Just want to say congratulations to the AoE2 development team!
The Return of Rome DLC was really a bummer for a lot of people (despite being the most work intensive DLC so far) but even if I personally prefered the Romans out of AoE2 timeline (to be fair, I did make a topic about adding the Romanians, maybe it was lost in translation; kidding) I’m highly impressed that the devs actually listened to the community when they said that they wanted the Romans to be in rank as well AND again listened to the community about bringing back old campaigns from AoE1.
For that alone I decided to buy the DLC, we need to support good behavior.
To some it may not mean like much, but there is no shortage of companies out there who would do things the fanbase didn’t like and when the fanbase expressed outrage double-down on their initial plan instead of actually listening to the fanbase. Would post a few comical examples here but I fear it counts as advertisement for other games. So I was really surpised how quickly the AoE2 team listened to the community and decided to implement these changes.
As for the Romans themselves (I know they will be rebalanced for rank) while I was opposed to the idea, I really like their design, they cost a lot of gold and their trash units are trash. So likely, you either win by Castle or clearly lose in Imperial… just like the Romans did. Gold intensive and very powerful with gold, dominate at their peak, but almost guaranteed to lose once you run out of gold. You will not be able to hold out anymore. The enemy will just beat you with trash units, just like barbarians. Very fitting.
Thank you development team! A big congratulations for listening to the community, it means a lot, and I can’t wait to play the Romans in rank! (even though I didn’t originally like the idea of Romans)
And hey, AoE1 is not that bad either. Fancy stealing some civ ideas from Romae ad Bellum mod if you want a DLC within a DLC?
They took a big risk with the Return of Rome. I agree that they should have taken the safe approach and make a Balkan, American or African DLC but they tried to surprise us with bringing back AoE1. I agree that the DLC backfired hard, but in their mind they really thought this was going to be groundbreaking and afterwards they were willing to listen to feedback, I think that is to be appreciated. They worked a lot more on the Return of Rome DLC that they would have worked on even a 5 new civs DLC for AoE2. It didn’t go the way they planned, but they were willing to listen to feedback and I like that.
I dont think they took a big risk. They just didnt think the upgrade. Just look at some examples:
You want a AoE1 port, but why didnt they include the old campaigns? Now they will add some, so they had to change their mind.
They wanted a healthy multiplayer environment for RoR, but why isnt their any match making? They already ajbe announced that there will be some tweaks in future updates.
For AoE2 they included the Romans, but they thought it should be fine if that was single player only at first. They ahad to change their mind.
These all shows me they didnt really thought about the DLC. This is for me why it fails. They just launched a half done DLC, while the communicate about it like it is fully done.
I cant really thank the devs for release such terrible work.
I don’t even know if this was received well in the AOE1 community and if it wasn’t, it should’ve had more AOE2 features like UU, UT, scaled up buildings, regional units. It also should’ve been two different DLC like Roman, Scythian or whatever for AOE2 then that weird AOE 1.5. They could’ve snatched the people who created the Rome at War mods cus that was way better.
To be fair the content of DLC is good, but the launch was so horrible.
This is coming from a dude who really enjoy AOE2 and even pre-order the DLC knowing how bad it’s gonna be.
Bugs related to hotkey, monks were going for protest, DLC campaigns couldn’t function for a time.
I had good experience with the DLC, but the client side just itch me.
It’s kinda a little shame, the content was good, yet feel like this DLC is about how “Microsoft” (not dev) giving us fan a dam finger.
To be fair, they didn’t only port AOE1. They also added tons of beautiful miscellaneous decoration in ROR editors. I really want it in base game AOE2 and I’m a little disappointed when found out.
This post is already too long. The DLC should have provide the Roman in AOE2 for free, instead of forcing a purchase. There are ways too many things that can incite a backlash.
The irony of your profile pic being “bad decisions” isn’t lost on me.
Yeah, adding the Romans in AoE2 was kind of baity. They knew there were people who didn’t like AoE1 so they added the Romans in AoE2 to convince those people with 0 interest in AoE1 to still buy the DLC for the Romans in AoE2.
I didn’t want the Romans in AoE2 at all (and yes am aware of Huns, Goths, but they also existed past the fall of West Rome into the Dark Age) but giving it for free I think would have been very bad for sales.
They saw the Roman at War mod being popular and decided to do a lackluster job. It’s wild because they were doing such a great or above average job from the past dlcs. Like going through this forum or reddit, who wanted AOE 1.2? If they made the AOE2 Roman DLC separate, I imagine it would be alright.
Overall I’m really agree with the first half of your opinion. ROR would be better if the devs really didn’t make it look like a “buy me to fill enough trophy” DLC.
Nonetheless I’m having fun with the every part of ROR. It’s just always the Microsoft tradition to summon bugs everytime a new DLC happens is always baffled to me. They really need to have beta tester or something, and more transparency.
Plenty of people did, me included. You could argue tho that they should have released RoR as a standalone product that doesn’t require AoE 2, much like Shogun 2’s Fall of the Samurai
Yes, RoR inside AoE 2 is messy, but at least they haven’t yet abandoned AoE 2 in favor of all-new projects that will yield more money. The new bugs, while unnecessary and annoying, reflect continued maintenance of the common engine, which is a good. I am happy to see that the hotfixes released since fix many of the worst bugs.
I’ve thought about that and I think that’d be cool. I definitely wouldn’t want them to put a ton of effort into balance and whatnot, but I like the idea of getting another lumped in game in AEO2. IDK who owns the rights. Probably disney. IDK if they’d be game.
