Many of us have made it quite clear our dis-content with the most recent V&V DLC.
I know our objections have been varied. Some believe this to be a low-effort cash-grab. Others are concerned of the ethics of up-cycling free community content. I am sympathetic to these criticisms.
However I think what can be stated, most objectively, is that we were lied to in the blog post hyping up the “New Year, New Age” event. And if MS is willing to lie to us the community now, what will they be willing to do later?
It’s set to “anyone with link, can comment”. I am looking for feedback to improve this letter. I admit I’m not a great writer, but I hope it’s good enough. I also admit to some use of “royal we” even though this has yet to be looked at by anyone. I’m not trying to be too presumptuous, which is why I asking for comments and suggestions.
Within I make the case that what was delivered was not and cannot be considered campaigns, and that they knew as much and changed their marketing once the true nature of the content was revealed.
If you find this worthy of support it is my intention to to make this go as big as it can. #AgeOfLies on social media (if you have a punchier/better hashtag idea, also open to suggestions). Get any content creators we can to help spread the message. Put this on change.org or whatever platform will be best for getting as many co-signors as possible.
Do I actually have high hopes of this blowing up and any actual good coming from this? No. But believing you’ll succeed should not be a predicate for standing up for the truth. We as a community have loved and supported this game, this franchise, for decades. I will not stand idly by while MS lies to us.
—EDIT— The previous title for this post contained “Age of Lies” as opposed to “Age of Hype”.
Thank you for this contribution. You are a true brother of the game, a real patriot…
I hope, that this OPEN LETTER will inspire other users, to do something similar and spread the word. The video game media needs to be shown, what kind of people Microsoft and Worlds Edge Studio are at this current time…
What Microsoft did with the announcement of this DLC this year and with the upcoming year DLCs announcement last December, is under every dog. I have never seen such badness from any other video game developer and that will saying something…
Microsoft and this game have a lot of credibility to squander this year and if it continues like this, this will happen…
I agree with everything stated in the letter. I simply don’t understand why they would lie like this. For 10 years now, since the release of The Forgotten DLC, these devs have delivered mostly good DLC, using the same successful formula over and over: add new campaigns and new civs.
That’s it. They found something that worked and didn’t need to depart from that. But now, they release something that is so blatantly a lazy cash grab, a rehash of free content, a scam.
They know what a “campaign” is. They’ve made 18 of them since the release of Definitive Edition. But suddendly they became lazy. This is very strange behavior, considering these people were once simple community members. Surely, they would know what players want?
And by the way, I’ve seen many people discuss campaign-only DLCs in the past, and absolutely 0 times did I see someone asking for recycled community scenarios.
So I don’t know if this was cause or effect or coincidence, but there seems to have been a more general pattern in the promises given in the lead up to the New Years, New Age event.
As an aoe2 player, I only felt comfortable speaking about aoe2 in the letter, but if I played those other games, I very likely may have had more to say.
Very good work. I was willing to buy it now while it’s 15% off but now I’m carefully thinking whether it’s worth buying this DLC at all. Besides the fact the content is good, there’s nothing else to be liked about this release. And though I would like to play it, this whole fiasco just killed the hype for me.
I know the lack of a single purchase by one player like me won’t affect Microsoft but like you and many of us, I’m disappointed and “confused” (actually suspicious). What I fear the most is the real possibility of this sort of business becoming the norm from this point onwards.
I mean, they change things for the worse regarding transparency and value proposition, we sheepishly accept it and then they not only make it the standard but keep lowering effort. Just hope this was all a hiccup and extraordinary mistakes.
Hmmm, I’m more of the thought of the distinction of campaigns vs scenarios isn’t the problem of the DLC, it’s the price vs content (and the majority of that content being previously free) I’m more concerned about
I mean, sure, you can argue it’s false advertising, but come on, the steam page is very clear about what the DLC actually consists of
… and some realize humans sometimes make mistakes where it could have been a complete accident or misunderstanding. Or some realize that Marketing personnel maybe aren’t as familiar with AoE2 as you or I (which we know can happen in gaming because we’ve seen evidence of it for many other companies/games over the many years) and didn’t realize that multiple disparate paradigms exist under the “Campaign” button in the menu. Or some realize not everyone has English as their first language and so language/semantics ‘mistakes’ like this are completely possible. Are you sympathetic to these alternatives, as well? If so, why did you leave some of these perfectly possible explanations off the list?
