Aoe3 needs to continue, aoe2 is running out of ideas

[GoldenArmorX]

@FocalPenny96393

Here we have the very embodiment of why companies like WE could still survive. Because they tamed their customers to be grateful as long as they offered “something.”

Are you talking about the AoE2 dlc Three-Kingdom recent “Hot-sales” in the middle of the online complaints? about my comment? or the general post comments? Because your commentary is very ambiguous.

@AgeOfAwesomenes

Some people will defend anything. World Edge has done a terrible job with the franchise. Looks like they are trying to ruin AoE 2 as well either wittingly or unwittingly.
The AoE 2 player base seems to be displeased with a lot of the recent civs and content from what I read.

Until I know, many factors came together to make people complain so much about the 3 kingdoms, but more than poorly done, it’s actually the opposite; it’s because it’s “well done”:

• Hypers.- They thought there would be a Tibetan civ, but since they weren’t right, they went against the civs they didn’t get right, those of the 3 Kingdoms.

• Ranked players.- They think the heroes of the 3 kingdoms would be very broken and very unfair to other civs.This was before it was revealed that heroes could only be used in the Imperial Age. Now, in fact, there’s a debate about whether they’re too weak or too strong.

• Single-player “Races-lovers.”- Since I love AoE 4, I love the style of civs that are based on Empires or Historical Military armies, instead of an ambiguous ethnic group. But apparently, those who stayed with AoE 2 stuck with the idea that all civs should be “Races” instead of empires. So, since the Chinese already exist, they don’t want to accept the three kingdoms, because… they’re “Kingdoms” instead of “Races”. It seems silly to me, and I prefer the AoE IV system, but these people don’t. I respect their tastes, but I don’t share it.

• Single-Player "Mod-RomeAdBellum lovers.- I liked the Greek expansion so much that I practically wanted 3 Kingdoms to be another part of RomeAdBellum. Well, in theory I wanted it too, but I think 3 Kingdoms actually works better for the base game, at least temporarily. AoE2 also covers the fall of Rome and the final period of Rome from Constantine (270-470), and close to that, in China, the 3 Kingdoms thing happened.

In my opinion, the most they’ll do is balance the AoE2 heroes, because the civs aren’t going away. And the campaigns have been very loved by the community, especially the Chinese community.

However, it has become clear to me that AoE2 will never evolve beyond its established limits, because when it does or tries new things, its community, which likes that “all the civs are almost the same but with subtle differences”, doesn’t want the balance of its game to be upset.

Same reason as the beginning of the thread says:

• It would be better to make more DLC for AoE3 or AoE4, where there’s more acceptance to the novelty mechanics and new civs.

[Tetsuryu]

Bien vendu ne rime pas forcément avec aimé, sur steam 53% des gens ont apprécié sur steam et ça ne compte pas aussi les refunds, sans vouloir vous vexer

[GoldenArmorX]

“There’s a rule in STEAM that people who like something generally won’t comment on it; they’ll keep playing the game. But if they don’t like something, they’ll quickly criticize it after they stop playing.”

I’d say a large part of the fandom liked it, but of course, the negative criticism is also understandable. Many of them revolve around the Three Kingdoms DLC controversy before it came out:

• That three civs aren’t races, but civs (it’s worth noting that the game is called Age of Empires, not Age of Races).
• That they wanted Tibetans.
• That the heroes are too new and upset the balance that all civs should be “the same” and have no appreciable differences.

Considering the high sales, even knowing what was coming:
I think most of the people who bought the DLC didn’t realize that the Rework changes WERE FREE for everyone, from the new units for China and Korea to the Elite Unique Unit Skins. Only the new campaign and civs were optional.

The other reasons I see for mass purchases are impulse buying, to support the franchise, or to try out some of the new civs (Khitans, Jurchens) or the extra elements in the Editor.

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About new ideas or mechanics for Age of Empire franchise games:
Anyway, with all these problems, for a product that in theory “offered a lot” and delivered, but was still rejected, the same reason for which it repeated:

• AoE3, AoM:Re, and AoE4 are better options to be more innovative, at least by the community.

• That said, be careful with “Historicity”; it’s what’s most requested, because any error stands out even more in ultra-HD 3D designs. We’re still asking for Tanegashima Matchlock in AoE4.

[M00Z1LLA]

@GoldenArmorX

any error stands out even more in ultra-HD 3D designs. We’re still asking for Tanegashima Matchlock in AoE4.

Are you implying AoE4 is ultra-HD?

You also fail to mention the controversial AoE2 civs existed for only a few decades and are all just Chinese despite them promising no Chinese split.

