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Why is the 0 A.D community so small?


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  • 3 weeks later...
On 07/10/2024 at 8:55 AM, Stan` said:

I don't know much about Gog @vv221 maybe knows better ?

I can’t say how easy or hard it would be to pass through their curation process, but I think 0 A.D. would be a great fit for GOG, if distributed there as a free game. It would no even need an "early access" label (it is already in a much better state than many *released* commercial games).

Many GOG customers are starved for RTS games, and multiplayer games that can be played without going through a store launcher/DRM. Many of them joined the store for "old" games and are still waiting for Age of Empires, so having access to 0 A.D. could scratch their itch.

I expect launching the game on GOG would have a bigger effect on 0 A.D. popularity than what itch.io did, if only because of the small catalogue leading to each game getting more (relative) exposure.

To get an idea, here is their full list of so-called real-time strategy games (most of these are not even what we would call RTS): https://www.gog.com/en/games?genres=strategy&tags=real-time&hideDLCs=true

It would be very easy for 0 A.D. to shine when compared to most of these games.

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On the topic of the alpha version, I too am in the opinion that it does no longer help. I would suggest dropping alpha, beta or whatever and stick to the 0.0.27 naming scheme (0.1.0 would be first beta, 1.0.0 first "complete" release). Alpha/beta could stay in internal discussions, but no longer has an useful meaning for distribution.

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40 minutes ago, vv221 said:

I can’t say how easy or hard it would be to pass through their curation process, but I think 0 A.D. would be a great fit for GOG, if distributed there as a free game. It would no even need an "early access" label (it is already in a much better state than many *released* commercial games).

Many GOG customers are starved for RTS games, and multiplayer games that can be played without going through a store launcher/DRM. Many of them joined the store for "old" games and are still waiting for Age of Empires, so having access to 0 A.D. could scratch their itch.

I expect launching the game on GOG would have a bigger effect on 0 A.D. popularity than what itch.io did, if only because of the small catalogue leading to each game getting more (relative) exposure.

To get an idea, here is their full list of so-called real-time strategy games (most of these are not even what we would call RTS): https://www.gog.com/en/games?genres=strategy&tags=real-time&hideDLCs=true

It would be very easy for 0 A.D. to shine when compared to most of these games.

---

On the topic of the alpha version, I too am in the opinion that it does no longer help. I would suggest dropping alpha, beta or whatever and stick to the 0.0.27 naming scheme (0.1.0 would be first beta, 1.0.0 first "complete" release). Alpha/beta could stay in internal discussions, but no longer has an useful meaning for distribution.

So if it would work, what do we need to add it there? We'd want binaries for Windows macOS and Linux (.exe, whatever mac uses, and appimage?)

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4 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

So if it would work, what do we need to add it there? We'd want binaries for Windows macOS and Linux (.exe, whatever mac uses, and appimage?)

Maybe it's like itch.io and we can just redirect to our website :)

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1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Maybe it's like itch.io and we can just redirect to our website :)

It's more bigger.

For those who love retro games and classic games it is a good alternative.

In GoG I only know 2 RTS.

Fertile Crescent and Empire Earth.

And they are not free.

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2 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

 

Maybe, I wouldn't hold my breath. It's a storefront like steam, I'd guess no.

Well I don't know. I also don't know if that's something the team wants, nor the impact it would have on the community if the people on GoG actually never have heard of 0 A.D.

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1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Well I don't know. I also don't know if that's something the team wants, nor the impact it would have on the community if the people on GoG actually never have heard of 0 A.D.

GoG consumers get their information from specialized social networks.

 

https://www.gog.com/galaxy

But they have their own steam style app: Galaxy.

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On 23/10/2024 at 2:03 PM, ShadowOfHassen said:

So if it would work, what do we need to add it there?

GOG uses their own installers, that are based on InnoSetup for Windows and on MojoSetup (+ Makeself) on Linux. I don’t know what is used for the MacOS installers.

I don’t know the exact process, but I strongly suspect these installers are done by GOG, not by the game developers.

On 23/10/2024 at 6:43 PM, Stan` said:

Maybe it's like itch.io and we can just redirect to our website :)

That would be surprising, as there is not a single game page doing that on GOG for now.

On 23/10/2024 at 10:19 PM, Stan` said:

the impact it would have on the community if the people on GoG actually never have heard of 0 A.D.

