A.O.E. 3 Demo is out

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Winchester

Originally posted by: obeseotron
It's ok i guess, I was expecting a little more. It was made out to look great for any game, rts or otherwise, but the "HDR" lighting just looks like a constant overdone light bloom effect and the physics are purely cosmetic and not amazing anyway. The gigantic GUI can't seem to fit a population meter or idle worker button, groups are size limited and can't find their way around... It's still the best looking RTS yet and enjoyable enough...

The idle worker button is on the top left of the screen.

For all the gripes about W2k not supporing this: Windows 2000 is no longer being supported. Why would they release software for something that is no longer supported.


The game does suck though. It was sluggish on my machine (Athlon xp 1800/ 1GB ram, G4 Ti 4200).

PRO:

Workers no longer have to return to city building to return items


CONS:

The UI is way too big.

I couldnt find a button for "advanced" options. So that I could put troops in a certain position/stance/formation etc.

It took me forver to find the idle worker button.

I dont quiet understand why I click on the button (experience points) and it takes you to a screen where you can click on buildings. I know I can get shipments of items etc but what do the buildings (military academy,etc) do from that screen where people are walking around.

There is not a population info screen anywhere.

Cannons "die" way to easily.

Go to the mian options menu and you can get advanced options added to the UI, you can also get lots of other things (eg: workers per resource etc) added to the UI.
All the things t get advanced options and extra stuff to show up have to be configured in the options.

 

[Cattlegod]

i thought it was bad ass. i tooled around playing a single 1v1 demo game for about 5 hours.

 

[remagavon]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Winchester

Originally posted by: obeseotron
It's ok i guess, I was expecting a little more. It was made out to look great for any game, rts or otherwise, but the "HDR" lighting just looks like a constant overdone light bloom effect and the physics are purely cosmetic and not amazing anyway. The gigantic GUI can't seem to fit a population meter or idle worker button, groups are size limited and can't find their way around... It's still the best looking RTS yet and enjoyable enough...

The idle worker button is on the top left of the screen.

For all the gripes about W2k not supporing this: Windows 2000 is no longer being supported. Why would they release software for something that is no longer supported.


The game does suck though. It was sluggish on my machine (Athlon xp 1800/ 1GB ram, G4 Ti 4200).

PRO:

Workers no longer have to return to city building to return items


CONS:

The UI is way too big.

I couldnt find a button for "advanced" options. So that I could put troops in a certain position/stance/formation etc.

It took me forver to find the idle worker button.

I dont quiet understand why I click on the button (experience points) and it takes you to a screen where you can click on buildings. I know I can get shipments of items etc but what do the buildings (military academy,etc) do from that screen where people are walking around.

There is not a population info screen anywhere.

Cannons "die" way to easily.

Go to the mian options menu and you can get advanced options added to the UI, you can also get lots of other things (eg: workers per resource etc) added to the UI.
All the things t get advanced options and extra stuff to show up have to be configured in the options.

You can't make the UI smaller. When I first read someone complaining about the size, I thought they were full of it. But after playing the game at 1920x1200 and having 1/3 of my screen be the UI, it is ridiculous. I don't need an attack button the size of my thumb

 

[BoberFett]

:roll:

Just because an OS is no longer supported doesn't mean nobody uses it. I'd imagine a whole helluva lot of people still use it. It just means that it's no longer being updated. You're a noob, aren't you.

:roll:

 

[johnnqq]

i'm so happy it's like aoe2...but all the buildings and units look the same.

THE HOTKEYS ARE DIFFERENT WTF

 

[mOeeOm]

So boring...its just like the other boring AoE and AoM games...with not so much better graphics, I run it at max settings and it still looked almost exactly to the other games. I dunno how you all play those boring RTS...I need fast-paced RTS with a lot of micro like wc3 theres an RTS...starcraft too.

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
:roll:

Just because an OS is no longer supported doesn't mean nobody uses it. I'd imagine a whole helluva lot of people still use it. It just means that it's no longer being updated. You're a noob, aren't you.

:roll:

A helluva lot of people still use 9x based OSes as well. There comes a point where you have to cut your loses and move on. If it's an artificially imposed restriction to sell more copies of XP, I'd be a bit peeved too, but I doubt that's the case. There could be some underlying difference between the OSes that prevents AOE3 from properly on 2k based machines. Then there's also the argument that if you are running a machine that is able to effectively handle this game, you'll probably have XP already anyways (as well as the side argument that 2k was mainly targetted at business/non-gaming markets). It's not worth getting bent out of shape over. Some enterprising individual may come out with a workaround, if it's possible anyways.

I'm finding the demo to be good fun so far. The sound is well done (both the score and the effects). The graphics are outstanding for the genre. People that say it doesn't look much better than AOE2 have blinders on/aren't running with full graphical settings. AOE2 was a good looking game to be sure, but it was simply 2D. The animations in this are light years better, as are the models for pretty much everything. The water is gorgeous. The HDR is a bit bright in some areas, but I like the look (as the game doesn't necessarily have to aim at complete realism - I see the HDR as a sort of stylization). It will be interesting to see the way this home city thing affects game balance, as it seems like you can really start to steamroll an opponent with it (each kill gains you xp, more xp=more shipments of troops/supplies, so the more kills the more resources you have, which can quickly pick up speed).

I will however say that I don't like the huge UI. Give me back the AOE2/AOM UI. Ensemble never needed much screen space for a UI, as so many things were more efficiently done with hot keys (which they still can be)

 

[Winchester]

After playing tonight 1v1 skirmish I discovered what the cards are really for. Will be useful this weekend.

Lvl 9 city so far.