I admit, you know more about this than I do, as I have not been following the situation at all! So if I’m speaking out of line, if the history definitively tells you 100% my thoughts simply cannot be possible, then I take back these alternative possibilities. I’ll let history and your thoroughness on brainstorming possible alternatives take lead on this, again because I really haven’t followed it at all. I’ve just happened to stumble into both of your threads I’m just trying to show there might be other reasons you maybe hadn’t considered before.
And I still go back to the fact that someone noted in the other thread that the Steam page does not say “campaign”. I linked to a video where they clearly say “scenarios”. Plus, the DLC hasn’t been released yet, so there’s still time to ‘not buy’, no matter if you feel you were lied to or not. And if you bought it as a result of the ‘lies’, you can get Steam purchases refunded as long as you meet their requirements (play under a certain length of time, etc.) The DLC isn’t even out yet, so if you already bought it, just don’t play the DLC and get a refund… and then maybe play a different game for a while in hopes the next DLC suits your needs better, if that’d be a good distraction.
The DLCs will sometimes not bring what each of us wants. For example, I’m not very fond of the constant barrage of new civs over the past 7 or 8 years when I see so many other things that time/energy/money could be spent on with AoE2 that I’d enjoy more. It’s awesome the # of civs we have, and there’s always room for more, but pumping the brakes on that every so often feels nice. What do I do in those times where I’m let down by the DLC? I don’t buy the DLC, and/or I play other games, and/or I play the existing AoE2 modes and many available civ options we have.
… or even if MS accidentally mis-spoke to you and already corrected their ‘error’, and the DLC hasn’t come out yet?
And if the cost for what they’re offering is not to your liking… or don’t like that it’s rehashed content… or don’t like XYZ (I realize the argument is complex and multi-layered)… then, again, maybe don’t buy is an option?
I admire your passion. You definitely know what you like and don’t like
I’ve talked about this point before on the forums, and I mentioned it in the letter, tho it is 9 pages so it’s very possible you haven’t seen any of it.
Let’s for a moment assume, they grabbed an intern off the street who had never played aoe2 before, and they were putting literally all of this together. Best possible anti-case if you will. My assumption in that instance would be that campaign and single-player be used interchangeably, at random, basically no different than flipping a coin.
Instead the two instances where the DLC was described before the content was divulged, the adjective “campaign” was used, during the entire explanation of the content of the DLC the word “campaign” was never used to describe the content, and the multiple posts on various social medias never used “campaign”.
If this was truly random this was freakishly unlucky.
Or let’s assume something else. Let’s say we grabbed someone who believes with every fiber of their being, with religious fanatical zeal, that “campaign” is 100% indistinguishable from “scenario”, and this guy was put in charge. They’re now tasked with two things, teasing the upcoming release, and describing that very same release just after the unveiling on social media. There are two terms available. “single-player” and “campaign”.
I think all of us can agree that the “single-player” aspects of the game also includes random battles vs the ai.
So, of these two terms one encompasses more content of the game, “single player” and one, regardless of the definition of campaign you adhere to encompasses only a subset of the content represented in “single player”.
So if we have the broader “single player” and the narrower “campaign”, and my aim is to tease the upcoming release, and then afterward succinctly and accurately describe the content in the social media post, opting to use the narrow “campaign” to tease and the broader “single player” to describe in social media posts seems like the absolute exact opposite of what you’d want to do.
So if it can be reasoned that the difference between “single-player” and “campaign” was understood and yet they used the words in the exact opposite way of what would otherwise have been congruent with their incentives, supposedly then other incentives were at play.
If they’d stuck with their guns and said “campaign” the whole time, i’d have disagreed, but thought “well ok, they’re wrong, but maybe they’re just dumb, got an intern, whatever.”
But the moment the event was done they switched.
Actually, now that i’m explaining it to you I realize it’s even worse than that, because they literally stop using “campaign” in the MIDDLE of the video script. Let me make this super clear. At the very beginning of the video, before we know anything about the dlc, they use “campaign”, but then never use it again to describe the content of the dlc, the moment it became obvious there were no campaigns.
The switch happened IN MID VIDEO AT PRECISELY THE MOMENT WE LEARNED THERE WERE NO CAMPAIGNS. WHAT, ARE, THE, CHANCES??? Again if this all happened by accident this would be the most mind bogglingly unlucky thing to happen.