Customers of this store already know about 0 A.D. and talked about it positively on their forums over the years. But according to the low popularity of this wishlist entry, it is not (yet) a game that many people would expect to see distributed on GOG: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/0_ad

On 23/10/2024 at 11:53 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

But they have their own steam style app: Galaxy.

It would be much better not bothering with that and not trying to support it in any way. The goal is to get more visibility, not a source of extra work ;)

Whatever we do, if 0 A.D. is added to GOG it would automatically be downloadable/runnable through Galaxy, but we should not waste time and energy working on Galaxy integrations with things like cloud saves or achievements.

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3 hours ago, vv221 said:

GOG uses their own installers, that are based on InnoSetup for Windows and on MojoSetup (+ Makeself) on Linux. I don’t know what is used for the MacOS installers.

I don’t know the exact process, but I strongly suspect these installers are done by GOG, not by the game developers.

That would be surprising, as there is not a single game page doing that on GOG for now.

Customers of this store already know about 0 A.D. and talked about it positively on their forums over the years. But according to the low popularity of this wishlist entry, it is not (yet) a game that many people would expect to see distributed on GOG: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/0_ad

It would be much better not bothering with that and not trying to support it in any way. The goal is to get more visibility, not a source of extra work ;)

Whatever we do, if 0 A.D. is added to GOG it would automatically be downloadable/runnable through Galaxy, but we should not waste time and energy working on Galaxy integrations with things like cloud saves or achievements.

Of course not, I don't even know about integrations.

I only have Empire Earth installed.

 

+++++

I didn't know there was a wish list, they should have come here instead.

Edited by Lion.Kanzen
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1 hour ago, vv221 said:

I don’t know the exact process, but I strongly suspect these installers are done by GOG, not by the game developers.

Yes, but we'd have to build the game for Linux in some format...

I like the idea. I really think we should do it, but that would require getting the "team" behind it.

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21 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

Yes, but we'd have to build the game for Linux in some format...

A basic 64-bit (x86_64) build using dynamically linked libraries is what would be expected, as well as a list of libraries that should be installed by the end user. The target should be an "old enough but not too old" system, like the current (or previous) Ubuntu LTS.

GOG does not provide official support for any Linux distribution besides Ubuntu, so users of other distributions are expected to find out by themselves how to get games to work (like translating the list of dependencies to the package names provided by their system).

Anyway, for Linux users installing from their distribution is always going to be the best option, providing a Linux build of 0 A.D. through GOG would be more about visibility than usability.

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1 hour ago, vv221 said:

Anyway, for Linux users installing from their distribution is always going to be the best option, providing a Linux build of 0 A.D. through GOG would be more about visibility than usability.

Exactly. I wanted to know how much participation (Market share)there is in video game stores on Linux?

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What if there was a slighlly different 1x1 rating system? A "seasonal" one that resets and you see what's the highest lvl you can achieve, similar to star craft.  Unfortunately I know nothing about that side of things.
I too wish it were bigger, more 1x1s and people to test out my mod that is built on top of com mod, trying to go back to a23 al ittle with a little bit more uniqueness between civs.

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 26/10/2024 at 10:34 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

The question would be how many Linux users are using these stores like gog or steam?

No a lot. I would not be surprised if more than 90% of GOG customers were Windows users.

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Sure, I think distributing 0AD through GOG or Steam would help with the visibility of the game.

Most pc-gamer are still on Windows. I don't see how it's a problem that not every platform supports different OS at the moment.

It should be possible on Steam.

For all the Linux users, it would help to have the latest release version in the repository of some major distros.

Before the WFG team decides to do this, they should appear to be more active.

I know you are more active, because I'm here in the forum and I've had a look at gitea/svn/trac.

It would help if the web site didn't look like the project was abandoned if you only posted an update once or twice a year.

And at the moment the revision log doesn't work either (I checked it because of this post, usually people don't look there when deciding whether to try a new game).

 

You could easily just post smaller development steps, or when new art is implemented. Just when it's done, not before.

Like you did with the Vulkan post or the git migration.

That might also help to find some new contributors if you advertise it.

 

But before that I think 0AD really needs a campaign or a campaign tutorial or at least some more interesting single player content.

Petra Bot is fine, but after a while, when you know how it behaves, it gets boring, even when you are not winning.

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