[Tetsuryu]

@GoldenArmorX

« Il y a une règle dans STEAM : ceux qui aiment quelque chose ne le commentent généralement pas ; ils continuent à jouer. Mais s’ils n’aiment pas quelque chose, ils le critiquent rapidement après avoir arrêté de jouer. »

Ne dite pas cela à un joueur amateur de la licence Dragon Age à propos de Veilguard, beaucoup d’exemplaire ont été achetés et au tout début c’était en “plutôt positive” pour finir dans “moyenne” sans compter le nombre de personnes déçus qui ont demandé le remboursement.

[GoldenArmorX]

@Tetsuryu

Ne dite pas cela à un joueur amateur de la license Dragon Age à propos de Veilguard, beaucoup d’exemplaire ont été achetés et au tout début c’était en “plutôt positive” pour finir dans “moyenne” sans compter le nombre de personnes déçus qui ont demandé le remboursement.

What I was referring to in my comment is that "if there is an element, even minimal, that is very bad perceived by part the community, true or not, it will always stand out in the negative comments on Steam."

• In the Case of AoEIV Sultans Ascend it was the first 4 variants, which were seen as cheap copies with little historicity.
• In the Case of AoEIV Cross and Ross it is the price considering the reduction of Civs ( +6 → +2).

Review things is good and confirms part of the fanbase’s thinking, but it’s also debatable, especially if it don´t affects the players number or the sales of the game itself.

For example, regarding the price of Cross and Ross, I don’t agree that it’s expensive; in fact, it’s fine.

Beasty already explained it, they sold us Sultan Ascend very cheap. On top of that, it turns out that for the last 30 years, the video game industry has NEVER raised the price of video games, even though their manufacturing costs have “increased” every year. It’s a sneaky way of increasing the base price, but if it allows the franchise to continue existing, then I have to accept it.

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, at the same time, have increased the price of consoles and new video games, and it’s precisely for that reason; they were selling them very cheaply, considering what “cost/production” amounts to.

In any case, the AoE IV player base has only grown with the DLC, so the criticism “has been constructive”. The same doesn’t apply to Veilguard, which I’ll discuss next.

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About Veilguard

Veilguard is a sad and special case. Because there, “the negative reviews had a significant impact in the playerbase and were even reflected in the drop in player count”.

I’m also a fan of the Dragon Age franchise, but I didn’t buy the 4th installment (Veilguard) because I already had a feeling something bad was going to happen, especially given the director’s statements.

And indeed, it happened:

• Due to the hype surrounding the 4th installment to continue the story, many bought the game, even with the warnings.
• They didn’t like it and stopped playing it halfway through, or once completed, they never returned to it.
• Worse, refunds were requested and the criticism was massive, to the point that the game suffered a massive drop in player count after its release.

This was a AAA game, it took a significant amount of investment to produce, so by not reaching the expected sales figures, they lost a lot of money.

The line drop-down very quickly

Personally, I think they ruined several plot lines of the series to introduce forced inclusive political elements, the gameplay changed too much for a 4th installment of a game formula that was supposed to work, and several dialogues are quite painful for characters who are supposed to be serious in the face of the impending apocalypse.

[FocalPenny96393]

@GoldenArmorX

Beasty already explained it, they sold us Sultan Ascend very cheap.

What about next time? *they sold us Rose and Cross very cheap ?

Like they didn’t benefit from the price and did it for charity
Or they really lost money by setting it too cheap, so that they had to make the next DLC (1/3 of it) comparatively much more expensive——isn’t it still their problem?

Edit: I would be willing to pay any content creator who relied on the company to criticize their core business at all or discourage people from consoooming.

[GoldenArmorX]

Well, if we’re talking about costs:

What recently convinced me was an article: “The State of Video Gaming in 2025”

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PRESENTATION: The State of Video Gaming in 2025 — MatthewBall.co

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This is the most shocking graph for me:

In 2021: Because the Covid-19 confinement, Some companies (WE included) believed that the number of gamers would increase “exponentially” and raised money from angel companies/investors/producers (call them what you want), believing that video games would be as profitable as a cancer cure in pill form.

But this is what happened in 2022, 2023, 2024:

The worst thing is that they apparently spent the money in advance, which is why Sega laid off employees from all of its companies (to cover expenses), even those that were selling well, and this affects us with AoE IV, and AoE3 with the cancel of the DLC.

And until know, we still are in Crisis, and only recently the companies are making rights economics desicions to survive.

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“The Price of Making Video Games and the 2021 Problem”

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On top of that, there’s the fact that “The price of making video games has increased exponentially” since 1997, especially companies that, in order to “outperform the competition,” are trying to spend on the latest hardware to exceed fan expectations.

Here’s a graph showing the extreme amount of money it cost to produce these games, and therefore, the massive amount of advertising spent on promoting them (they needed to recoup their investment).

For example: If a videogame Triple AAA that cost 100 millions, didn´t sell at least 2 millions copies at 50$ dollars, it become a loss for the producers. But the thing is that, “THEY COST EVEN MORE THAN 100 MILLIONS”.

