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Just asking, why you arent moving this game to steam maybe? It might getting more players and the development can increase.

Seeing that the devs seem to be ok with a steam release, what if we opened an issue to keep things up to date with what we need to do, that way when someone else asks questions we can just refer them to the issue where they can see what things are blocking a steam release. And the things blocking for steam release could be very obscure "figure out mod issues" or add tutorial campaign and stuff like that.

I was thinking -- With the advent of 0ad getting out of the alpha phase, would it be a good idea to finally place an official listing on Steam after beefing up the servers or using steam's own servers?

Being open source doesn't prevent you from publishing the game on Steam. Why not release it for free? Releasing it as early access on Steam would provide bug feedback and allow many volunteer developers to contribute to its development.

Yeah I probably should save some keystrokes but I'll repeat it again here: We are not ready for the influx of new players, on a forum/lobby moderation standpoint. We are not ready for the influx of new players with the current mod situation Regarding licensing we can't link with the steam api directly we would need to make a launcher. We haven't looked yet into the specific of submitting a cross platform game. We need to take what happened other games that did https://ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2020/K.3.201/gamedev_spring_steam.mp4 into account Regarding auto updates, the game is now on the Windows Store https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n5vvjr2dz9w?hl=fr-FR&gl=US which i believe supports it. I've merged this conversation with the other one.

There were similar threads in the past. I think the summary is that the game is still not ready to attract a much wider player base, from a MP standpoint. There is also a matter of integration with the Steam libraries, which the developers might not want to do.

why doesn't 0ad want steam release?

Honestly, I didn't know that was the case; manually updating the game is tedious. Besides, I thought the Steam Workshop would add quite a few mods to the game.

I have a feeling steam wants 0AD on their platform, I doubt these recurrent posts are spontaneous gamers registering to make so nicely written comments, explaining the benefits it would have for an open source project.

Please have a look on @Stan`s precise answer to this question in the thread 0AD on Steam? (last answer 1 hour ago).

don't nerf again the fabulous feature of this game, the pause and the possibility to leave and back are unique in RTS game. you already removed the possibility to replace a player in easy way.. the lobby should ne improve with some tab of various discussion and language btw steam has a big solo player population, it is a risky without campagin release. but No risk no gain I don't know anything about networking but I don't understand why the lobby is so heavy, the game will have a lot of players to support at the beginning then this will decrease.

This isn't the first time software that claims to be free has been commercialized; it's not a matter of personal opinion but a legal one. US laws, along with international agreements on intellectual property and trademark use, allow you to use and distribute it for profit or non-profit purposes, and this game is distributed under those terms, whether we like it or not. Anyway, I agree with Stan. Trying to sell an open-source project on a massive platform like Steam should have at least been discussed with the development team or the lead developer, not for legal reasons but rather ethical ones. For example, I would have talked to the Wildfiregames studio and proposed a mechanism of paying for DLC while the game is free to download, and splitting the profits between the developers and the publishing team (myself), who is also in charge of advertising and other tasks. This would have created a mutual benefit where none currently exists, and it would have benefited everyone. I think that would have been the right thing to do. But I mention again, the 0AD project license is already defined and that license allows anyone to distribute the software and sell it as long as they hand over the source code: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney And in https://play0ad.com/ says: The message on the official website is clear: if someone is selling 0AD, you can still download it for free. However, this doesn't mean that someone can't be selling 0AD, or that they're a bad person or the devil for putting a price on something that's free. In the case of Steam, people are free to pay to maintain the convenience of using 0AD on Steam, Steam Deck, Steam Machine, compatibility with community-created controllers, using the Steam social network to share games, etc., or they can simply download it for free from the official website and deal with dependencies, manual updates, Wayland scaling issues, and so on. People will still be free to choose. This is similar to a sales scenario where a bag of flour at the market might cost you $1, but at the store across the street, it might cost $4. The store owner isn't being exploitative; you're simply paying for the convenience of not having to travel almost two hours to the market, paying tolls and spending money on gas while the sun beats down on your skin. The $3 difference isn't for the product's value, but for the convenience of having it right at your doorstep. In this case, having 0ad at a reasonable price wouldn't be considered theft. The price isn't for the software itself, but for the work involved in publishing it, paying Steamworks, and completing all the paperwork. I really hope that Wildfiregames will release it on Steam someday, but if someone else does it and charges for it, I won't judge them; on the contrary, I'll congratulate them. Remember the case of nexuiz, xonotic and the 2012 steam version, when the leader of the classic PC nexuiz project sold the rights and thanks to the fact that the game was published under a gnu gpl2 license (just like 0ad) they were able to create two forks, one called xonotic that is still free and another modified by the company illfonic implementing cryengine and that launched on steam and charges for each download. What would scare me a bit is if Microsoft claimed some patent issues with the game mechanics (similar to Age of Empires). Since it's a free game, there's no way to make a legal claim because there's no malicious intent, but if it's sold, that's a different story. By example: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8882594B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070207844 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20030008696A1/en

It’s probably an issue with a public IP or port settings. I really hope that in the future the game will be released on Steam with proper, fully functional multiplayer for everyone, because after a year and a half my friends and I came back to 0 A.D. and once again found ourselves trying to figure out how to join the lobby — using VPNs, Radmin, and other tools just to play normally, which doesn’t really help.