So sure. Could MS just have been the most unlucky people in the universe? I guess…or a company lied.
I don’t believe it to be…but yeah, I know my sarcasm can get the better of me.
Hey, just full transparency. In the original draft I’d accidentally written
“As a quick aside we’d like to make it clear that we believe Filthydelphia to be at fault. He was merely reading the script he was told to read.”
It was pointed out to me that there was a missing “do NOT” between “that we” and “believe Filthydelphia”.
It should have always, and now does correctly state
“As a quick aside we’d like to make it clear that we do NOT believe Filthydelphia to be at fault. He was merely reading the script he was told to read.”
I see, thanks for explaining. One last question/thought, though (you know me and my ‘what ifs’ by now): Do you think it could be possible that they changed the scope of the DLC at some point… maybe realizing they weren’t going to finish a campaign or campaigns in-time for their desired launch window? So they reeled in the size/breadth/scope of what they were originally planning to do. (Which might help account for them stopping the use of campaign mid-video.) Or is that also highly improbably and/or completely impossible?
In other words, maybe they had high aspirations, but then reality set in as they were developing that, and they realized they were cutting the development timeline too close? And, so, diverted to Scenarios.
That is my last food for thought. Thanks for your replies! No matter how you slice it, it’s a shame the miscommunication happened (purposeful or not). It does perplex my mind that any game studio, let alone AoE’s with a notoriously perceptive and entrenched fan-base, would lie about something so simple as this on purpose – hoping they’ll pull the wool over our eyes. Something about that approach doesn’t make much sense to me (like, would they really want to do that with them knowing much of their fan-base will easily see the lie?), but I digress
At some point…yes. I believe it could have been possible…at some point.
However, the blog post promising “campaign focused” was uploaded on January 31st 2024.
I’m a web-developer, but I understand every company, project and type of project is different, but I’d be SHOCKED if on January 31st the DLC was shaping up to be one thing, and then by February 23rd it was shaping up to be something else.
Furthermore, there are 19 scenarios in this game. I know they’re upcycled but still I don’t think that’s some unreasonable amount of scenarios on paper. It’s very congruent with the number of scenarios we get in a typical DLC, 15-18. So it seems that what they were targeting for and delivered.
If this had been teased when TMR came out…maybe. Maybe plans could have changed in ### ####### ### ##### weeks seems extremely unlikely.
Again, is it possible, I suppose but it seems really unlikely. If they were giving us only 12ish or 6ish scenarios i’d be a lot more willing to entertain this line of doubt, but it really seems like they wanted to make a DLC, just w/o the two civs, so we got our 3 campaigns worth of scenarios, but they are just standalone scenarios instead of campaigns.
And, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, something actually did happen, and after January 31st it was determined the originally conceived dlc just wasn’t going to be ready in time, and then they whipped this up for us on a dime. Ok, here’s what you do. You look straight into the camera and say “we promised X, we’re sorry it’s going to take a little more time, we feel bad, but we were able to crank out this consolation thing to tide you over”. I think that’d have gone over very well actually. People can detect honesty. And then in three months we got an actual campaign focused DLC, everyone would have been as happy as a clam. We all play games. We understand sometimes things get delayed. Honesty. We don’t like bad news but if it’s delivered honestly it’s not too bad, but everyone hates being lied to. And if the “actual” dlc had been delayed but they went over above to give us something else, that’d have shown how dedicated they were. Why if you’re a marketing team, don’t you show that off? “We’re so dedicated that not only did we delay the big project so it’d be of the quality you deserve, but we did an entire ADDITIONAL smaller project just so we’d still have something to give you.” They’d have been legends AND looked liked geniuses. Upcycling filthy’s best scenarios to turn out a good product on a dime when the previous project went south. S-tier resourcefulness in that context.
So even if the very unlikely happened, and the project did radically change in that short amount of time, I don’t think the answer should have been to jedi mind trick us.
So yeah, this doesn’t really seem to me like a project went south situation and they made lemonade out of lemons. It really feels like this was the planned content from the get-go.
Also, Also, Also, I didn’t bring this up at all in the letter as it related to the other games in the franchise, and I not playing the other games, didn’t feel it was my place to speak on behalf of other games. I’m already trying to be super careful to not be too presumptuous when speaking on behalf of this game, I’m not going to speak for another game in an open letter.
