

Actually, I enjoy coding the most 

Whenever I do have to spend time on graphics, music and story I am dead-slow. Feels like going to the dentist.

[Daniel Accorsi]

When open as a Webstart:

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13

com.sun.deploy.net.FailedDownloadException: Não é possível carregar o recurso: http://www.ageofconquest.com/webstart/standalone/mp3spi1.9.4-3.0.4741.jar   at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.actionDownload(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getCacheEntry(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getCacheEntry(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResourceCacheEntry(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResourceCacheEntry(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResource(Unknown Source)    at com.sun.javaws.LaunchDownload$DownloadTask.call(Unknown Source)    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source)    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

[noblemaster]

I checked, the file should be there. When you open the following URL in your browser, do you get an error?
http://www.ageofconquest.com/webstart/standalone/mp3spi1.9.4-3.0.4741.jar

How about the following URL:
http://www.ageofconquest.com/webstart/standalone/unpacked/mp3spi1.9.4-3.0.4741.jar

I am using pack200. Actually, what version of Java are you running? 1.5 or higher?

[Riven]

noblemaster: WebStart is broken and has been for years. download failures like this will always happen, and I strongly advise you to ditch WebStart for your deployment.

[OttoMeier]

noblemaster: WebStart is broken and has been for years. download failures like this will always happen, and I strongly advise you to ditch WebStart for your deployment.

what do you advice instead?

[Riven]

Either writing your own http client, download one that has proven to be reliable, or simply create an installer.

[kappa]

There is also GetDown, much better then Java Web Start. Its pretty mature now having been used in a number of commercial games, including games by Oddlabs and Three Rings. It also seems like its actively maintained.

But then again you could just go for downloadable installer method.

[Nate]

Neat, hadn't seen GetDown before.

[CommanderKeith]

Wow, GetDown is BSD license now, that's great! It used to be GPL...

Hmm, I suppose the only little niggle with it is that all apps need to be signed to use getdown.

[noblemaster]

Thanks, I never heard about GetDown! Looks very promising. I'll check it out 

[noblemaster]

You guys actually got getdown to work? I spent several hours creating a project but I am not able to run it because the getdown.jar provided is buggy and the sources do not compile.

[gouessej]

what do you advice instead?

IzPack:
http://izpack.org/

[Kiddo]

nice work, very enjoyable 

[quixote_arg]

what frameworks/libs (if any) did you use for the project?

[noblemaster]

JLayer, Debian, MySQL, Simple for Networking (http://simpleweb.sourceforge.net), Bitronix (DB transaction manager), Liquibase (DB Setup), SLF4J (logging) and JGoodies Forms for Swing layout.

[kappa]

see comments above by mods.

FEATURED

[noblemaster]

wow, thanks

[asphaltgalaxy]

Very cool and addicting game! Spent few hours on sunday playing demo! Love it!