To whom it may concern at World’s Edge (not that I believe any of you even remotely care);
I have been a long-term fan of the AOE series since 2006; 19 full years. I was first exposed to it in my freshman year of high school, when some friends, knowing that I was a history nerd, recommended I check out AOE. I went and bought the AOE1/2 Gold Pack at Staples for $10 and tried them out and loved them. I tried out AOE1 first, then AOE2, generally preferring 2. After a couple months, I learned there was a recent release of a 3rd game, which was focused on the colonial era, my favorite time period. I spent $20 picking up a copy of the base game at Target (this was before TWC launched); that was a substantial amount to me then. It was love at first sight. I adored the game the first time I launched it (my very first game was a Sandbox match as Germans versus French on Yukon; that should indicate how memorable it was). I bought TWC within days of release at full price with my very limited money. Same for TAD. I loved the game and played it every day, much to the annoyance of my family.
When TAD faded with the closure of Ensemble, I frankly didn’t even notice. It wasn’t on my radar. Updates just stopped, but I was only playing single player, and man, I thought I was great (I wasn’t. I sucked). When I went off to college, I brought it with me. I got my neighbors to play the game; we would hot swap my CDs so we could play LAN multiplayer without them needing to buy CDs. It was my primary stress relief throughout college.
But it was never only AOE3. My best friend and roommate preferred AOE2; even after college I would jump on multiplayer games with him and his family when AOE2:HD came out. Time passed and other games came and went, but AOE3 was always present. Always a key part of my sense of enjoyment. When the AOE Definitive Editions and AOE4 were announced in 2017, I literally crowed and jumped for joy. It would have been the highlight of my year if I hadn’t witnessed the solar eclipse that same week (and honestly, it’s closer than I really care to admit).
The definitive editions started coming out and it was magnificent. AOE1 was never my favorite game, but the DE was enjoyable. AOE2 came out and my friend group all jumped over from HD and got good use of it during COVID. And then AOE3DE released in Oct 2020, and it was love all over again. I fortunately was not hit by the computer breaking bugs at launch. I was so thrilled by AOE3DE that I bought every single DLC you produced up until about a year ago. Many I bought multiple times, buying multiple copies of AOE2 and 3 dlcs for friends. I frankly did not like AOE4 (and still don’t), but I bought it and played it; I gave it the old college try. And I got deeply involved in the AOE3 community. Frankly, I have been involved in some of the meaningless drama, because of how much AOE3 means to me and how much fun I have with it. AOE3DE has helped me get through some major life crises. I have made videos, casted games, defended WE in the community, and sold many copies of AOE3 for you.
And that brings us to today. All that goodwill. All that loyalty. All that I have invested in this game over decades. AND YOU SPAT IN MY FACE. Instead of any sort of reciprocal loyalty, you threw us out with the trash. Broken promises regarding the DLC; did WE ever intend for any part of that to be true??? We know FE has actually made major progress on the DLC, but did you even ever plan on releasing it, or was this always going to be our fate? Disappointed, dumped, discarded, abandoned. AOE3 fans went from eagerly anticipating a DLC to the news that the studio was abandoning the game in a span of seconds. And your communication? On par with previous engagements; horrible. Full of corporate double speak, fake emotion, lies, self-promotion; there was no honesty in that announcement. And quite frankly, for me, this couldn’t come at a worse moment. I have yet another major life crisis occurring as well as major work trouble, and instead of being one of my main places of rest in this weary world, World’s Edge made it into a pit of despair.
Looking back on it, the signs were all there. The high-level management folks at World’s Edge never gave a damn about AOE3 or its players. When we got good treatment, it was due to good corporate strategy quarterbacked by an actually competent director under Shannon Loftis to build the whole community in anticipation of AOE4. When she left, her strategy was successful but slowly degraded as the corporate shills made a slow mockery of the series. The abandonment of road maps for all games. The broken launch state of every game. The atrocious communication. The terrible announcement events.
But the insults and disrespect to AOE3 have always been the worst. And you at WE own that. You get NO credit for what Ensemble, Xbox Studios (since many don’t remember that WE wasn’t even established until 2019, when AOE3 DE development was already in full swing), and the actual development team at Forgotten Empires and Tantalus created. But you do get full credit for the mockery you have made of the community and game for 5 years. We must remember the persistent refusal to include AOE3 in RB: Wololo. And lest we forget the constantly abandoned efforts, like challenges (only got one, Bombard Brawl), holiday events (just stopped one day with no explanation), explorer packs (vol 1, no more), and of course, the cherry on top, the Baltic DLC. Or the unceasing flood of inadvertent insults indicating no one at WE played AOE3 or even knew anything about it. The post about an event during the Napoleonic Wars using graphics from AOE2. The “mixed reality” video where your presenter didn’t even know what a monitor was. The choice of Aussie Drongo to cast KotoW despite that he had publicly broken from (and repeatedly insulted) the AOE3 community. The post about an explorer unlock where the community manager clearly had never even played a match (given the 3 big red "X"es). So ultimately, it is no true surprise. In my heart, I always knew WE didn’t care about AOE3. But to have everything cancelled in killed in such a vacuous, callous, self-aggrandizing post! It is infuriating.
We as the AOE3 community will persist, endure, and thrive. And it will be in spite of you, not because of you. I do not think there’s any true malicious intent, just indifference, lack of integrity, corporate morality, weak ethics, and good old-fashioned incompetence.
The best thing you could possibly do is sell the development rights to a 3rd party and let them take over while you could still claim it as “yours”. Do that, and you may recover some goodwill from me and the rest of the community. Otherwise, frankly, get lost. I want nothing to do with World’s Edge ever again. I will never buy anything produced by WE ever again unless the studio takes actual steps to right this grievous wrong. And I will advise every single person I know to do the same. No corporate letters that say a lot and mean nothing; no random comments from “community managers” that they are “listening”; none of that will mitigate this situation. I work for a large corporation; I completely recognize what you are doing and I despise you for it.
I will continue to play AOE3DE. I will continue to be deeply involved in the AOE3 community. I will do whatever is in my power to make this game great to spite World’s Edge.
Goodbye and Good Riddance,
A diehard AOE3 fan
