check this out
http://www.birth-of-the-empires.de

they developed a new botf and released an alpha version of the game
a few features are not in their but will follow soon i think
so guys download it give them feedback about bugs and so on and perhaps we get a real new botf in short time

Dont read german so kinda useless for me.

If they had english forums as well as there own then perhaps we could read there and stuff.

if you download the version there is an english readme

I've been keeping an eye on this project, and it seems to be coming along quite nicely. I loaded it up on my laptop, but I can't run 1280x1024 (1440x900 display), and I don't have a mouse wheel, so I can't explore all the features yet. I'll play with it some more when I get home.

Ah...Birth of the Empires.

Yes, we did know about their project - we have our spies, you see.

I didn't know they had released anything yet - I don't check their site all that often to be honest. They've had "screenshots" of their game out since they first set up their site - almost 8 months ago now.

I don't trust games that are able to offer screenshots of something that has barely started to be programmed. Still, if they're got a release available for them, then good for them. Obviously it won't be perfect because its an alpha version though.

I am also skeptical of projects that offer screenshots without much else to back them up (*cough* Universal Evolution *cough*), but Sir Pustekuchen sent me the API documentation for Birth of the Empires so I could get a feel for his code design. It looks sound to me.

The download he just released is technically more of a pre-alpha, since an alpha release is supposed to have all the core gameplay features in place. Still, they seem to be making excellent progress. Probably more progress than I'm making at the moment, but I'm stepping up the pace now that I'm back in school and not working full-time. As you said, it's not perfect, but it's definitely promising. I've already sent Sir Pustekuchen a note congratulating him on his progress. It's good to see any BOTF2 project make headway.

Id download to try but theres no link for dl in teh ALPHA topic.

There's a new Downloads forum with a single Alpha Release thread. You can download it there. There are actually two separate downloads--the game data/media package and the executable.

@matress
Hi, I can understand that you are very jealous of our release but plaese calm down a ittle bit.

If you don`t like Alpha Versions, ok.
If you don`t like Screenshots, ok.
If you think it is not perfekt, ok, you are right, an Alpha version is never perfekt.
If you don`t trust us, ok.

But don`t make our projekt mad !!! You should better lock at what you did until now. You have a huge board with hundrets of members, you have 3400 Post, but what do you have to present ??? Du you have an Alpha Version ??? I don`t think so. You only have Screenshots und some promises. Remember 25.9.2005 ???

So let us work on our projekt on you continue with your projekt and at the end we will see.

Rautzebautze, I think you may have misinterpreted Mattress's response (though he could have phrased it better). I believe all he meant was that he wasn't sure how far along your project was, because all he had seen are screenshots. I think now that you've released an alpha version, he knows that you guys are making significant progress, and I'm sure he's as excited as everyone else. All the staff on this forum are glad to see your BOTF2 project making progress, and we've already told Sir Pustekuchen that he's welcome to borrow any resources from our project that he wants.

Yes I know that we allready share ressources (race descrition a.s.o.) but the post from Matress seemed to bee a little bit unfriendly. I mean hey, we are all waiting for a new BOTF and we should be glad about every projekt. So let`s work togehtther and help each other to get a really good new game an not misstrust each other

MOE................BEEN NAUGHTY...........................MOE...............BE RUDE................... id otn think so im gussing some1 missunderstood him

MOE isnt a mean guy and he deff would not have said anyhting like that i know when you read it it might sound abit bad but to be honest i know him for a while and he done have a mean bone in that whole wlesh body of his but it be ok coz im sure he didnt mean it

Can ya download and eglish verson or will the game only be in German (or whatever language ) coz im limted to numbers and hund in german lmao

But looks very nice and very well done alot of hard work and carnt wait to play it

even if i dont understand what im doing lol then gaain i wouldnt if it was in english lol

I cant find a link still. Can someone please post the direct link here please.

Skeeter, are you registered and logged into the forum? That could be your problem. The topic is here.

Meh you mean they force you to register to download it. Nah think ill pass thanks.

Woah woah woah!

Rautzebautze, i'm sorry if my post sounded rude to you, but I certainly didn't intend it to be that way.

MStrobel is correct in his interpretation - all i've seen of your game is the screenshots; I haven't downloaded anything or read the posts in your forums because they aren't in English. I don't speak a word of German (Even though I did it for a year in school ) so it's a little difficult to keep up-to-date with what is going on on your forums.

I'll try to explain what I meant a bit better for you though. What I was trying to say, is that (From my point of view) you didn't have any programming, interfaces, etc. complete...so I didn't understand where you had got your screenshots from.

In my opinion, a screenshot means a picture that has been taken from a working program - even if it is incomplete/has unresolved bugs in it - to show others the progress that has been made on said program.

So - from my point of view - your screenshots couldn't possibly be "real", as your project had only just started when the screenshots were posted. Now this may simply be because my sense of your time scale is wrong, or some other misunderstanding, but anyways, this is what I meant by "not trusting your project".

I was in no way trying to put your or your game down, and I hope you accept my sincerest apologies for this misunderstanding.

...

