0 A.D. Social Media Accounts (We need you!)

[Perzival12]

2 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

1. There is no official Discord server. It is the most popular video game platform and social network in the world and 0 A.D. has no presence there. Most newbie players tend to look for a Discord server to know more about the game, but there are a lot of scattered and dead servers that make it impossible to build an informed community. I have also read some discussions about a Discord server, but it seems it has been unilaterally discarded by some forum admins, instead of voted by the whole community.

This is true 

2 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

2. Instagram account lacks SEO, depends a lot on post format and does not have vertical videos, which probably means, it recycles content from YouTube. Instagram, TikTok and YT Shorts/content must be made appart from the common YouTube content, as they aim to a different target public and social network usage.

NGL, I absolutely despise TikTok and YT Shorts, I would rather a smaller more wholesome fan base than the type of people that such things would draw in.

2 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

3. There is no video editor dedicated to upload videos to the 0 A.D. YouTube channel. The last update did not has any promotional video even though it is one of the most important updates the game has had. There must be someone and maybe several users in charge of community managing to generate an eficient and organic growth in social media networks.

The last update did have a promotional video, not sure why only a few people seem to have seen it: 

 

[Asher]

3 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

The last update did have a promotional video, not sure why only a few people seem to have seen it: 

Maybe we could have a link to the video when you download a new version of 0ad. Just made a PR for this #9266 

Edited 23 hours ago by Asher
add PR number and stuff

[Stan`]

Main issue is that the video is done post release bundles, so the url isn't known. You could point to release video playlist though. It should probably be the no cookie variant as well.

 

3 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

nformed community. I have also read some discussions about a Discord server, but it seems it has been unilaterally discarded by some forum admins, instead of voted by the whole community.

Well the issue (being on most if not all of the 0 A.D. discords) is that most developers won't be there. So if I say this discord is official (one of them kinda is, as it's in the linktr.ee) then you will have 50 people there maybe, but no one from the team to talk to. This might be alright, but my feeling was people wanted to interact with us more than they wanted just a discord

[Essential Strategy]

21 hours ago, Perzival12 said:

I absolutely despise TikTok and YT Shorts, I would rather a smaller more wholesome fan base than the type of people that such things would draw in.

What I meant with that, is that short content can be recycled that way between those social networks, not between YouTube and Instagram. They should have different technical and creative formats, because target is completely different. Reels are practically the same as YT Shorts and TikToks, they have vertical resolution and work way better than posts in terms of reach and retention, which leads to account growth. TikTok and YT Shorts are a possibility that can be considered furtherly, with a well-based YT channel and Instagram account. I do not think that developers are targeting a smaller fan base if they are opening Instagram accounts of the game.

19 hours ago, Asher said:

Maybe we could have a link to the video when you download a new version of 0ad.

It would be even better to have a news section in-game, in starting menu.

17 hours ago, Stan` said:

Main issue is that the video is done post release bundles, so the url isn't known.

I detected bigger issues, YT channel has not SEO neither. In a few words, videos are not optmized to be watched by a target public. They do not even have a mianiature, descriptions are too vague:

I am gonna give you an example of an attractive game update video:

Interesting title, advances the most important aspect of the update. Has a dedicated miniature and describes well what is the video about. This video currently has 2 views per hour, outperforms other videos in the channel by 3.6 times and was published a year ago, it is a success.

On the other hand, the 0 A.D. one has a generic title, does not give details about the update nor generate interest. Has no description, with a generic miniature. Has 3 views per hour. The only good thing is that views are proportional to the previous video, which means it wil reach around the same amount of views in the same time. But players are missing it, it is the most important update to day and it looks like any other forgettable news.

17 hours ago, Stan` said:

Well the issue (being on most if not all of the 0 A.D. discords) is that most developers won't be there. So if I say this discord is official (one of them kinda is, as it's in the linktr.ee) then you will have 50 people there maybe, but no one from the team to talk to. This might be alright, but my feeling was people wanted to interact with us more than they wanted just a discord

Interaction is precisely the point. Having a text conversation with devs on a Discord channel feels closer and more responsive than posting a forum topic and hoping someone read it one day. In my opinion, this is a critical issue for game popularity, and if devs want not to move to newer spaces, they will struggle to find donators to make the game better, as I have read it is not published on Steam because playerbase must be kept small due to multiplayer server capacities. So community size and managing is probably limiting game potential.

