2 Danyael:
only this section is in English, is there a way that i could be able to read all the sections, topics, etc. in English?
There are hidden forums for Artists, Translators and other. It that forums we manually translate all posts to and from English.
Could you also explain what exactly is happening with Equilibris
Equilibris is unofficial mod, developed by volunteers without any funding.
Unofficial means that Ubisoft allow us to work, but wouldn't support us in any way.
You can there some background of what we do, and what we want:
http://equilibris.celestialheavens.com/eng/about.html
It is now in "pre-final" state, when balancing is almost finished, and now we focus on some non-balancing features (like AI, or campaign editor)
how long you have been working on Equilibris
Equilibris (old name Balance Mod) have been developing for more than two years. I personally have been developing Equilibris for 2 years.
The Project started with minor edition of some game tables, and eventually grow to its current state.
It is international project, now it is translated to 3 languages.
3.6 version would have translations for 8 languages.
how many people are on the team
Core team is listed on our site in "Team section". It includes 11 russian-speaking members from 4 countries of ex-USSR.
We also have some newcomers, they aren't listed on site.
Non-russian part of team includes 2 Artists (from Spain and Argentina), 7 translators, and some beta-testers (don't know their number)
how you are working on this
We use forums, ICQ and email for communication and development coordination.
Artists and mapmakers works all the time, and bring new content to game.
Theoretics and balance experts consider every suggestion we receive, and make tasks for researchers.
Researchers (assembler programmers) explore disassembled code of Heroes IV in search for way to complete a task. Then they make a patch (mostly in assembler, but sometimes in C) and test it. If it works, it's great and patch is included into development version
We also have some utility programmers, which do not explore disassebled code, but write utilities in high-level languages with certain purpose - for example, convertor of graphics (from common graphics formats to Heroes 4 graphics format), sound convertor, skin editor, Face Tool etc. This can be really helpful.
When we (core team) decide we made enough changes, we release next version. Formally, this is beta-testing (because our goal - balance - is not reached yet).
Are they specific programs as well (and if so where can I get them)?
Yes, certainly.
I personally use this as debugger:
http://home.t-online.de/home/Ollydbg/odbg110.zip
and this as disassembler.
http://www.idapro.ru/files/freeida43.exe
And Mingw-gcc as compiler of my C code. (
www.mingw.org)
I've got MS Visual Studio 2003 if that helps.
This certainly can help. Some of programmer's task need no assembler skills, but ability to write program in C or Pascal or Delphi or something...
And is everyone (but me) Russian?
Translators, testers and artists mostly non-Russian
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/9.gif)