That out of the way, we weren’t the only ones who were lied to.
This is what was promised in the blog post.
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition: We’ll reveal a brand-new campaign-focused expansion and an extended look at exclusive gameplay.
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition: After giving our players a new way to play for free in 2023, we are excited to reveal a new DLC with new civilizations.
Age of Empires IV: Coming off our best-selling expansion ever with The Sultans Ascend, we will share updates on an upcoming brand-new season and a new in-game reward.
Age of Empires Mobile: TiMi Studio Group, the award-winning developer, will share a first-time look at gameplay and give us a behind the scenes look into their studio. The team will share their passion for Age of Empires and their vision to bring the franchise to new and existing fans alike.
Age of Mythology: Retold: The team will take us behind the curtain in the studio to show how they are developing this beloved game for a new, modern experience. Fans can expect a unique unveiling of a few mythological creatures that you won’t want to miss.
What was actually delivered/revealed?
AoE2, got the not campaign focused DLC we’ve talked to death about.
AoE3, they were shown two flags. I’m being 110% literal. When AoE3 came up in the rotation they were told they couldn’t share the names, but here are two flags. I don’t play AoE3, I only play aoe2, but I assume the in game flags to be the correlate of the civ icons we have in AoE2. If we’d been promised a DLC announcement then given two new civ icons I’d also consider that a lie. The AoE3 guys are pretty upset about the whole thing. At least for them though, I assume they’ll eventually get what was promised to them.
AoE4, they showed off a login token. I wouldn’t say this was a lie. I think it was underwhelming even considering how little was promised, but I’m not gonna split hairs.
AoM, while they did get the “unique unveiling” it was AR most people found to be super cringe. As for “take us behind the curtain in the studio” I re-watched the video, and counted 21 seconds of footage of a camera just meandering around in the studio, maybe you get a glimpse of something on a monitor, while the presenter lady speaks over the video taking about engine improvements and new art. Not technically a lie, but the absolute bare minimum of bare minimum efforts. Basically we learned that people work on computers and AoM:Retold would be better than the original from a technology standpoint. Yeah, I was pretty sure about that already but thanks for confirming that I guess. I guess they could have decided to make the game using punch cards, but it was riveting to learn they’d decided not to do that. I’m sure the AoM guys will be discussing that revelation to no end.
AoE Mobile, actually showed off a decent amount. Whether you liked what you saw was another matter.
So of 5 games, AoE2 and AoE3 were lied to, AOM was definitely overpromised. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say AoE4 got what they were promised, and AoE Mobile definitely got what was promised.
IDK if this was a/the cause, or an effect, or a coincidence, but it seems like some suit somewhere thought it’d be a great idea to have a big franchise wide event, and they’d do it on february 23rd specifically, for reasons.
There was only one teeny tiny problem. Apparently there was very little to show off. There’s nothing for AoE4 and apparently things weren’t ready to show off for AoM and AoE3. So you’re going into some big huge event with a very underwhelming lineup. So it seems it was decided that instead of just shooting straight, they’d hype us all up and exaggerate to the high heavens so they could have their big event and just hope no one noticed they’d been lied to.
Whether they figured they’d lie to us about the contents of the DLC and an event just so happened to be scheduled, or the event was scheduled and they lied to hype up the event, I can’t say. I think either way it’s clear they knew what people wanted more, and they told us they had it even though they didn’t.
Man I was hoping we’ll finally see a proper Japanese, Turks, Vikings and maybe Chinese campaign for real and as a bonus Historic Battles Collection but oh well…
we think this DLC is a ################ advertised. we are voicing our opinion because we expect better from the team managing a game we love. what’s wrong with that?
I think that’s very likely. pity they didn’t state that publicly and adjust the price
I’m OK with this DL content. It’s not technically “campaigns” but 19 quite long scenarios, which is great.
Some of those scenarios from Filphy existing yet, but voice acting is a real deal. I don’t play a lot to custom campaign because I’m a slow English reader and I don’t like going back to the dialog menu to reread… So these improvements to great campaigns are a good point for me (+ no bugs).
My concern is the price. 13€ is a lot, considered there is no new civilisation included. Dawn of the Dukes was cheaper and featured 2 full new civilizations and 18 scenarios, making 3 amazing campaigns in which a lot of reflexion was made.