As far as I know, the developers of 0ad themselves have allowed in their legal guidelines that anyone can sell it, as stated in the GPL2 and Creative Commons licenses. As long as the source code is publicly available, there is no legal or ethical impediment to selling 0ad with or without modifications. If they don't want it sold, then they should change the license; using the GNU GPL doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have to pay for the free version. I think people who install 0AD from Steam won't care if it's alpha or beta or has campaigns; as long as they can play a single-player game, that's enough. If you don't do it, someone else will, whether by changing the logo, name, and so on, but keeping the same engine and assets. People don't want perfection; they just want to play. And if the game is open source, then modifying and selling it is completely free and allowed. Richard Stallman must be turning in his grave because Steam prevented a game from being sold under his own license. If 0ad was removed from Steam it was only due to ignorance, but it is completely legal if the correct steps of Steam's guidelines are followed, and if the official studio doesn't do it, someone else will someday.

I am trying to run 0ad downloaded from package manager and it starts without a GUI. I can see the icon on my taskbar and btop, but no window of any kind appears at all. The command line logs: $ 0ad FILES| Main log written to '/home/rena/.local/state/0ad/log/mainlog.html' FILES| Interesting log written to '/home/rena/.local/state/0ad/log/interestinglog.html' Sound: AlcInit success, using OpenAL Soft FILES| Hardware details written to '/home/rena/.local/state/0ad/log/system_info.txt' FILES| UserReport written to '/home/rena/.local/state/0ad/log/userreport_hwdetect.txt' Please find attached the relevant logs. There are no error reports anywhere. userreport_hwdetect.txtsystem_info.txtmainlog.htmlinterestinglog.html In order to eliminate the possiblity of pacman hosting broken packages or system libraries at play, I built A28 from source and the same occurred. This is why I suspect something is wrong with my GPU driver. However, all other applications run fine: Ollama AI deployments, Steam games ... Let me know if any other system files are needed.

Hey, someone is/was selling 0 A.D. on Steam! There are tons of comments on how someone posted 0 A.D. and is charging for it. Is this old news? Or does someone need to solve this? Here is a link to the page: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2158440.

I'm not entirely sure how to post bug reports on the Git but I tried anyway, but I'm posting here as well in the hopes of it being seen sooner. I've downloaded the latest build from https://play0ad.com/ for Windows; I did not use the SVN, and one thing to bring up is I'm missing the Actor Editor. It's okay, though, as I can still develop the game without it (but would love to still have it.) From there, my .dae files for custom structures (NOT Infantry) specifically is causing crashes in the Atlas Editor. All except for one; the Barracks model. I will include two .dae's below, and what will happen is, one will cause the Atlas Editor to crash, and one won't. I will also include the crashlog. I'm using the latest version of Blender as provided by Steam as well to make these .dae models. Specifically, the blacksmith one will be the one that causes a crash, and the barracks one won't. Interestingly, none of my custom infantry has caused the map editor to crash; it's only been structures. As a result, I've been testing my art in-game by doing consecutive skirmish matches over and over and over, and making saves/loads/etc.; while taking screenshots of my units in the Atlas Editor for previews and thumbnails. It would be nice to be able to use the Map Editor to make scenarios with my custom civilization, but this is actively preventing me from doing so. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! avian_barracks.dae avian_blacksmith.dae logs.zip

One additional point: these kernel parameters combined with some experimental kernels (namely CachyOS BORE) will stress the GPU to the extent of becoming unstable. It is somewhat likely to crash your entire OS mid-game if you stress your GPU too much. You can switch to Linux-LTS for more stability at the cost of some performance. But if you don't want to change kernels, my advice: 1. Make sure your GPU cooling is sufficient and temperatures are low. You might need to manually adjust the fans (I kept it at 100% while gaming and the crash didn't happen; the default fan curve was not ideal) 2. Throttle the maximum fps in your game settings options: Vsync = on Menu maximum fps = 60 Game maximum fps = whatever your screen offers, or 120fps (generally enough). 3. Cancel overclocks or turbo mode for stability. 4. Some AMD cards draw more power than a PCIE power supply is designed to give. If it has 2x 8-pin connectors, plug in 2 different PCIe cables from the power supply, not from the same one cable with a splitter. 5. If game still crashes on Vulkan, lower graphics settings. Fortunately, 0ad is not a very big GPU destroyer. Some Steam games when run with proton crashes the system in just a few minutes.