And here’s how much they cost in 1997:

However, production costs don’t always translate into profits. If a title is bad, AAA, and the expected number of players don’t buy it (1 million or so), the losses can be enormous. And 2021 had the greatest example of this, with these titles.

CONCORD, anyone remember that?

Yeah, that’s what we had in 2021. Age of Empires IV is actually one of the “Survivors” of 2021, because they bothered enough to evolve it with community support, thus encouraging players to “return” or encouraging new players to buy it.

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Regarding the effect the crisis could have in the the franchise, what considerations should be taken?

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On the AoE4 forum, there was recently a thread about whether the game should be “free-to-play” like AoE3 to increase the number of players and those interested in purchasing DLC.

I disagreed: This isn’t a gacha, and the company (Microsoft, WE, Forgotten, Relics, etc.) doesn’t seem to have a subdivision in charge of selling cosmetic DLC well or increasing its options monthly, as happens with free-to-play mobile games or gacha games.

Considering the article I showed you: “We are in a CRISIS in the video game world.” Same reason why companies have decided to increase the price of consoles.

Perhaps in the United States, where most prices are determined by the dollar, it’s even more profitable, but in other countries it isn’t, especially if currency conversion is lower (Central America and South America) or governments tax so much that people can’t save anything, let alone consider buying it (Europe, Canada).

And not even that, because according to the most recent press scares, the dollar is also falling down.

Let’s hope, as you mention, that they don’t increase it further, “taking advantage of inflation,” because it could also be the case that people “no longer buy video games at all” if they simply can’t afford it.

[FocalPenny96393]

I still fail to see how the cost became 3x than in 2022. But that it what they acted like.

@GoldenArmorX

We are in a CRISIS in the video game world

And I think the game industry caused it themselves. We should not be the ones paying for it.
If they didn’t survive, their fault. More capable newcomers would fill the gap if the market was still there.

[Tetsuryu]

Merci pour votre post, j’ai appris pas mal de choses à vous lire

[Kingfisher1787]

Over saturation should also be considered as it’s likely a contributing factor imho. I think there’s way too many big budget games and if you overspend on them you’ll likely need a larger piece of the pie than is likely to come to you.

If those issues weren’t enough, you also have a perception of declining quality at launch for high budget games, which I think is well founded and likely hurts games in what I’d assume is their most pivotal stage.

[vanBladdeck]

Yes, i heared that too and i think most fans would understand this.
I just hate the terrible communication of WE/Microsoft… I mean not even the aoe3 Devs seem to have known that their project will be canceled, Tilanus was super excited on Twitch a few weeks earlier.

Idk, everything about this situation shows utter incompetence. Its an embarassment that a multi billion company like Microsoft is worse run than my local barbershop

[FocalPenny96393]

I think the biggest crisis of game companies after all is essentially consumers no longer buying their products

So I don’t think persuading ourselves into buying their products is our way to help them out.

[Kingfisher1787]

I’m not sure we disagree? Primarily I was pointing out that given the player/game company ratio they might be spending too much on production/marketing on a per-game basis. Some indie games look impressive given the budget imo and I think it’d be hard to make a game as big as Halo (or any other huge game) used to be. There’s too many options. If we assume everyone has a limited gaming budget, that means the pie is getting cut into a ton of pieces (I think there’s more competing game studios now), and imo that’s unlikely to be sustainable. But perhaps I misunderstand the industry.

[FocalPenny96393]

I agree. I just don’t like it when other people make it sound like “the companies are in problem, and we need to spend more money on their products to help them out”

[Kingfisher1787]

Wasn’t intending that at all.

[StormyRat217]

That.. Age of Empires Mobile is not RTS. Since it belongs to SLG, I think its lifespan has already ended. Because the sales look good, but the game is not managed at all. In fact, I think the lifespan of the game is being extended by advertising. I have already felt enough through my acquaintances that many users who played the game were disappointed with the SLG genre and left.

[DrMaxy4142]

AoeM server is larger than the main aoe server..

[MatM1996]

@GoldenArmorX

The Aoe2 instead, are in a chaotic state, because many of their players expect by Hype tha “Tibetans” gonna be a new civ, but when they reveal that they gonna add three-kingdom and north china dinasties as civs, everyone lost their minds, because are acustomed to civs as “racial or ethnic” representation instead of empires and nations.

Yeah, right? If only they had included two campaigns for the Jurchens and Khitans instead of the Three Kingdoms, or at least released it in Chronicles, no one would have complained…

@DeathGrimmjow

If Worlds Edge worked in chinese civilization for AOE 2 and AOM (No wonder if in the next AOEIV DLC the could include another Chinese variant)

Yes, but I can’t think of any other Chinese variant…

@M00Z1LLA

No, the expectations for AoE4 are just so low that people are pleasantly surprised when they put out something mediocre. They pooched it with the initial “variants” and now they get away with splitting one DLC into two and claiming they’re putting out twice as much content.

