Sir AOE II DE max peak was 38k players and now max peak 24 hr 17k that’s only a 55% decrease. Been out 4 years. (November 2019).
Civilization VI Max Peak 150k, max 24 hour average 53k, that’s a 67% decrease. Been out 7 years. (October 2016 )
AOE IV max peak was 73k and now max peak 24 hr 12k, that’s an 83% decrease. Been out 2 years. (October 2021)
Company of Heroes 3 max peak was 30k and now max peak 24 hr 2k, that’s a 93% decrease. Been out 8 months (February 2023)
Are we really here defending this as a success? Its only 10% of a player base loss short of the worst release of the last decade of a legacy franchise (COH3). Its literally the same time period of AOE II, if a DE edition of the same game with some QoL and bare minimum investment in development compared to AOE IV and the insane budget they wasted on the documentary and marketing. Its laughable at best to call it a success.
AoE II: DE is a remaster of the original game. How’s the original game looking?
Yes, it was released around the millenium. I’d know! I was there. I’m sure many of us were!
All I’m asking is: invest the same effort in defending the games you do like, vs. the games that you don’t. And if you can’t, for whatever understandable reason (who defends games they don’t personally like?!), just recognise that.
That’s all.
The DE games were literally rebuilt with new art (across the board), updated physics, asset limits, modding support . . . the works.
Do you know what went into the DE releases? Or are you putting them down as a way to attack IV?
I mean this design and name are awful but the real issue is that we only have 10 civs currently in the game and they are for some reason making these weird knockoffs of existing civs instead of adding new ones. There are so many potential options for cool, unique concepts but they are making “variants” probably because it is cheaper than adding new ones.
ok lets add them to the number to make aoe 4/coh3 looks worse bcuz it has more players combined
nope but steam users are accurate bcuz aoe 4 has no crossplay and the gamepass model has similar issue with other with the same model which its revenue is too low to compesate the cost which explain why aoe 4 and companies that control this kind of business model made it so poorly on its budget. Its over gorb
yes aoe 4 is not a gud game and its few gud things mostly made by fe team is taken down by this dlc which is the epitome of potential lackluster on historical and civ design
I, personally, started to play again because of the seasonal event instead.
But there’s a phenomenon I observed. When new big updates are coming some people don’t want to play anymore until that update comes out. That happens to me as well. I’m like “I want to play the new things, not these that are going to be old soon”. So numbers may go down for not so wrong reasons after all, this is an example of that.
Small correction: as of now, AoE 4 has no crossplattform play between PC and Console. Crossplay as in Steam + Windows Store/Gamepass on the other hand is a thing.
But it’s up to us to clearly communicate to devs that we strongly wish to have control over toggle variant civs on/off. They can’t just force the community to accept things like Jeanne D’Arc or Zhu Xi’s Legacy on the AoE civilization menu list
With all the unplausible shenanigans people always did in online matches, you worry about them picking the variants? That’s the least of the problems. You could do a custom lobby forbidding the use of variants, those who don’t abide get kicked. Still, once the game starts, you have no control on the silly things that may happen.
While not exactly brute forcing a new concept, this is one of the features you experience as you age with the games you play and after enough additions you realize it’s not the same game you played a decade ago. For better or worse, this is the direction they want to take it, and growth can come with adjustment.
They’re making the game, so they get to decide what’s in it. They’ve already listened to community feedback and at that time elected not to update Joan / Jeanne.
Your choice as a consumer is to support these decisions (or not). There is no obligation beyond that.
…you’re making it a matter of principle, with that rigid mindset you can’t help but get offended by every decision the Devs make that you don’t endorse. The whole matter gets way bigger than it really is.
I disagree with all the haters, the new variants (specifying that those are not civs as all of you haters believe cause some youtubers treat them like that), are a pretty cool adittion to the game that will make us play the same civ with fresh mechanics and if we want to play the old design of the civ we can do and every one variant will have it’s weakness and fortitude in comparison of the civ they are variant, so I am very happy for that and can’t wait to play the DLC.
Maybe… lets see before judge. If they keep adding quickly variants for every civ and at the same time adding one new civ, would be nice. Honestly there are still many civ that deserve to be part of this game.
