Alright, so this is from a fairly old Reddit post to which I replied, and the dev replied back. A short introduction/premise: we were talking about Star Wars Galactic battlegrounds and possible definitive edition for it. Disney did not even respond to DEV inquiries about that about a decade ago. As for the post - I’d like to post a screenshot, it’s better than copypasting the comment itselt:
tldr: most of the FE team that made aoe2 de has already left, and nowadays, world’s edge has been hiring mostly “compliant” developers. So we get 3K and rip-offs like V&V…’
Thank you, Matt, for your reply and honesty!
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Well, it’s probably not exactly “compliant” as each of them would have their own opinions. More like MS just decided to bound the new guys by contract in some way, so they can control them easily.
But that doesn’t change the fact that WE and FE still lied in their announcement post about 3K being advanced and fitting of the medieval concept of the game. Also, about the radio silence since then.
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I think “compliant” is a pretty good and correct assessment. Microsoft says something and FE obeys without complaining - it does not negate their own opinions at all. But what do I know…
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Yeah, I get you, it’s just that Matt used Laura Fryer as an example for his point about being complaint. And I don’t think FE staff is like that.
Or at least, I hope they aren’t lol.
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What deeds from them prove it?
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If that’s true, then it matches my observation that DE was a great product at launch, and the maintenance since then is mostly flops.
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been flopping for 4+ years 11
lack of bug fixes is a good indication
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So this game became MS Paint
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That explains a lot actually, lol.
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It seems like a new team of dedicated crafters is needed
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I’d like to join said team.
Now the real question becomes why the series (not just AOE2) did have a good time between 19 and 23
i’d guess because the compiant new hires weren’t the majority yet, it’d explain a lot of weird handling since then, you’d be suprised how quickly things in management take a turn for shit once the opposition disappears and you’re left with only yes men
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The only thing they have over us is the ability to get into the code but their historical fanaticism to churn out civs isnt at a level of ours
Even when Forgotten was but an idea in the year of our lord 2012 civ crafters such as myself were churning out concepts like crazy. The world’s a crazy place
So if I understand correctly… Whoever makes the creative decisions is/are out of touch with the community and knows nothing about history, and everyone else are yesmen?
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Few things are simultaneously so surprising and so unsurprising.
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Having devs that are more docile is a thing, but decisions such as making a 3K DLC intregrated into the main module was taken top-down by a small comity on top.
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I guess a few myths should be debunked now:
- Good FE bad WE: no; at least not anymore
- Each of the decisions must be very well thought-out, grounded, and out of good will; or a way to feed the devs: no; it’s bizness
- It’s just that the communication is bad: no; it’s a top-down apathy
Retrospectively we could see the early symptoms: 3DE overhauled the entire revolution system, fixed many inaccuracies, re-did several cards and decks completely, but the only thing they ever advertised was”we changed the name of two native American civs”
We should have realized that those people in charge had no Fing idea of what their games were even about. But hey that’s just the black sheep of the series so others will be well taken care of.
No. The tone-deafness didn’t just stop at PR. It had been bleeding into the bugfixing, then the developmental process, then the business decisions, and eventually, their golden goose.
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But that’s obvious and everyone knows it. If some bowties say “oh we want som more dough so we bring in more players by making a 3k based DLC, perfect”, it’s a big difference what the reply from the dev team is
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That’s a terrible idea, it breaks the spirit of the game, the new player influx will be very small and you will anger a lot of current players.
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Ok let’s do it.
That’s Matt’s point;)
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What I’d imagine is that the FE Engineering team eas likely replaced by rotating contractors by Microsoft hence why things are as they are. I wonder how much of the original civ designers are still there considering how drastically different the recent DLCs have been.
Whatever the case I wonder what they’ll do about it, other than nothing.