Sure, and it wasn’t that great either… 2 variants and 4 historical battles (and well, the 10 maps with their points of interest)…

@GoldenArmorX

As an aside, AoE 3 still has no new news after several months.

And from what I can see, the topic strayed from its main focus a while ago, and now it’s just an excuse to throw more mud at AoE 2’s DLC, or for the occasional AoE 4 haters to compare it to AoE 2, only to then “Cry” about why the 3 civs of Three kingdoms “aren´t races”, but actual nations.

In any case, this is a AoE3 thread, and well, no, there is no nows, aside for the Monthly Hero Rotations,

Yes, and it’s a shame… from an announced DLC we went to simply leaving it in a state of suspension with simple monthly skins… it’s going to be a very sad 20th anniversary, compared to the 15th anniversary when AoE 3 was finally accepted into the saga…

@M00Z1LLA

And the AoE4 DLC was clearly supposed to be bigger and they split it in half to get it out the door on time. That is indicative of the broader problems WE causes.

Yeah, who knows what the next DLC is… I see it’ll only have 4 variants, 10 maps, and that’s it…

@AgeOfAwesomenes

Some people will defend anything. World Edge has done a terrible job with the franchise. Looks like they are trying to ruin AoE 2 as well either wittingly or unwittingly.
The AoE 2 player base seems to be displeased with a lot of the recent civs and content from what I read.

Yes, we AoE 3 players warned AoE 2 players, but they just mocked us for not getting DLC… they’re getting what they deserve…

@GoldenArmorX

• AoE2 also covers the fall of Rome and the final period of Rome from Constantine (270-470), and close to that, in China, the 3 Kingdoms thing happened.

Technically it covers from the Battle of Adrianople (mentioned in the first cinematic of Alaric) onwards (since that’s where the final fall of Rome begins)…I still feel the 3rd century is very AoE 1/RoR/Chronicles timeframe…

The Battle of Adrianople also known as Battle of Hadrianopolis was fought between the Eastern Roman army led by the Roman emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic Alans, and various local rebels) led by Fritigern. The battle took place on 9 August 378 in the vicinity of Adrianople, in the Roman province of Thracia (modern Edirne in European Turkey). It ended with an overwhelming victory for the Goths and the death of Emperor Valens.

As part of the Gothic War of 376–382 AD, the battle is often considered the start of the events which led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. (aka this is where “the fall of Rome begins”)

@GoldenArmorX

• It would be better to make more DLC for AoE3 or AoE4, where there’s more acceptance to the novelty mechanics and new civs.

@GoldenArmorX

• AoE3, AoM:Re, and AoE4 are better options to be more innovative, at least by the community.

Yes, but they require more work… I’m about to make an unofficial DLC for the 20th anniversary of AoE 3, but it will only be ported campaigns from AoE 2 to 3…

@GoldenArmorX

Considering the article I showed you: “We are in a CRISIS in the video game world.” Same reason why companies have decided to increase the price of consoles.

@FocalPenny96393

And I think the game industry caused it themselves. We should not be the ones paying for it.
If they didn’t survive, their fault. More capable newcomers would fill the gap if the market was still there.

Yes, I don’t rule out a crisis like the one in '83 before 2030… Neither Microsoft, Sony nor Nintendo will fall, but I do see Activision-Blizzard, EA and Ubisoft go bankrupt and dissolve (AB can still be saved by being under Microsoft’s wing, EA can be bought by Embracer Group and Ubisoft by Embracer Group or Tencent)…

@vanBladdeck

I just hate the terrible communication of WE/Microsoft… I mean not even the aoe3 Devs seem to have known that their project will be canceled, Tilanus was super excited on Twitch a few weeks earlier.

Idk, everything about this situation shows utter incompetence. Its an embarassment that a multi billion company like Microsoft is worse run than my local barbershop

Yes, the communication was terrible… I’m sure they were thinking of canceling the entire Baltic DLC for 3DE between October and January and switching to AoM to save it due to the steep decline it suffered just a few weeks after launch…

@FocalPenny96393

I think the biggest crisis of game companies after all is essentially consumers no longer buying their products

They can’t be fooled by selling woke and mediocre stuff. We want video games, not ideology.

@StormyRat217

That.. Age of Empires Mobile is not RTS. Since it belongs to SLG, I think its lifespan has already ended. Because the sales look good, but the game is not managed at all. In fact, I think the lifespan of the game is being extended by advertising. I have already felt enough through my acquaintances that many users who played the game were disappointed with the SLG genre and left.

Yes, I didn’t even install it, because I have the Java versions which are much better…

[KG19991380]

you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain