I would say this is only partially true.
Flight Simulator 2020 and No Man’s Sky (the first time I left my planet and landed on another one, no loading screens - what happened after a few hours of gameplay is well known to all) left me speechless. Surely a well-made game nowadays can still impress my old self.
During the closed beta, I logged like 100 hours of gameplay but AoE IV was already playing second fiddle to my other games after 50 hours or so. That’s definitely not a good indication.
I played No Man’s Sky, unfortunately the release state of the game disappointed me and the impression of the game was ruined, I heard that the game was fixed and finalized (the developers are great), but there is no longer any desire to return to the game.
You can’t even imagine how rare it is these days. For example, I was waiting for Cyberpunk 2077 with incredible trepidation, the whole world was waiting, the game was made by people whom everyone trusted, but in the end … we got the biggest disappointment of the year and the AAA genre.
I urge everyone to never pre-order games, you can be fooled.
We have literally a few new games that can really impress, most of them are indie games.
I don’t know, this is a very personal question.
The only thing I can say for sure is that no game has yet been able to bring a person back to childhood. Here the old players really asked for WoW Classic, most of them wanted to return their childhood feeling, but when the game came out it turned out that it was not as good as they remembered it in childhood, they remembered all its problems and disadvantages (someone liked it), people those who have lived to a great age would really like to regain their youth, I can perfectly understand them, but alas, this feeling will not return.
No Man’s Sky is actually really good now. There are pros of live service games (which is apparently what we have nowadays) but there are still downsides. Games like Battlefront 2 (new one) and Battlefield 5 were saved by it. But then there are games like Fall Guys that are killed off within a month. The gaming industry nowadays is unpredictable. Hopefully AoE4 lives a long-lasting lifetime and has free updates monthly like NMS pulls off. If AoE4 does their shit well, they can make a great game. That is, if they pull it off.
It is. I have over 400 hours on it. Sometimes I leave it for a while but then come back to check the new major updates. I actually fell for all the hype and pre-ordered it (damn you, Sean Murray) and got disappointed after the first 10 hours. It was a sea of variety, but 1 inch deep. It’s a completely different game now. Not exactly what I wanted (I wanted a Star Trek vibe, not Minecraft in space) but still, got my money’s worth and then some.
I say all this because it shows what a very critical community can achieve. If we all say that AoE IV is great - especially those of us who have played the beta and stress test - then we’re doing a disservice on how good the game is going to be. We need to complain loudly, point at every minor thing that bother us and be ruthless with things that are lazy and unacceptable in a 2021 game. If not then game devs will think they can get away with mediocrity.
I hope you find that joy again one day. It hasn’t stopped for me. I was already an adult when I first played AoE1
What.
I grew up playing the first Age of Empires and I was totally blown away when Age of Empires II was announced because of the graphics and new innovations that they introduced into the game. Unfortunately, Age of Empires IV does not wow me on first impression; if anything I had to force myself to enjoy the beta just so I could see what the new gameplay experience was like. And as much as you would like to pretend its due to my childhood nostalgia, this wasn’t my case with other medieval themed game like Ancestors Legacy and the amount of enjoyment I had from that game over this upcoming title.
It pains me to admit, but Age of Empires IV does not feel like an ambitious and new AAA game, and as others have stated before, this game felt like it was made in 2011 instead of 2021 because of the lackluster and appeals when you compare this game with other games announced at E3 side-by-side. For example, where were other new features like:
Weather mechanics: Day to Night, Winds, Rain, Thunder, Snow, etc.
Realistic trajectory: Why are arrows and catapult ball turning into homing missile instead of following proper ballistic?
Physics: Why aren’t unit getting knocked away when being hit by cannon? This was introduced in Age of Empires III, but somehow this doesn’t appear on the upcoming sequel?
Crewmen: Why are these cannons and siege machine unmanned? They could be easily mistaken for discarded or abandoned devices by new players.
Zoom: Why are players restricted from zooming up close or further away? Considering that this game was made using a 3D gaming engine, this should’ve been an easy fix.
