218 replies to this topic

[Arthur_D]

All sorts. I am not a programmer or contributor to this project, so I do not have anything to back up my claims. But personally, I believe an RTS game like 0 A.D. doesn't make sense for current and near-future mobile platforms. Besides, you would almost have to create a whole new game in order to get it going on e.g. a tablet. The maps and models would probably be too much to handle for the hardware, and even if you got that going, it would be a pain to get all the assorted libraries etc. working as expected.

Finally, I think if any Android port should happen, it should happen AFTER, not before, the first part of the game is finished. Splitting up development effort in order to do too much at once is what many projects have fallen victim to, and their development usually halts and possibly never reboots into something tangible.

As said, this is only my opinion, so don't take it too seriously.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

I think it could be a nice idea, but it will be several more years before it's remotely worth pursuing.

[Ykkrosh]

The most time-consuming problem would probably be porting all the rendering code to work with OpenGL ES - I don't think that would be particularly difficult, but it's quite a lot of code to change. (I think we could support GLES 2.0+ and desktop GL with mostly shared code (just with some fallbacks for fixed-function hardware) so it doesn't need to be a fork - we could incrementally modernise the main codebase to support GLES.) Apart from that, I guess the main technical difficulties would be getting the build system and third-party libraries to work properly in the new environment.

I'd imagine the bigger problem is that a lot of the gameplay design is influenced by the mouse+keyboard UI system (e.g. we assume experienced players will use hotkeys, and we assume everyone can click precisely on small points on the screen, and we assume we can fill a 1024x768 screen with small text and players will be able to read it all), and those assumptions may not be valid on non-PC devices, so the gameplay design may work very poorly. It might make most sense to port the engine and then develop a new mobile-oriented gameplay mod (using the existing art and gameplay concepts but perhaps streamlining the game design in various ways), if someone wants to make a game that works well in that environment.

[gerbilOFdoom]

Perhaps not a full port, but a mobile add-on that lets a player manage some sort of "global conquest" mode outside of the RTS gameplay? My thought here is like Galactic Conquest from Star Wars Battlefront 2, maybe something like Tribal Wars in terms of functionality. People play the RTS portion of the game on PC, but manage an empire on their mobile device. Just a concept though, I don't have any specific ideas for what it could do at this time.

[historic_bruno]

I don't see what a mobile version of 0 A.D. would actually share with the standard desktop/laptop version. I mean the UI, gameplay, and art would need widespread changes to be practical for a mobile device (think bigger, "cuter", simpler, gimmicky) with totally different controls, obviously no keyboard shortcuts or mouse click selection. That means multiplayer between mobile and non-mobile devices wouldn't make sense either, so this idea doesn't make any sense to me at all. A first person shooter is not even remotely comparable, because let's face it, all you have to do is run around, point a gun at your enemies and shoot

[Spahbod]

RTS games are designed especially for PC. Other platforms cannot support them because of the control problem. A failed example is Age of Empires Mobile. It was very hard to play and didn't end up in success.

[Almin]

@afeder: To be honest, but I also think that it is ways to difficult to create a port for mobile phones, just to show that it's possible(,-> which it not even is, in the case of 0 A.D.)! And even if it's possible there wouldn't be enough people maintaining this port, because there are just not many people who want to play such a game on an small (and weird) device, rather than on a big screen. But if you feel like you can do it, than no one will stop you. Likewise you can't expect the developers to help you. That's just how foss-development is working.

[historic_bruno]

afeder, on 27 December 2011 - 02:56 AM, said:

What it would share would be the main thrust of the game: the 3D engine, the gameplay mechanics, the models & textures and sound & music. The controls would be "totally different", yes, but that is to be expected - I don't see how it would exclude multiplayer between mobile and non-mobile devices?

I don't believe you could keep the same gameplay mechanics or art, because it wouldn't be an effective mobile game IMO. Mobile games require a different paradigm, or at least the successful mobile games I can think of are very different. There are physical limits, the smaller screen limits what you can see with a glance and how big the "world" can be, and many of our models assume you can easily zoom in and out, rotate the camera, and that you're using a 1024x768 resolution or higher screen that's at least 15-17". We also assume you can read small text for tooltips and UI buttons, but if you remove those, you have to remove certain functionality that they represent. You could try for voice command and use the accelerometer control of the device (for camera movement), assuming those worked intuitively, there would still be visual limits. I believe the direction a mobile 0 A.D. would inevitably take is toward a quicker, less historically accurate, goofier, simpler game - at which point it's no longer 0 A.D. I just feel that even if I could play 0 A.D. today on a tablet, smartphone, or whatever, I wouldn't enjoy it. Still I'd be interested to see where such a project went.