On the point of the "release" of our own game, there are mitigating circumstances. The original programmer left due to personal reasons, so the game was put on hold.

During this time, another member of the team - Jigalypuff - stepped forward and agreed to make his own game. He has put his name, time, and money into this project, and has been working hard for the last eight months. But that is only eight months. I'm sure you can appreciate that a project of this manner cannot be done by a single person in such a short amount of time, especially since he can only do it in his free time; he isn't doing this because it is his job.

He also had to start programming from scratch. The original programmer did not leave any contact details or any copies of the existing programming for Jig to continue working from. Because of all these points, it really wouldn't be fair to expect any thing to have been released - yet.

...

As for nothing having been released though, you are sorely mistaken. There are some small examples of the games progress available for download in the downloads section of the forums, and various threads have links to other downloads as well.

I also have some programs that have been given to me for testing purposes as well. Ok, these haven't been released to the general public, but I can assure you that I do have them.

If you want, i'll post some screenshots of these programs for you to have a look at - and you'll be able to post your own messages of distrust in me, should you still feel that way.

You'll have to trust me when I say that my skills with computer art are virtually non-existant though; there's no need for you to worry about me making fake images. The little Romulan in my avatar wasn't even made by me, it was made by Jigalypuff as a joke once. I simply animated it.

...

As for my post count, that's mainly because I'm a bit too obsessed with the game and have too much time on my hands.

I also understand that your forums aren't as popular as these ones and you are recieving less feedback, but feel welcome to ask for feedback in these forums.

We're all BOTF fans, and the success of a project - ANY project - matters to us all.

...

As a show of peace, i've uploaded a copy of the random events in their current form to a file hoster. They aren't complete, but they're something. Feel free to use them for your own project if you want, but you'll have to translate them yourself, sorry.

The random events are obviously being written by me, but they are based on the original list by OmniQ, which can be found Here. Additional input and ideas have been made by Dafedz as well, and OmniQ has now returned from his long absence and is also actively writing random event messages.

Everyone, please feel free to download them, as i'm interested in any feedback that people can give...especially for the V'Ger random event...

I've already sent the random events to a few select people, but if they're reading this, i'd urge them to download this version, as it's the latest one.

Download The Random Events From Here

OMG what a Post, I`ll reply to it tomorrow^^

Well, I downloaded it and I would play it immediately, but there's no .exe file for me to execute the game...anyone else tried this?

The EXE is a separate download. I believe it is attached to the announcement post .

Hi



That isn't right. I started to work on the project early 2004! After almost 2 years of hard work, I started the forum. So everybody can see it. All screenshots are made from the game. No screenshot was made with photoshop or something else. An english version of BotE is also possibly. But I will not translate all the stuff.

You can post in my german forum in english, too. I think we will understand you

If you need an english translator - I'm here.

Though remember, I can ONLY do German to English, and my translation wont be excellent.

Then that's where the misunderstanding is, SirPustekuchen.

Glad to see you on this site, by the way, i've seen some of your posts on the German forums. I'm sure Jigalypuff and MStrobel would be willing to work with you on the programming side of things if you guys aren't already working together.

...





Sorry about that, I had a lot to say and I tend to get carried away. Trust me when I say i've written longer posts than that in the past though! 8O

In fact, my longest post is by far is the shiplists thread, which can be found Here.

No Problem



I don't need an english translator, because I'm German But if you want to get an english version of BotE, you or a team can translate the text/ressources. But it is a lot! Many things and descriptions can be copied from the original botf. Please write a PM to me if you really want an english version.


regards
Sir Pustekuchen

I had a crazy thought. Since this place is home to 2/3 projects on the go why not add your project here. Im sure jigalypuff can provide a forum for you, in english and german. Depending on what language you use and what we use in the projects here, maybe projects can be merged and teams merged.

What do you think?

i could see there bing a section on the forum for htis but to be honest the forum is is already split into quite a few sections so if ur a newbi you dont know were the hell to go lol so adding another one might not work and mergeing the projects yea help is brillent but there nearly done with there project while ours is still in delpoement so they wouldnt gain much from us i guss

should thye require a server for their game with unlimitrd bandwidth we will happily host the game for them, if they would like a forum set up here then i`ll do it, any botf2 projects are more than welcome on this site, and congrats guys for getting there, now add some 3d combat for me lol.

I just played this game and found that it runs perfectly, there isnt much in it though. Im not keen on the music either! Although im a bit limited by my poor German, the game interface is easy enough to use. It does not look as polished as Mstrobels galaxy generator but it looks promising, the star images in the game look familiar to:)

Looking good, I hope the work continues!

Way overuse of lcars in my opinion. There should only bit a little bit of lcars in the interface.

for the little time i tried it, it seems pretty nice
still a bit limited but i like it
in the beginning the german therms are bit puzzling to me, but i'll get there

After playing it for a while, the game seems to be more complete than I had originally thought. I agree that the interface could use a little bit of work, but it can always be refined later. I'm pretty excited to see one of the BOTF2 projects making so much progress. It'll give me a benchmark to compare my own game against .

I'd love to see an English version.