 

[Yossarian]

uninstalled. same old game. I loved AoK but that was what, 6 years ago. the improvements are cosmetic. too bad the demo is buggy as hell on top of it--I was fighting some pirates guarding a treasure, one pirate kept floating across the screen and returning with full health so he was impossible to kill.

they copied WC3 with the creeps and gaining xp, gold from them. the problem is that while in WC3 the creeps are big and your hero and units are big and fun to watch in battle, the characters in AoE3 are like 5 pixels big and it's just a drag watching them hack away at tiny wolves or whatever. I never thought I would be saying this about an Ensemble game but I'm disappointed that this is the best they could come up with. I'll stick to WC3 and Dawn of War.

 

[BoberFett]

sparkyclarky

Following the advice of another thread in this forum, I managed to get it installed on W2K. It ran perfectly fine. The only thing is the installer requires XP in it's script. It most definitely is not a technical issue with the OS that requires XP.

 

[lozina]

I liked it!

Found it to be quite fun and a good step forward in the AoE series.

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
sparkyclarky

Following the advice of another thread in this forum, I managed to get it installed on W2K. It ran perfectly fine. The only thing is the installer requires XP in it's script. It most definitely is not a technical issue with the OS that requires XP.

OK, in that case it's pretty lame of them. However, the requirement may not be in the final version of the game (I'd hope not). Perhaps it's possible that it is in right now to cut down on the OS variable for bug reports and such (although I rather doubt it)?

 

[Yossarian]

eeeeeeeee

Originally posted by: sparkyclarky

Originally posted by: BoberFett
sparkyclarky

Following the advice of another thread in this forum, I managed to get it installed on W2K. It ran perfectly fine. The only thing is the installer requires XP in it's script. It most definitely is not a technical issue with the OS that requires XP.

OK, in that case it's pretty lame of them. However, the requirement may not be in the final version of the game (I'd hope not). Perhaps it's possible that it is in right now to cut down on the OS variable for bug reports and such (although I rather doubt it)?

devs made it clear on the age of empires heaven forum that they will in no way support Win 2k.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Yossarian
eeeeeeeee

Originally posted by: sparkyclarky

Originally posted by: BoberFett
sparkyclarky

Following the advice of another thread in this forum, I managed to get it installed on W2K. It ran perfectly fine. The only thing is the installer requires XP in it's script. It most definitely is not a technical issue with the OS that requires XP.

OK, in that case it's pretty lame of them. However, the requirement may not be in the final version of the game (I'd hope not). Perhaps it's possible that it is in right now to cut down on the OS variable for bug reports and such (although I rather doubt it)?

devs made it clear on the age of empires heaven forum that they will in no way support Win 2k.

Well they can kiss my customer ass goodbye. I've purchased both AOEs and an expansion. I'm done with that series. Not that the demo was all that exciting anyway.

 

[Fern]

MS has "extended" support for win2k sp4 untill 2010.

Fern

 

[TheSlamma]

They need to redo AOE and AOE2 with this engine.

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: mOeeOm
So boring...its just like the other boring AoE and AoM games...with not so much better graphics, I run it at max settings and it still looked almost exactly to the other games. I dunno how you all play those boring RTS...I need fast-paced RTS with a lot of micro like wc3 theres an RTS...starcraft too.

WC3 is such a yawner

 

[clamum]

I like this one as much as AOE2 or more (which is saying a lot). Good graphics, physics are good, gameplay is like that of AOE2. The addition of the home city and shipments is neat. And those field cannons are fvcking sweet.

 

[mwmorph]

can anyone tell me if you guys are seeing the same thing?

turn high poly models off, everything else is high except low shadows.

build a monk/preist unit. he seems to be rendered as implaed on his staff levitating parallel to the ground! He is fully functional. just odd to see him like tihs. high poly models seem to fix this.

 

[Winchester]

Anyone else's minutemen have no hitpoints after a few minutes? Mine have 1/300 or whatever. All of them.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Winchester
Anyone else's minutemen have no hitpoints after a few minutes? Mine have 1/300 or whatever. All of them.

same. demo seems to be really buggy.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I guess RTW raised the bar so much for me, that I expected more. They kept very much to the same formula, which is superb, but I, personally, am a changed gamer since RTW. I can appreciate the immense depth of strategy now available.....especially in multi-player, but in RTW I would pause for a half a minute at a time and just watch the battles....zooming in and out to eye level.

The really nice isn't so much the graphics as the animations. Watching those little F'ers reloading their rifles is hillarious. And the boats are in scale now. Aybody else train a frigate yet? They take up half the screen. And I can see new domiant strategies popping up for years with this game as players uncover the depth of everything entailed.

And, yes, this is quite buggy. My priests are all floating on their sides for one.

 

[Hyperlite]

Supreme Commander will be the RTS god!

 

[FreshFish]

Originally posted by: mwmorph

Originally posted by: Winchester
Anyone else's minutemen have no hitpoints after a few minutes? Mine have 1/300 or whatever. All of them.

same. demo seems to be really buggy.

I thought that was the point. You can call them up to help out when you're under attack, but they die off slowly...like mercenaries from AoM....maybe it's not how it's supposed to be, but I just accepted it

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: FreshFish

Originally posted by: mwmorph

Originally posted by: Winchester
Anyone else's minutemen have no hitpoints after a few minutes? Mine have 1/300 or whatever. All of them.

same. demo seems to be really buggy.

I thought that was the point. You can call them up to help out when you're under attack, but they die off slowly...like mercenaries from AoM....maybe it's not how it's supposed to be, but I just accepted it

too bad slowly means about 100hp per 30seconds.

as for preists, use high poly models. not a big hit on performance and preists dont get implaed/floated.