it's kind of sad ^^ missing more rts/fps games

Yup, pretty much.

and everythign died out xD ^^

neva will happen broski

This group is currently comprised of people with an actual say in development. The admins are a reflection of members with the authority to make real conceptual changes, and therefore have the ability to make the group reflect that.

A group with more administrators than actual members is a bad sign...

Hey guys i have created a free forum for our use: http://empires2.board-directory.com/ . I will be working on it tonight and get the basics in place. When and if you create an account shoot me an email at cwal728@gmail.com and i will add you to the admin group.

I've got a bunch of drawings and concept models for weapons, I'll scan them next time I get the option; and start on modelng them whenever I have spare time but in the current, I guess I could use some suggestions. contact me via steam/skype (Cartaugrapher (matt)) and tell me what you think I should make.

Oh, and another thing; I've given all the members I've promoted a bit of control over what this group even is. So things can change very easily if someone gets an idea; I'm not trying to hold the reins here, just trying to gather some people and steer in the meantime. So if you want to change the logo and description to better suit what you think this group should represent, by all means do it. We might discuss things more in-depth later; until then we see what works.

I'm not worried if you're not going to work on anything for Source; until we get all the things you mentioned done we're going to need SOMETHING to do, and most of us, myself included, have never done any real work on a mod before. Discussing things outside of Source is completely fine; hopefully we can just use Empires to get ourselves "blooded" so to speak. I understand exactly what you're saying, and with the way Empires is going, doing this in front of them is still what I would consider "under the radar." No one takes us seriously, ESPECIALLY if they think we're only working on Source. I have every intention of doing something else on another engine, but I'm trying to get people behind the idea with Empires as a banner. It'll be really easy to hit the wall and say, "well, off to (engine name)."

Also, I don't expect to have an independent mod done before the last quarter of 2011. I'm not being short-sighted, and I appreciate your interest. Hopefully we can help each other.

FYI, I'm not going to do anything on the source engine. I refuse to be a part of any project that uses it if it aims to be an RTS/FPS. It's mapping sucks, it's documentation is crap, and it's just a pain in comparison to other engines. UDK is in my opinion the best option. It's shiney, it's documented, and we can make any game on it, then sell it with no hassles if we wanted to. But besides, I've worked on enough failed mods to know what NOT to do, and we're doing it. We need to be under the radar mostly, looking for people to get behind the IDEA. We work on a design document, study some code and the like, and have something reasonable to show in order to get more developers interested. This is not a month long afair where we have a product off the assembly so soon.

Besides, this was an idea I toyed with and now people make a steam group lol. I'm not even committed to anything until I do some studying and find some free time.

(From Last) Right now we're concerned with Source. We know this game. We know its Engine. We need to push it until it breaks... and then we'll move on. Empires II is just a banner to rally behind. The ultimate goal is to design the game that we, the players, wish to play.

In reference to "getting everyone's hopes up;" that's exactly what I aim to do. If we get people's hopes up, make them aspire to something "more," and then make them involved in the product we want to create, those people aren't going to let their own hopes crash and burn. They'll be more likely to actually produce instead of just complain. Make a difference instead of look back at the past. In reference to the name, I was going to name my own independent mod "Dogs of War." I just started "Empires II" because it was available; Dogs of War wasn't. To be quite frank, this is just the beginning of something much, much bigger. We already have about a dozen people interested, but our current shortage is in core coders. That is to say, we have scripters, modelers, mappers, and testers, but no one who actually knows the ins-and-outs of an actual game engine. I'm not worried about that right now because we don't know what engine we want to be on in the future. Cont

This is why I suggested UDK. BTW, don't go overboard and get everyone's hopes up. It will lead to failure down the road if we don't have any test product to show. And I'm pretty sure the IP is already taken for Empires II lol. I don't mean to break some balls, but if we do actually decide to make something, we need a design document, a few modders already interested, and our own intellectual property in order to get something done.