Goals and Philosophy of Aleona's Tales

[qubodup]

Hello,

I read about this project on a collaborative blog, where I often post as well. It stirred up a bit of conversation in the comments (13 messages at the moment).

I was wondering what the goal of Aleona's Tales is. Some specific questions:
When did Aleona's Tales start?
How many people work on Aleona's Tales?
Is the plan for Aleona's Tales to create a single-player stand-alone real-time strategy game?
Is it important to you that the source code of Aleona's Tales is open source?
Are the licenses of the art in Aleona's Tales important to you?
Are you fine with using art from other games without permission if you can get away with it in Aleona's Tales?
If you're familiar with the different licenses published by the organization Creative Commons. Are you fine with using art licensed under non-derivate or noncommercial terms in Aleona's Tales?

I hope I'm not annoying you with questions.

Cheers
Iwan

[Kyran]

When did Aleona's Tales start?

The current incarnation started in 2011.

How many people work on Aleona's Tales?

Just me right now, though I do except that to change.

Is the plan for Aleona's Tales to create a single-player stand-alone real-time strategy game?

The main plan for Aleona's Tales was to attract more developers and researchers to Stratagus. Academic use of Stratagus has kinda dropped off, and I think one of the main hurdles for it's continuing adoption is the lack of a free data set.

Is it important to you that the source code of Aleona's Tales is open source?

Aleona's Tales is open source and will always stay that way. It would kinda defeat the purpose of it as an educational tool if you can't tinker with it.

Are the licenses of the art in Aleona's Tales important to you?

Apart from some CC-BY 3.0 graphics which accidentally got packaged with the game, all art is GPL2.

Are you fine with using art from other games without permission if you can get away with it in Aleona's Tales?

There isn't a need to. The music was taken from Wesnoth, but that should be all removed by the next version.

If you're familiar with the different licenses published by the organization Creative Commons. Are you fine with using art licensed under non-derivate or noncommercial terms in Aleona's Tales?

Hell no.

[qubodup]

Hey, thanks for the answers.

Apart from some CC-BY 3.0 graphics which accidentally got packaged with the game, all art is GPL2.

Some of the worker's voices sound like the ones from Warcraft 2. I'm not sure whether the sounds in AT are the originals or just imitations.

There isn't a need to. The music was taken from Wesnoth, but that should be all removed by the next version.

What do you plan to use instead? I don't see a problem with using Wesnoth's art, as long as the requirements are fulfilled (The copyright notice might be missing right now).

Are you fine with using art licensed under non-derivate or noncommercial terms in Aleona's Tales?

Hell no.

Great! But you want to even avoid CC-BY 3.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0?

[Kyran]

Some of the worker's voices sound like the ones from Warcraft 2. I'm not sure whether the sounds in AT are the originals or just imitations.

They are imitations.

What do you plan to use instead? I don't see a problem with using Wesnoth's art, as long as the requirements are fulfilled (The copyright notice might be missing right now).

I've got replacement music for the main menu, and I'm hoping to extract the battle music from Freecraft. That'll get the bases covered.

Great! But you want to even avoid CC-BY 3.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0?

I don't have any problem with those licenses. Ideally I'd want everything under GPL2 just for simplicity, but that's not very realistic. GPL2 does have certain limitations when it comes to art assets.

[qubodup]

Thanks for the many answers!

Do you have any goals regarding artistic (visuals, audio) style or game design (campaign structure and size, plot, factions)?

I saw you make changes to the title image in the graphics thread. Is this the visual style you want for AT?

[Kyran]

Do you have any goals regarding artistic (visuals, audio) style or game design (campaign structure and size, plot, factions)?

I'm planning on six playable factions:

• Frontier Forces
• Freemen
• Wilds/Ferals
• Order of the Black/Yellow/Meh Fox
• Mythic Imperial Navy
• Wild/Feral Navy

Frontier Forces
Militia commisioned by the Mythics to keep the peace in the politically volatile frontier. The Frontier Forces are disadvanced in that they require large bases in order to function and must commision officers to maintain troop loyalty. The troops of this faction are conscripted from the Wilds. This is the player's faction in the current campaign.

Freemen
The Freemen are peasents who have rebelled against their Mythic Overlords. One of the factions used when playing a multiplayer game with Wargus clients. The allied team in the campaign are Freemen (although story wise they haven't yet rebelled).

Wilds/Ferals
The general enemy of all the other land factions. They even fight against themselves. This is the other faction that can be used when playing a multiplayer match with Wargus clients.

The Order
Strong, expensive and few in number; the Order is a secret society trying the diminish the power of the Mythics. The Order relies on extracting donations from peasents.

Navies
The Navy factions are water based. They move their fleet from island to island, gathering resources and building more ships.

I saw you make changes to the title image in the graphics thread. Is this the visual style you want for AT?

That is the style I'm going for with the Frontier Forces faction. I might go for a different style for each faction/campaign. I want to encourage contributions and third party addons, so I'm not too fussed with keeping a consistant style for absolutely everything. I may even use the graphics I made for a different game in AT for a special gametype.

[Andrettin]

There isn't a need to. The music was taken from Wesnoth, but that should be all removed by the next version.

Is that because you prefer other music to Wesnoth's, or for some other reason? My understanding is that license-wise, since all Wesnoth music is under the GPLv2, there aren't any problems.

[Kyran]

Wesnoth music is well known. I only used it because I wanted to make a quick release.