Biggest Complaint I've Seen So Far

@GepardenKalle said:

@smitske said:
You can for them forcing players on barely working inferior platforms, like GFWL was and I have no reason tot hink different with the windows store since it is still far from an acceptable platform. M$ also has a very poor trackrecord on support for both their pc platforms and the series we are talking about.

Then criticise the usability of their platform or their support of it. Don’t criticise their choice to use their own platform for their own games. That’s silly and frankly unfair.

Its not silly to critisize their choice for a bad platform.

@GepardenKalle said:

@smitske said:
You can for them forcing players on barely working inferior platforms, like GFWL was and I have no reason tot hink different with the windows store since it is still far from an acceptable platform. M$ also has a very poor trackrecord on support for both their pc platforms and the series we are talking about.

Then criticise the usability of their platform or their support of it. Don’t criticise their choice to use their own platform for their own games. That’s silly and frankly unfair.

God damn Blizzard! I’m gonna write a ticket and ask why they don’t use steam!

As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

Indeed, a terrible decision they are making by not releasing on both steam and other windows OS. The windows store is a vastly inferior platform, can’t come up with a single logical reason as to why they want to release AoE:DE on widows store, also, bashing the so called “xbox goodness” on pc is a terrible idea, no one wants a xbox goodness on their pc, that’s why people buy xbox.

@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

Look at it this way, you as a developer being forced by higher ups to release on a vastly inferior environment leading to less people being interested in your work.
Or even worse your work being torn down by critics because that inferior platform is so unstable it lowers the quality for people playing the game.

Not saying this is the case for windows store, it was however the case for its predecessor GFWL which gives me very low expectations

@smitske said:

@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

Look at it this way, you as a developer being forced by higher ups to release on a vastly inferior environment leading to less people being interested in your work.
Or even worse your work being torn down by critics because that inferior platform is so unstable it lowers the quality for people playing the game.

Not saying this is the case for windows store, it was however the case for its predecessor GFWL which gives me very low expectations

Although the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are far from perfect and do not combined include all the most popular Steam client features, the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are big improvements over Games for Windows LIVE.

@rhrmn said:

@smitske said:

@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

Look at it this way, you as a developer being forced by higher ups to release on a vastly inferior environment leading to less people being interested in your work.
Or even worse your work being torn down by critics because that inferior platform is so unstable it lowers the quality for people playing the game.

Not saying this is the case for windows store, it was however the case for its predecessor GFWL which gives me very low expectations

Although the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are far from perfect and do not combined include all the most popular Steam client features, the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are big improvements over Games for Windows LIVE.

Well if it was worse than that piece of junk it makes you wonder how little M$ games still knows about pc.
But still its not enough yet, far from it and I dont think they know what needs to be done, or are willing to do so.

At the E3 showcase the man said that they were using all the past information and suggestions from the community in the previous games. He failed to mention that they choose to disregard the biggest reason for those communities to even exist: wide availability and ease of (multi-player) access to the game. I was so hyped about my biggest childhood game being brought back to live, just as excited I was about AoEII HD, AOM:EE and AOEIII, but then I instantly lost all of that when I reached the first line of Minimal System requirements. And with me probably 90+ % of all AoE franchise lovers. Many people haven’t switched to W10 for many varying reasons and will continue to do so. If they pull this through and stay with W10/Xbox Live only, they will effectively kill of the entire hype and critical reception of the game, and perhaps even the entire franchise which has me worried sick.

They also forgot to mention their failure in the trailer.

Also;

@CycloneGU said:

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

I think Warcraft existed before Steam. That said, it’s a good question whether it would have been successful without Steam in this day and age of computer gaming. However, my concern is also a concern of logic; the entire series is on Steam, we already have friends on Steam, don’t make us start over on a platform that this game does not need to be on.

Another contributing factor could be that games like that are relatively cheap, or (as in the case of games like League of Legends and World of Wargaming (Tanks/Warships/Warplanes), are freemium (free to play but with in-game premium content that does not affect gameplay or only slightly). So AOE:DE would either need to be dirt-cheap or even free to get a decent amount of players. But then again if it’s only for W10/XL, then not even decent amounts of player will get it.

Concluding: MAKE IT FOR STEAM AND EARLIER VERSIONS OF WINDOWS OR DONT SAY YOU LISTEN TO THE COMMUNITY AS THAT WOULD BE LYING!!!

I have played the franchise from the earliest inception, still have all the games on CD AND Steam. But I might almost add: “up untill now”.

