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What the hell did they do? Age of Empires Online...

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Don't think this is really a persistent world. According to the home page when you PvP it randomly generates a map for you to play on. It's more like a regular RTS with RPG elements (leveling up, etc..).
 
Robot is doing this, which is pretty much Ensemble remade. I think the game could be fun if it didn't use the horrendous Games for Windows Live service. GFW single-handedly turned me off from DoW II. Even though it's not a game, I think GFW is one of the worst console ports of all time.
 
It would be really sweet if you could actually build on a persistent world, with unlimited population caps and continuously expand until you hit other players.

Too bad it probably won't be like that.
 
AoE 2: The Conquerors was the best by far in the series. The rest are garbage so I expect this new one will be no different.
 
I remember way back in the mid 90s reading PC Gamer and getting excited at the screenshots of AOE. Reading preview after preview. When it came out my friend and I played that game in co-op most nights for about a year. It was great.

AOE 2 was even better.

Now I look at this sad sack of a game, and think....what the hell happened. It looks worse than AOE 2, a game over a decade old for gods sake. The gameplay looks like it's a kiddies game.

Dumbed down. The Farmville of RTS games.
 
anyone sign up for the beta?

One of the questions:

10. Which of the following games have you played?*
FarmVille Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth Mafia Wars Age of Empires (Any) Age of Mythology Rise of Nations Starcraft Warcraft 3 None
so sad at #1 choice
 
dfuze said:
Eh, I think I'll pass.

Persistent world? Sorry, but I don't have time to babysit the game 24/7. And the artwork is a bit too cartoony for my liking.
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Good point. I hate those facebook type (farmville, mafia wars, etc) games where you have to manage this or that and get stuff from other people, trade, etc. I reluctantly joined facebook and am bombarded all the time for items and quests in games that I am not even playing.
What a sad state of affairs. Maybe I will have to take up console gaming to find anything that has a single player component left.

Here goes my RANT.

First they ruined KOTOR by making it into an MMO, and now AOE too!!! (And I still dont think that The Old Republic MMO will offer a great single player experience and for sure AOE online doesnt even look like it will have a chance either.) Even Company of Heroes has and online persistant game mode now. Doesnt anybody play single player games anymore??

AOEIII was one of my favorite games. I was hoping somehow the franchise would someday be resurrected with single player campaign, skirmish mode, and online play for those that wanted to use it.
 
Homerboy said:
anyone sign up for the beta?

One of the questions:

10. Which of the following games have you played?*
FarmVille Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth Mafia Wars Age of Empires (Any) Age of Mythology Rise of Nations Starcraft Warcraft 3 None
so sad at #1 choice
Click to expand...


Played all the Middle Earth games, all the AOE games, age of mythology, Rise of Nations. Also spent many hours with my grandson playing Galactic Battlegrounds single player and online because we were both into Star Wars at the time.
 
taken off of the RE forums:
I pretty much agree with everything the OP said. This simply isn't necessary...AoE could make tons of money without just riding the "social gaming wave."

Or if they wanted to, they could at least take their very large fan base seriously and create a game that encourages both competitive gamers as well as more social ones. This unfortunately does none of the above.

It's amazing to me how intent the successors to Ensemble Studios are on blowing candles in their fans' faces. Age of Empires has one of the largest fan bases of any game short of maybe the Call of Duty series (which is going to decline in the next few years) and World of Warcraft.

So why not make a game that gets that large fanbase excited? If the large fanbase is excited, that enthusiasm will spread, it is only logical.

This game just doesn't make any sense to me on any level of corporate rationale. Where were the days when Ensemble Studios was the pioneer, not the settled in hack?

It looks like I was tragically correct when I said it looked like RE was making a game that was basically a "Me too!" on the "social gaming" craze. I have nothing against making money, nor making a game millions of people will want, but I frankly think the creative staff should quit their day jobs, because this is not a browser game...it doesn't need the cartooony crap, and the dumbed down gameplay sounds incredibly unappealing.

I can go into a frothy rage on every level on why this game sounds unappealing.

-the cartoony graphics...it doesn't seem like the designers are taking this Four GIGABYTE game very seriously

-the gameplay which focuses on giving points to units: other games have done this with mixed success and frankly it usually ends up not doing anything for the players. Part of the thrill of rts games is (SHOCK) the strategy, and this strategy is infringed when any monkey-man could end up having 9 extra attack points than usual because a gamer said he could.

-The civilizations: or in this case, the lack thereof. Sure RE might add one or two...but what about the 12-15 civilizations AoE1/2 had? Developer cost should have nothing to do with it, Creative Assembly in the very HEAVILY TAXED United Kingdom is able to create game after game with varied civilizations that have many different units. granted, they could spruce up their technical sector, but the point still stands. The lack of detail, civilizations, and just respect for what they're doing is a big turn off.