Environments: This game felt so lifeless, where were the wolves feeding on the decaying troops or vultures hovering over the battlefield? Where were the scream of people when units were burning down houses or why aren’t villagers capable of putting out the fire. Oh right, this game was rated for 12+, we can’t have any of these things anymore.
Where are the new combat animations: Why are units are still hitting each other using same animation instead of doing realistic combat depiction. For example, compare the combat in Age of Empires IV with the one in the video and you could feel how lazy and uninspiring the fourth installation is.
That’s the key word. Ambition is 100% what’s missing here.
I should have also stated that I have almost zero idea what goes on with making a video game. I do work as an artist in the tv/movie industry, but there’s hundreds of moving parts in the machine, and I can’t imagine the organizational skills required to have a product come together.
[mod hat on] This forum is at its best when we are excellent to each other and don’t attack anyone. It’s a difficult path to tread when the quality of the devs’ game is directly relevant and on topic in virtually every thread.
I will not tolerate anyone burning this forum down with toxicity. Go elsewhere on the internet with that.
However, I think it’s fair game to say AoE4 is not ambitious/lacks ambition. That’s a statement going toward the quality of the game and not toward the people making it. I’m ruling fair play. But at the same time I’m kindly begging the follow up posts to be wary about slipping towards arguing the developers themselves lack ambition in the usage of that term that speaks to their character or personal traits, because that’s a bunch of inflammatory garbage, no matter what some of us may feel about this specific game.
On the one hand I have pretty much zip interest in buying this game.
On the other hand I’ve bought SO MANY games and then not played them, what’s one more?
My biggest reason to purchase would be to encourage them to do something with AOM.
For me the excitement and of aoe 1 and 2 for the first time was watching my older brothers play. I remember being disappointed that I didn’t get to see aoe 2 the first time they played it. Then when my one older brother got aoe 3 I thought it looked so fun. When I was old enough to play it I started and never stopped
I’m not sure what would convince MS to do something with AoM at this point. I mean strategies and RTS game live and will continue to live on PC, but it’s hardly a huge gold vein and prolly execs think that they are doing already more than they should with all DE releases, new expansions, and now AoE IV.
Buying IV certainly won’t do harm. It’s money that at some point will be tied to ‘PC-strategies’ in some spreadsheet and if enough money is coming in somebody might decide to invest more into this genre and hey - they already have established IP.
Personally I love to see even a simple remake of AoM on 3DE’s engine. I’d be fine with AoM2 set just in ancient Greece since it’s my fav one, or a simple CnC approach Greece vs… idk, Egypt or something from Mesopotamia.
SC2 is extremely faster game, was made to appeal to Korean sc players, Is so stressed that is not fun IMO, it doesn’t focus on strategy it focused on APM, I was decent at it but ultimately get bored of it, devs also produced false advertisement, mothership was able to produce a black hole, then they removed later because Koreans pros complains a lot… Now is a super boring unit.
I also remember first presentation of Starcraft 2 , and it was so awesome ;].I have always love rts games , but some of them are just too fast , and too hard to play with just 2 hands , and 2 eyes ;]
the game is great what are you talking about lol. i come from AoE 2 and i like this one so much at the point that i dont want to play AoE 2 now. im waiting for this to be released.
I do not consider it a disaster, but it is not a game that complashes high expectations, considering that it is developed by a multinational with unlimited resources.
Compared to AoE2 the game shows great promise.
Since you’re a mod… do you mind changing the title of the complete butchering of the word “Disaster” because its driving me up the damn wall.
While it sounds agreeable at first thought. How do you explain me still being under this wow effect by aoe2 in 2021 then?
I think the main issue is like many modern works, it just doesn’t create memorable moments.
The importance of the player is to be involved in a game, to be involved requires that making decisions does matter. In simplified fast paced games such decisions typically loose their meaning.
This often leads to disappointments.
What memorable moments did you have by AoE4? What decisions did impact the gameplay?
I did spend quite some time with the beta, tried all the factions and units,
did beat the hard and hardest AI, defeated several players online, but non of it did convince me.
You convinced me though.
Maybe my ~60 hours total were not enough? I don’t know. But I can relate to this post.