While GFWL sucked badly the Gaming Zone did not, in fact it was the premier place to play in its day. I respect Microsoft’s decision to use its own platform. To be close minded and not at least give them a chance is really petty in my estimation. I understand that other games and even AOEO died because of the bad GFWL platform. I would imagine that like most every other game AOE:DE will make it to Steam eventually in the meantime lets give Microsoft a fair shake of a chance with this game.

@TheUnknownKing said:
relatively cheap, or freemium So AOE:DE would either need to be dirt-cheap or even free to get a decent amount of players.

Overwatch is 40 euro! That’s not even close to cheap, but
“over 30 million players* (*Based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners.)”
play it and you can’t buy it on steam…

@CycloneGU said:
Sorry for what might be a double post here, I can’t edit posts for some reason.

@qweytr24 said:
My view on this is that Microsoft doesn’t care about AoE, they care about the Windows Store. They hope that AoE:DE would attract some people to at least try out the Store and to hopefully continue using it. If they released the game also in Steam, all the Steam users would just buy the game there. I’m sure Microsoft knows they would get a lot more sales for the game by releasing it on Steam, but they mainly care about getting more users to their store.

Something that comes to my mind is that, as far as I’m aware, Windows 10 is free. So they are trying to encourage more people to use their platform and thus be able to get their games. The other difficulty is that there are people who HATE Windows. This means Mac, Linux, and many more. They were probably already never going to see the game, but blocking out Windows 7? Windows 8 and 8.1? The game needs to be compatible for the biggest group of users possible. You are correct, they don’t care about AOE, they only care about their own interests. And when a developer only cares about their own interests, they are not a developer one should be supporting. They need to listen to their community before they get the support from said community.

Note this is not necessarily a personal opinion, but a phrasing of what could very well be a general community opinion not just here, but anywhere.

On that not able to edit: you can only edit within one hour, after that it’s locked.

W10 is NOT free. And on top of that it is very unstable and advanced-user-unfriendly. You Can’t have the same amount of control of your computer as in previous versions and you can say goodbye to your privacy where in previous systems you could somewhat keep your shit to yourself. And I totally agree on the statement for the earlier Windows versions to be excluded is going to cost them a whole lot. They really need to reconsider this horrible decision, no, mistake that they are about to make.

@RogerOfChar said:
While GFWL sucked badly the Gaming Zone did not, in fact it was the premier place to play in its day. I respect Microsoft’s decision to use its own platform. To be close minded and not at least give them a chance is really petty in my estimation. I understand that other games and even AOEO died because of the bad GFWL platform. I would imagine that like most every other game AOE:DE will make it to Steam eventually in the meantime lets give Microsoft a fair shake of a chance with this game.

Close minded? I think its rather naïve to believe that a company that failed time and time again in forcing their vision on pc gaming, due to a lack of knowledge on pc gaming, is not going to make the same mistakes again when their attitude clearly has not changed. I follow enough about the windows store and the whole UWP that I know that it is not a good thing for pc gamers. It might be better than the trash GFWL was, that does not make it not bad. That is an extremely low bar. They did not change their views, why should we believe things will be different?

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

Because unlike the windows store that store is aimed at pc gaming, not xbox gaming on a pc.

@smitske said:
It might be better than the trash GFWL was, that does not make it not bad.

So what’s the problem with Windows Store in your opinion? And how does it stack up to the other exclusive publisher stores that are popping up like Epic Games Launcher?

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

They have their own server and store (Battlenet). Also they are older than Steam and has a HUGE community since starcraft I and Warcraft.

By the way, there was a season that W10 was totally free but not anymore :frowning: It cost a lot of money ($120 dollars W10 Home version).

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

Because unlike the windows store that store is aimed at pc gaming, not xbox gaming on a pc.> @GepardenKalle said:

@smitske said:
It might be better than the trash GFWL was, that does not make it not bad.

So what’s the problem with Windows Store in your opinion? And how does it stack up to the other exclusive publisher stores that are popping up like Epic Games Launcher?

First of all pricing, they consistently make pc games more expensive because its for xbox and pc, they could make xbox games more expensive in the past because they own the platform but in general pc game prices were lower. With the windows store they try to change this because it is linked, leading to higher prices of the pc, making things exclusive means higher prices for us overall.

Secondly UWP and lack of mod support for the games, a decent part of pc gaming and livetime of games has to do with mods, WIndows store with their UWP model destroys this. There are tons more of issues with UWP just look at the internet.

