Strategy shift towards publicizing this game. Important.

[eduh]

I really think that the following should be done. (note: I won't do it because I don't have time and means sorry xD)

Someone in the 0AD team should stop doing on what he is doing and begin to do this:

-Contact as many video-game companies as possible to announce the game so maybe some workers there might help in their free time

-Contact with as many university faculties of computer engineering and all this stuff to attract students to make little projects that are actually worthy. Even contact professors to spread this thing.

All the data is on the internet out there. The only thing that must be done is search a bit.

Thank you for considering my proposal.

[Damian]

I must admit right now, there are very few RTS games that are being developed and released; let alone proposed. Plus, AoE:Online basically shouldn't be called AoE.

0AD is actually quite a 'different' game in terms what people are playing these days (FPS & Online) so it shouldn't be hard publicise something that's actually different and unique.

[Jeru]

Good idea, we have thought of the academic part before, and I have personally made some contacts in my university that went nowhere.

The video game company part is unlikely to work, because the company wants employees to work on their own games so they can make money. Professional game developers are overworked and in short supply anyhow.

I have also presented 0 A.D. in open source software and game development conferences and while it does help raise awareness, I don't know of any contributors who joined the team after my presentations.

Most importantly, though:

(note: I won't do it because I don't have time and means sorry xD)

This is not helpful. It is very easy to tell other people what to do, but cop out of personally helping with the effort. You probably have a university nearby and can find a few professors to e-mail. Maybe you can even write a template e-mail, or design a poster for other people to print out and use. We can help improve it as a community together.

But the "somebody ought to do it" approach must go, none of what we've accomplished so far would have happened if people just sat back and said "somebody ought to do it".

[azayrahmad]

How could you convince your university students to take part in this project unless:

1. You're the professor

2. The students are both fans of historical RTS and could actually contribute to the project?

[Jeru]

Both professors and students are sometimes looking for interesting topics for undergraduate projects. Usually by the end of computer science degrees, students know quite a bit of programming, and might also want to generate a portfolio for employers. Contributing to an open source project is a great way to kill several birds with one stone.

[feneur]

The video game company part is unlikely to work, because the company wants employees to work on their own games so they can make money. Professional game developers are overworked and in short supply anyhow.

Also, there are a fair amount of companies (game and other) who have their employees sign contracts which say either that the company owns the right to what they do in their free time (that's relevant to their job of course, I doubt many software companies have interest in clay pots or miniature figurines or something), or that they cannot be a part of/work on certain kinds of projects. So, companies are not very likely to be a good opportunity.