To me something like 8€ would have been a great compromise, to both satisfy people like me who like campaigns and reward campaign designers that deserve it.
I pre-ordered the DLC because I’m not into multi player, but I think it’s too expansive to reach lots of aoe2 players
I would have liked among the scenarios a Roman battle, or maybe a Mayan campaign for that cost. Something new, not vikings/turks/franks/japanese individual scenarios
Well, if it’s not intended to satisfy campaign and singleplayer lovers then for who is this dlc? They clearly mentioned that it was for those specific players. What is wrong if we, who only play campaigns, which is made for us, say that we don’t like the dlc we are supposed to buy in order to play. I don’t like those big map ludacris battles with many objectives and tasks. In my opinion, they don’t fit the game design, the pace, the engine. It’s too much for my taste. I like the scenarios simple, vanilla, just as they made them before and continued to do so until this disaster.
I (attempt to) gain the truth. That’s what’s in it for me, and others like me who weren’t very familiar with all this who stumble on these threads. I was trying to get to the bottom of things since the info presented by OP in both threads had a number of holes in the presentations and conveniently left pertinent details out. I’m not usually a fan of disinformation campaigns or conveniently leaving out the bare minimum of critical thinking when presenting the situation.
I understand trying to rally the troops, but it was missing several details once I started digging in and saw there was more to the story. Not everyone has the backstory. I didn’t. And things I uncovered in 5 minutes raised serious question marks in my head, and also helped me realize this sounds like interesting DLC. (I had previously ruled it out when I saw in the forums it would be campaigns DLC. Now I am interested in the DLC). I felt more facts and hearing more of OP’s thoughts could help those not-in-the-know, like me, so we can better judge for ourselves if we should sign some letter or petition.
Is getting a rounder picture of the story somehow bad? What is your motivation for wanting to hide facts and details, or bully those who dare ask questions? It’s fairly obvious you think I am a plant or a seed, which I’m not. Here, the facts were incredibly lopsided, so much so I couldn’t bear not asking questions. The OP even admitted in the other thread to pushing their sarcasm and Microsoft dunking to 11, so it’s not like I was too misguided.
Oh, and I guess now that I think of it (again), one other thing that is in it for me, a big motivator, actually, is MS continuing to support AoE2 for years and years to come, because I don’t want them to see disengenuous fans lambasting them and thinking to themselves, “Well, if that’s how they’re going to treat us, not liking or appreciating anything we do, and in this case attacking us with petitions or lengthy toxic threads and letters, let’s just pull the plug.” Yes, I selflishly do not want MS to pull the plug on the game or the franchise for two decades again. It’s one thing to share opinions and critiques, but I sensed a fair amount of toxicity in some of the posts. Maybe I mistook passion for toxicity? Either way, I hope MS and devs have thick skins is all I can say. As the more fans chip away, the greater the chance (no matter how slight) the plug gets pulled someday, imo.
PS: The OP and I already had our productive conversation. No need to worry
I’m a single-player player who isn’t a big fan of campaigns, never play them… yet am intrigued by this DLC. I guess it is for players like me. And if I’m in a small sub-set of players, it’s nice they thought of us rather than just adding more civs or campaigns again.
I really love what you did, Im a great AOE fan and I´ve bought every single civ+campaign DLC, some were better than otheres of course and in way 13 dollars may not be that much if you want to compare it to lunch in a restaurant or whatever… BUT there are 3 key points here:
-Compared with previous DLC, its a scam: before we had 3 campaigns with 15 missions or more with 2 civs for that price. Even with inflation there are no new civs so 3 campaigns for that price would be ok. But this is not
-They said its a campaign DLC, created lots of expectation and we got 5 new scenarios for 13 dollars plus some ´´polishing and voices´´ of 14 OLD maps that were FREE. As a campaign player I played them all and they were good, but if you want to do paid content create a patreon, I could have donated but I feel tricked.
-Last of all,I really dislike being tricked by making us believe we need to buy it to ´´support the game´´according to some users or they say things like dont complain just dont buy it. We live in a world in which you can complain luckily and so I´d like to express my opinion
Therefore i fully suppport your letter and would love to sign any petition directed to the studio
I’m just trying to show there might be other reasons you maybe hadn’t considered before.
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