And that is not even looking at the developement quality of the store, because honestly I dont use it I have had enough troubles with their previous trash and given the previous points I dont see a reason to bother.

I do not necesarily mind a developer using their own store (except for it cluttering my pc having half a dozen different programs for half a dozen games is not too great), I do mind his specific store and what it stand for, what it tries to force onto the players.

Replying to a couple here.

@rhrmn said:

@smitske said:

@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

Look at it this way, you as a developer being forced by higher ups to release on a vastly inferior environment leading to less people being interested in your work.
Or even worse your work being torn down by critics because that inferior platform is so unstable it lowers the quality for people playing the game.

Not saying this is the case for windows store, it was however the case for its predecessor GFWL which gives me very low expectations

Although the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are far from perfect and do not combined include all the most popular Steam client features, the Windows Store and the Windows 10 Xbox app are big improvements over Games for Windows LIVE.

And also…

@Raylord69 said:
As a developer, I can relate to AoE decisions to stick with Microsoft Store, and I don’t mind trying it out just for the trial of it.
I don’t think that your “Game must be on Steam” vision is correct, that removes any decision from the makers of the game into just accepting the most mainstream video game distributor.

This being said, if people don’t play this game because it’s not on steam it’s their problem and their loss. I’ll be waiting patiently for the game to give me a beta slot or at least buy it.

I don’t know anything about this Windows 10 Store because, having never had an Xbox gamer tag until within the last week, I never used it. The Xbox app never even ran on my laptop, but once I had a gamer tag, it had no problem opening and trying to make me buy stuff right away. Since the Store also didn’t want to run before, I still haven’t even seen it. Therefore, reading about this “trial” is a concerning thing. Are you talking about the Windows 10 Store, or a “trial” version of AOEDE? I don’t think a trial version has been announced. If it has, forgive me.

As yet, my stance has not changed as I’m unconvinced. Yes, Microsoft has every right to choose what platform to release their game on. Yes, Microsoft has the right to choose to make a game exclusive to a certain platform. But literally shutting out over 70% of the gaming market? Yes, they have every right to do that. 70% of the gaming market also has the right to refuse to update to Windows 10. Because they have no reason to do the upgrade, or in the case they don’t have Windows just will not buy the software for it. I get new machines once in a while, and that’s when my Windows gets updated (using the new computer, the old one collecting dust and being activated to look for things or test something), but if I was not due to upgrade for another year or two I’d be pretty annoyed right now. Using the tactic to force people to buy a $120 operating system that people clearly have reasons for not wanting to use is clearly a tactic that will backfire, because those users will simply not buy the software OR the game. M$ thinks they can get $200 out of these people with the exclusivity, but they will in fact get nothing. That’s the risk they’re taking by not making it compatible for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. And it will be their financial failure. Of course, there will be bigwigs who will think and say whenever they can in game development meetings that there just isn’t interest for the game and franchise, which isn’t true at all; it will be a failure to make the game available for fans of the franchise, and that’s all it will be.

@TheUnknownKing said:

@CycloneGU said:
Sorry for what might be a double post here, I can’t edit posts for some reason.

@qweytr24 said:
My view on this is that Microsoft doesn’t care about AoE, they care about the Windows Store. They hope that AoE:DE would attract some people to at least try out the Store and to hopefully continue using it. If they released the game also in Steam, all the Steam users would just buy the game there. I’m sure Microsoft knows they would get a lot more sales for the game by releasing it on Steam, but they mainly care about getting more users to their store.

Something that comes to my mind is that, as far as I’m aware, Windows 10 is free. So they are trying to encourage more people to use their platform and thus be able to get their games. The other difficulty is that there are people who HATE Windows. This means Mac, Linux, and many more. They were probably already never going to see the game, but blocking out Windows 7? Windows 8 and 8.1? The game needs to be compatible for the biggest group of users possible. You are correct, they don’t care about AOE, they only care about their own interests. And when a developer only cares about their own interests, they are not a developer one should be supporting. They need to listen to their community before they get the support from said community.

Note this is not necessarily a personal opinion, but a phrasing of what could very well be a general community opinion not just here, but anywhere.

On that not able to edit: you can only edit within one hour, after that it’s locked.