[Perzival12]

17 hours ago, Stan` said:

Well the issue (being on most if not all of the 0 A.D. discords) is that most developers won't be there. So if I say this discord is official (one of them kinda is, as it's in the linktr.ee) then you will have 50 people there maybe, but no one from the team to talk to. This might be alright, but my feeling was people wanted to interact with us more than they wanted just a discord

Nothing wrong with having both the forums and a Discord, and people can stick to the one they prefer (after all, there is an IRC that I'm not sure anyone born past 2005 even knows how to use). The Discord could be for the average player, and the developers who have it (I know you do, as well as vladislavbelov), while the forums are for more technical discussions, and for contacting the other devs.

[scr0llbaer]

In this day and age, there are bridges between all sorts of things, also between IRC and discord, if that is of any help. So devs and old school folks can stay on IRC and the Gen-Z-ies can still reach them.

For example, "Cube 2: Sauerbraten" does it like that, they also have several inofficial discords but on at least one of them one of the devs may occasionally throw in a thing or two via an IRC bridge.

[Stan`]

4 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

What I meant with that, is that short content can be recycled that way between those social networks, not between YouTube and Instagram. They should have different technical and creative formats, because target is completely different. Reels are practically the same as YT Shorts and TikToks, they have vertical resolution and work way better than posts in terms of reach and retention, which leads to account growth. TikTok and YT Shorts are a possibility that can be considered furtherly, with a well-based YT channel and Instagram account. I do not think that developers are targeting a smaller fan base if they are opening Instagram accounts of the game.

Yeah a lot of promotional material is made by hand, and video is a bit too hard to come buy. And so far, mentioning no AI content has deterred all the volunteers. Since i don't have much time these days I haven't posted things in a while.

4 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

I detected bigger issues, YT channel has not SEO neither. In a few words, videos are not optmized to be watched by a target public. They do not even have a mianiature, descriptions are too vague:

For miniatures you need a phone number, and so far I have not been willing to use mine  That's why it's always the same / from the video.

4 hours ago, Essential Strategy said:

Interaction is precisely the point. Having a text conversation with devs on a Discord channel feels closer and more responsive than posting a forum topic and hoping someone read it one day. In my opinion, this is a critical issue for game popularity, and if devs want not to move to newer spaces, they will struggle to find donators to make the game better, as

Yeah so that won't happen really (I mean judging from the past ten years) Regarding donators, we're pretty fine because we're open source, (sure it could always be better, but the only costs are maintaining the server)

Quote

I have read it is not published on Steam because playerbase must be kept small due to multiplayer server capacities. So community size and managing is probably limiting game potential.

 

4 hours ago, scr0llbaer said:

In this day and age, there are bridges between all sorts of things, also between IRC and discord, if that is of any help. So devs and old school folks can stay on IRC and the Gen-Z-ies can still reach them.

For example, "Cube 2: Sauerbraten" does it like that, they also have several inofficial discords but on at least one of them one of the devs may occasionally throw in a thing or two via an IRC bridge.

We had a bridge at some point but due to GDPR we can't ensure that the data you share will be deleted on all platforms it's being shared on. Discord is pretty bad for that for instance. A few people also don't want their data shared on proprietary platforms. And it's hard to get consent uniformly.

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

0 AD has good visibility in its niches, Linux games, it literally has no competition in that branch.

I mentioned to Stan a while ago that he should publish on another indie store, and I saw that it's popular there, at least in strategy  gaming  niche.

  On the internet it has been losing visibility along with the decline of RTS.

Real-time strategy games (RTS) are a genre that innovates very little. They tend to sell very little and fail to appeal to a wide audience.

There are many videos with such analyses.

I don't know if I should have more of a presence on X. I think X is quite huge; the people from those platforms are also on Threads, which is connected to Instagram, all this in the face of Facebook's precarious situation.

Facebook increasingly resembles a no-man's land, filled with memes and mainstream news, A horrible algorithm, it seems like Threads is taking space away from FB itself.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/technology/threads-meta-twitter-x.html

 

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

3 minutes ago, Stan` said:

shared on proprietary platforms. And it's hard to get consent uniformly.

I was going to comment on how awful that is. More and more privacy is being lost every day.

[Nicolaus_von_Kues]

6 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Yeah a lot of promotional material is made by hand, and video is a bit too hard to come buy. And so far, mentioning no AI content has deterred all the volunteers. Since i don't have much time these days I haven't posted things in a while.

By uploading photos frequently, you'll have a guaranteed audience.