-the nagging feeling that RE is doing this as a "me too!" Again, this looks more like farmville than it does any kind of Empire building game. The execution strikes me as disappointing to put it kindly. This isn't some facebook browser game, why treat it as such? Age of Empires 1/2 were some of the most addicting games I have played in my life. I would LOVE a more complex city building aspect to the games, but this strikes me less like city building and more like farmville with a different skin.

-The urge to create mainstream games. The people least interested in computer games that I know absolutely LOVE age of empires 2. These are people who almost always play xbox, they're always outside, they are incredibly mainstream. Yet they love Age of Empires 2 and still play it ocasionally (they were playing it a ton back in 2004-2006.) These people don't have any real interest in history either. Yet something appealed to them about it...the human experience. That is what makes a game appealing to people. That's why CoD etc sell so well. Because they are about US. And we are very interested in US. not random cartoons that mock what Age of Empires is all about.



It would seem that when Ensemble Studios was closed down, so was its unswerving fervor for quality, educational, and provocative entertainment.
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TehMac said:
taken off of the RE forums:
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This game isn't about what Robot wants to make. It is about what Microsoft, the owner of the AoE IP, wants them to make. If MS wants a AoE farmville clone, that is what they are going to make. Robot is just getting paid to do the work. All this Farmville BS is squarely on MS shoulders.
 
Darkshier said:
This game isn't about what Robot wants to make. It is about what Microsoft, the owner of the AoE IP, wants them to make. If MS wants a AoE farmville clone, that is what they are going to make. Robot is just getting paid to do the work. All this Farmville BS is squarely on MS shoulders.
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good point. I'm not entirely convinced it's 100% all on MS, but knowing them, it probably is.
 
TehMac said:
good point. I'm not entirely convinced it's 100% all on MS, but knowing them, it probably is.
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I just hope this money making scheme is for funding a proper AoE 4. Just like how I hope Company of Heroes online is funding CoH 2. These xxx "online" games are all about the quick cash, microtransactions and apparently people are stupid enough to pay for that stuff.

I don't know if AoE online is 100% MS, you know Robot is playing farmville and frontierville and gathering ideas to implement into AoE online. I really do think that MS is the one that came up with the original idea though.

It just really sucks for us pc RTSers that want a proper Ensemble/Robot RTS, not fucking Halo Wars and AoE Online. It's not like AoE is one of the top selling RTS franchises of all time or anything.....
 
I agree Darkshier, and so have a lot of people been saying the same damn thing on Robot Entertainment's own bloody forums.

I think it's fairly safe to say that Ensemble Studios is truly dead. Tony Goodman is a bloated piece of crap, Bruce Shelley, one of the most inspired people in that company, left to do his own thing, most of the programmers left I think, including David Bettner and his brother, I think David Pottinger no longer works there. It seems like the only guy who is still there is Tony Goodman, and that guy is pretty much useless.

Rick Goodman has fallen off the radar since 2004, ever since his company, Stainless Steel Studios, was dissolved by those fucktards Midway (whose bitchasses then got bought) although wikipedia says he did some work with Tilted Mill (Caesar 4, Children of the Nile) and recently left another studio working on some MMO game.
 
lord_emperor said:
It would be really sweet if you could actually build on a persistent world, with unlimited population caps and continuously expand until you hit other players.

Too bad it probably won't be like that.
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That would be one huge virtual world. Imagine Wow but every player gets their own city.
 
Darkshier said:
I just hope this money making scheme is for funding a proper AoE 4. Just like how I hope Company of Heroes online is funding CoH 2. These xxx "online" games are all about the quick cash, microtransactions and apparently people are stupid enough to pay for that stuff.

I don't know if AoE online is 100% MS, you know Robot is playing farmville and frontierville and gathering ideas to implement into AoE online. I really do think that MS is the one that came up with the original idea though.

It just really sucks for us pc RTSers that want a proper Ensemble/Robot RTS, not fucking Halo Wars and AoE Online. It's not like AoE is one of the top selling RTS franchises of all time or anything.....
Click to expand...

I wish they were making COH 2 instead of this game or the company of heroes online....
 
here's a gamespot demonstration.

I'm disliking some of it, and I'm actually ok with the rest. On Robot Entertainment's forums, a user who was pre-beta testing the game posted that the game is really enjoyable, it really is AoE with a different skin, and he claims to be a diehard AoE fan. So, overall it just sounds like they're trying to do some new shit with it.

We know they're making a 2nd game right now, so best case scenario, that game is their own IP that is a spiritual successor to Age of Empires.
 
this looks like total crap!

AoE2 Conquerors was the best RTS game ever.
I wish they would update it with better AI, technology/research, economics, combat, unit experience, etc (but keep the 2.5D - all those 3-D RTS games look like crap compared to AoE2)
Also would love to see AoE revisit the "Classical" period (Rome, Greeks, ...)
 
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