W10 is NOT free. And on top of that it is very unstable and advanced-user-unfriendly. You Can’t have the same amount of control of your computer as in previous versions and you can say goodbye to your privacy where in previous systems you could somewhat keep your **** to yourself. And I totally agree on the statement for the earlier Windows versions to be excluded is going to cost them a whole lot. They really need to reconsider this horrible decision, no, mistake that they are about to make.

I learned the edit thing in another thread, so that’s taken care of. I since edited the post I wanted to edit.

I know for a while that Windows 10 was free. I guess I didn’t notice that they are now charging for it, so that’s news to me. However, the upgrade from Windows 8/8.1 - and maybe even from 7, I don’t know - is free, so technically people could upgrade or use their license key to be able to obtain it for free. Also, when a computer is purchased, you tend to be able to get Windows 10 for free on it as well, meaning that those people will have no problem. However, being someone who can’t just come up with cash for a new computer whenever I want to, I understand all the same the problems of not being able to upgrade; if your Windows 7/8/8.1 doesn’t meet the system specs for Windows 10, you CANNOT upgrade, and therefore M$ chooses to shun you. And that’s not fair to potential customers. This is why people hate Microsoft and go to Sony, or Nintendo. Yes, these companies also have their problems (and in Nintendo’s case, games are very often exclusive to their systems, meaning there will probably never be a Mario or Pokémon game on PC that isn’t a fan project), but they don’t force users to upgrade their OPERATING SYSTEM in order to buy a game. Yes, they might have to buy a new console, and players can choose to buy the console or not. Don’t buy the console, don’t play the game. The same logic could be applied to Windows 10, but now we’re talking in some cases of people having to buy a new $800 computer to run the game. I mean, really? I’ll take the $200 portable gaming console any day.

Again, it doesn’t affect me at all. I have the ability, more or less, to access the Windows 10 Store. Even saying that, I am saying that they are making a huge mistake making the game exclusive to the Windows 10 Store. By shutting out a lot of users who might otherwise play the game, that will mean there are fewer players online playing the game, especially over time, and again, this goes back to the “there just isn’t interest in our product” from the same bigwigs who make the decision to keep the product out of the hands of many players. For a game that’s also released on Xbox, it makes sense, and I can see buying a game like Sea of Thieves that way and, hopefully, being able to play with Xbox players. For a game that’s only on PC and no other platform, it’s suicide. Microsoft needs to change this course and put the game with all of the others in the series, where it belongs, on Steam. If the game has to be delayed to do it, delay it. Just get it done.

@Zsombro said:

@TheUnknownKing said:
relatively cheap, or freemium So AOE:DE would either need to be dirt-cheap or even free to get a decent amount of players.

Overwatch is 40 euro! That’s not even close to cheap, but
“over 30 million players* (*Based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners.)”
play it and you can’t buy it on steam…

Yup, you can’t buy it on steam, however, blizzard launcher is leagues above microsoft windows store, also, they have a much bigger fan base.

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

Because I can find physical copies of Blizzard games in every single store I walk in :slight_smile:

@Pykke said:

@Zsombro said:
How can blizzard games be so successful without being on steam?

Because I can find physical copies of Blizzard games in every single store I walk in :slight_smile:

Why is it better than steam?

@“Sky Maniac” said:

However basing buying a game because its on steam or not is pointless… There was time before steam where games could be installed and played without having to go through another platform.

That time is somewhat past us though but I do agree with what I think your point is. I think someone wanting to purchase the game should be able to go to a store and buy a disk that at least starts the setup process for a microsoft/xbox live account easily and straightforwardly. The arguments for why it should probably just be on steam are fair but look at Battle.net! The Blizzard platform isn’t stopping people from getting into Overwatch or Hearthstone. As long as trying to get the game points one toward the right platform to run it through it shouldn’t be a long term problem, especially if the platform ends up hosting many successful titles (again, like Battle.net).

The main issue is people using Mac or an older version of Windows not being able to play. As has been implied, PC gamers aren’t going to go buy a fancier PC so they can get the newest OS from one specific company so they can use the Microsoft store so they can start playing the remake of a game that their 10 year old desktop running XP still plays just fine; the more common situation is PC gamers installing a game, finding it pretty fun and deciding that they want their system to run their new game BETTER.

All in all I agree, locking a majority of potential customers out of even getting the game before they upgrade to Windows 10 seems like a poor decision. I can see Microsoft’s side of it a bit but I think they should definitely look into a version of the “Microsoft store” that can be run on non-Windows 10 systems if they want to have decent sales/playerbase.