[Almin]

afeder, on 28 December 2011 - 01:31 AM, said:

Well, this illustrates the misunderstanding perfectly. I am not asking anyone to choose between desktop OR mobile. It would be a port, meaning you would still be able to play desktop when it's practical. But in many, many situtations desktop is not practical - like if you're riding the bus and lugging around your laptop just isn't convienient. In those situations you currently have no options, regardless of how much you like big screens.

As for people not wanting to play on such devices, that is simply not true. Grand Theft Auto III, a ten years old PC game, was just released for iOS and Android on December 22. It has already been downloaded more than 100.000 times (at 2$ each) from Android Market alone. People are craving quality games for mobile.

You really try to misunderstand me, right?

1st: There was not a second that I thought you would like to "kill" the desktop version and I understood quite well that you talked about a port.
2nd: I would like to know when playing a game like 0 A.D. is practical on a mobile device. And please don't misunderstand me, but I really would appreciate seeing the facial expressions of someone trying to play a rts like 0 A.D. on a smartphone or tablet.
3rd:

Quote

As for people not wanting to play on such devices, that is simply not true. Grand Theft Auto III, a ten years old PC game, was just released for iOS and Android on December 22. It has already been downloaded more than 100.000 times (at 2$ each) from Android Market alone. People are craving quality games for mobile.

Well, and there's no difference between GTA and 0 A.D.(Sorry, but this made me laugh). GTA is not an rts. What do you do in GTA? Right! You run around, steel some cars, kill some people. I think when it comes to First-Person-Shooters, historic_bruno already said everything needed so I don't have to repeat it. Furthermore, as you said yourself, the mobile version of GTA was sold, which means it was developed commercially. But 0 A.D. is foss and therefore nobody here pays a development studio to port 0 A.D.. I therefore don't know where you want to get the people porting the entire stuff. As Ykkrosh already mentioned the rendering must be done with OpenGL ES and you have to care about the build system and third-party libraries. I don't know whether you build 0 A.D. yourself, but I did so. To see how many third-party libraries and other stuff are needed you can look them up here: http://trac.wildfire...tructions#Linux

So for now I'm quite interested how one can solve all of those problems.

Edited by Almin, 28 December 2011 - 09:08 AM.

[Almin]

afeder, on 28 December 2011 - 10:04 AM, said:

You might not, but that was what you wrote and that was what I responded to. I can't read your mind.


GTA is not an RPG or a turn-based strategy game either, but there's plenty of RPGs and turn-based strategy game for Android. It's quite silly to suggest that because a game of type X is popular on mobile devices then games of type Y won't be.

What I am interested in are the technical obstacles, rather than these superflous "it won't work because I don't like it" arguments.

Sorry, I thought, I wrote that "I also think that it is ways to difficult to create a port for mobile phones", but however...

Besides the '"it won't work because I don't like it"-arguments' you asked for "the technical obstacles" and here is again what I also sent:
A link to the building page in the wiki including all the third-party-stuff you need to build the game:
http://trac.wildfire...tructions#Linux

Spoiler

GCC (at least 4.0, preferably 4.3 or later)
Subversion (or git if you want to use the Git mirror; see below)
SDL
Boost
zlib
libpng
libxml2
OpenGL
OpenAL
zip (needed by spidermonkey)
libogg
libvorbis
libcurl
Gamin (FAM should work too, but is considered deprecated)
CMake
To compile editing tools (enabled by default; pass the flag --disable-atlas to update-workspaces.sh to disable):
wxWidgets (packages are probably called wxgtk)
To use shared system libraries instead of bundled copies (default) of libraries (pass the flag --with-system-$COMPONENT to update-workspaces.sh to use the non-bundled copy):
ENet 1.3 (--with-system-enet)
NVTT (--with-system-nvtt)
SpiderMonkey 1.8.5 (--with-system-mozjs185)

What I don't know is whether all of that stuff exists (and works) for Android. Now, which other 'technical obstacles' do you need(,besides that I still can't imagine how a GUI on such a small screen that includes all 0 A.D.-functionality should look like)?

Edited by Almin, 28 December 2011 - 11:51 AM.

[Almin]

Ah, yes! I didn't thought that that much of those packages already exist in some way on Android. This changes the picture a little bit for me.

Edited by Almin, 28 December 2011 - 01:42 PM.

[historic_bruno]

Don't forget NVTT, Spidermonkey, Enet and fcollada, which are bundled with the source and typically built along with the game. Though depending on how much modification is required, some dependencies could change (for instance, Fam/Gamin is used for monitoring file hotloading which doesn't seem as useful on an Android device).