If I look at the current graph, both AoE2 De and AoE4 numbers are going down on steam, so they definitely go somewhere else to atm, if I look at steamdb.
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I’m so tired of this community. We made him quit. He obviously was passionate about this game and he cannot outstand the pressure. I’m feeling bad for creating that Delhi topic that contributed in the criticism . The world of RTS have lost a bug one and if we continue we will lost all of it.
I wish him good luck and I hope he is doing well.
We didn’t do nothing. Devs don’t read the forums. It’s the mods who read and create tickets on the internal bug tracking system. Devs don’t even play the game forget about forums. He left because he wanted to.
Don’t beat yourself up for doing the right thing. Everybody has moved on anyway.
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The fact that there are games with bigger playerbases doesn’t mean that CoH isn’t competitive. CS: GO wasn’t casual just because 1.6 was the longstanding competitive default for Counter-Strike games. DotA didn’t stop being competitive just because DotA 2 (or LoL) came out. Or heck, SC2 and SC (Brood War).
The competitive scene is game-specific, and you’re claiming Duffy is “dangerously casual” in this regard. I disagree, and I think you’re massively undervaluing Duffy’s experience just because specific things you want in Age IV are missing.
Both vDoW and CoH (and probably CoH 2) have had esports leagues and the like, tournaments, prize pools. Sure, Age is bigger. Sure, SC is bigger. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an understanding of what competitive players want. Patches breaking replays has been a thing for Relic games since time immemorial (the way Blizzard solves it is . . . expensive, technically-speaking), for example. It has been a massive irritation for a number of people. But it doesn’t make or break the game, or the competitive scene. The same for the zoom, or customisable hotkeys, and so on.
You’re an Age player first and foremost, right? You want these specific things because they’re specifically-relevant to the history of Age gameplay and its metagame (slash competitive scene). Right? There’s nothing wrong with that. But we need to stop dismissing other developers and the games they make just because they’re made in a different way.
Relic are obviously adjusting to the specific needs of the Age IV playerbase, that much is clear. But it’s not on Duffy, nor is his leaving indicative of much at all (Age IV has shipped; they have a roadmap to commit to. Him leaving after both of these things isn’t a sign that Age IV is then going to radically change). I also, personally, wouldn’t put much trust in individual Glassdoor reviews. They’re infamous in the industry for people just making stuff up (and yes, this applies to the positive ones too). There’s no way of verifying the information.
Aoe4 is shipped, well received by the mainstream media and he probably got therefore big offers. Perfect time to leave, if you’re up to something new.
Employees complaining about management being out of touch is basically glassdoor, heck, the whole buisniss world in a nutshell. (not saying its not true, rather a common issue)
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Except AOE2 does not have more players than AOE IV. They’re usually around the same numbers on Steam and then you need to at least double AOE IV numbers from Gamepass. As another metric of interest in the game, Twitch viewership is massively in favor of AOE IV. 22-38K peaks over this past weekend alone.
Age 2 was super dead by 2004-2012
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It wasn’t, probably in your case you just didn’t know where to play it.
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