Yes, a Steam release would be strategically very beneficial for 0 A.D., provided the game reaches a stable release.

Maybe we should adjust the answer to the corresponding FAQ. IMO: Abandoning the alpha-versioning doesn't mean the community is resilient enough for a murderous increase of players and need for moderation due to a listing in Steam etc. I take over the 'disgusting place'-argumentation of @Seleucids. Have you used the search function of the forum software with the query 'steam'? There are many more arguments than the ones stated in this thread.

I am not involved with the team, so this is me talking out of my backside. I believe it makes no sense to push for Steam until the game gets a decent single player campaign and fixes lag in the late game (it's getting there).

Strangely, I downloaded some games to test, and all of the Alt + Tab worked fine. The following is the list of games I tested. SuperTuxKart (Edit config.xml in configuration folder and change "gl" to "vulkan" for the "render_driver" setting.) Dota 2 Unturned (In Steam, enter "-force-vulkan" in the launch options under Unturned's properties.) Veloren War Thunder (In Steam, enter "-driver:vulkan" in the launch options under War Thunder's properties.) Yes. With OpenGL + GPU skinning, everything works fine. ChatGPT suggested that I check the Windows Event Viewer. After the crash, I found two errors there. I copied the contents of the two errors into the attached file below. (issue2)Event viewer.txt

it WORKS omg now the game is a gif on pentium steam machine not a power point

I agree to @borg- that 0 A.D. stands out for being a much less frenetic game compared to titles like Age of Empires II (aoe2) or Age of Mythology (aom). its more deliberate strategic focus where there are no constant micro battles that force players to perform hundreds of clicks per minute (except in high level games, but usually pro players like borg or vali doesnt overtask other players, tho they can do it perfectly) to manage individual units or special abilities. In 0 A.D., victory is built through macroeconomic decisions and largescale tactics, significantly reducing the number of actions needed to control standard matches. Micro plays are ofc very important, i usually like to do some 5 - 8inf minirushes to kill some wumen or counter rushes. I fully support the argument that the clicks required to play effectively are fewer here. While aom or aoe2 demand near surgical attention in every skirmish, 0 A.D. prioritizes planning and resource flow, making it more accessible to players who prefer strategy over reflexes. But ofc, as more reflexes and apm more advantage. Ipropose two key adjustments: -Increase the base game speed to 1.15x, to streamline mid-game phases without sacrificing tactical depth. -Reduce unit training times by 15 or 20%. With this two things micro would be much important and the rest of the tactics remain the same. Additionally, it’s important to highlight that 0 A.D. is designed for armies of 200–300 units, compared to the 100–150 of its competitors. This difference demands a less chaotic design but could also be leveraged to make large-scale battles more dynamic without overwhelming the player. Anyway 0 A.D. doesn’t need to copy the frenetic pace of other RTS games, but it could optimize its rhythm to enhance its unique identity. I support @borg’s ideas and hope the developers consider these changes. Also i think 0ad needs a face-wash and make a better UI and PLEASE GO TO STEAM. 0 A.D. IS BETTER THAN MUCH OF ITS COMPETITORS, only needs few things and more players

For one reason or another, 2025 has started off as the year where I get back into that most nostalgic of genres - good o' real-time strategy. First came the replaying of classics like Age of Empires, then trying out some new promising indie titles (Eyes of War being my most interesting find - just classic skirmish with a gimmick that lets you play in 3rd person and fight with your army, very cool during sieges), and then it just continued... Age of Darkness was another find, but the latest is 0 AD. Since most of my game consumption is a direct funnel from Steam (or GOG for all my DRM-free purchases), I guess gems like this are even harder to discover unless you hear from it by word of mouth - same as we did back in the day. That's what makes it even more endearing and kind of bitter-sweet because of how nostalgic this whole gaming period feels for me. Where do I start and end with 0 AD? It's absolutely astounding that someone released a free game of this scale and caliber. It's perhaps the closest to being a spiritual successor to the original Age of Empires while also having its own personality. And this was being developed all the way back from 2010? Needless to say, I've dipped just a bit into it and already have to shout praise in its direction. Just so glad whenever I see love being shown (and in such quantities too!) to this overshadowed genre. Consider this my love letter if nothing else <3