Concerning GL, you won’t get a dissenting opinion from people who make money off the game.
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I wasn’t expecting them to say they dis-like it, that’s not surprising to me at all.
I just wasn’t expecting them, in summation, to dismiss most (admittedly they did briefly…talk about if not agree with a few other concerns that have been brought up), of the backlash as people just needing to read the description.
I think it’s possible to say you like something while simultaneously NOT saying 70% of the fanbase who disagrees came to that conclusion though farcically erroneous means.
But it would seem they opted for an alternative approach.
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Totally. For example, I like Return of Rome because it gave me a new game-within-a-game for me to play around with, for less than the price of the original game, plus it gave extra bonus content to the game I care more about. Even though I think AoE1 is unbalanced and totally unfair, it is something I’ve definitely messed around with on occasion, so my purchase was justifed. However, I’m not going to dismiss the opinions of those who didn’t like it, because they saw it as a simple cash grab. Those people already owned AoE1: DE and felt slighted, whereas I never owned it. My experiences are different, so I am not qualified to comment on or discount other people’s opinions.
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Not to get tooooooo much into semantics, but I feel “cashgrab” implies something hastily brought to market, and porting over a game into another I don’t think could be hasty.
But yeah, I totally get it. It didn’t come with all the original campaigns, AND it was the third time aoe1 was being sold, the second in four years, after supposedly a “definitive” edition. Also if you want the most up to date version of aoe you need to buy aoe2…
I can imagine the good intentions, namely aoe1 support was going to end so they made some aoe1+aoe2 frankenchild so it could live on, but the optics weren’t great and the execution left things to be desired. I disagree with those who disliked RoR but there are definitely valid criticisms…or at the very least valid critical perspectives.
Definitely wouldn’t suggest anyone who dislikes ROR just can’t read.
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Ahh, yeah… this part isn’t too cool. Telling folks to learn to read? Ouch, probably not the best way to phrase it
???
First of all, Apologize for what? What did they do wrong? What are You blaming them for?
With V&V, it is complicated, they did not trick the their customers - it is clearly stated in DLC (product) description and marketing videos, what is it - Single Player mission pack with new and updated missions from workshop, and it does not add new civs and MP content.
To say clear - this is more mistake of the customers, who refuse to read the description and double think, before they purchase something.
V&V is actually fine addon to the game, if You like SP missions, what is not everybody cup of tea, if You play AoE2, than You can just skip this DLC
Very similar situation is Rise of Rome, it is specific DLC. It is good if You are interested in AoE1 gameplay, if not You can just skip it.
Where they probably made mistake - they underestimated the marketing about DLC, and explanation, what is it, and what not.
EDIT:
Another problem, is technical state of the game itself - pathfinding, bugs etc, They probably need to care more about that, before offering another payed content
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If you keep track of other thread, you will find that they said Microsoft if not lied, at least mislead the players that devs inspired by the scenario and introduce campaign. But actually just package scenarios with voice acting with some bug fixing, not campaign with background from scenario
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I read the reviews, DLC description and steam discussions.
The people complain, that the DLC do not add new civs - which is directly stated on the product page,
and these scenarios are free on workshop, ETC, the point is, that they expected the DLC to be something, what is not
the DLC description is clear IMO, even for non-native english speakers like me
Embark on a thrilling journey with “Victors and Vanquished”! In nineteen epic scenarios, play as Ragnar Lothbrok, Oda Nobunaga, Charlemagne, and more…
Victors and Vanquished features 14 scenarios inspired by the most popular community-generated content and 5 exclusive new scenarios. Each scenario has been updated and polished with full, professional voice acting, music, rebalancing, bugfixes, achievements, and quality of life improvements. From migration mechanics to choosing your own faction, each scenario provides a new way to play Age of Empires. Victors and Vanquished lets you tell your own story like never before!
If You are skillful enough to find and download these scenarios on workshop, which is not direct part of game, aka “pass the obstacles”, You should be skillful enough to read and understand the DLC description
Uh, this is misleading enough even for native speaker?
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I think it’s waaaay to convenient to assume the backlash is due to illiteracy.
The reviews I’ve read talk about the single VA, lack of new assets, bugs, and mission design.
Also would it be improper to mention lack of civs in the context that the existing content didn’t, upon playing and assessment, justify its cost without those two civs?
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Also people have taken issue with “inspired”. They just ported them over and polished them.
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I still think people get too hung up on the word “campaign” and think that campaign is exclusive to a narrative driven story told over 5+ missions, whereas Ensemble already advertised The Battles of the Conquerors as a campaign in 2000, despite being just a collection of scenarios, so “campaign” can be one or the other, it just needs to follow the same idea.
I also think the discussion ignores console players who don’t have the option to download the original scenarios, since the Xbox version’s mod browser only allows official mods such as event mods (which is a shame, since the Xbox version also lacks access to the editor in general), so they experience those scenarios now for the first time.
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Historical battles are literally listed as campaigns in the game itself. You have to click the word to get to them.
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Lol!
(20 Characters)
If ui dictates taxonomy then presumably the art of a war is a schroedinger’s campaign where it is a campaign if navigated to through the “campaign” menu, but not a campaign when navigated to through the main menu.
Menus are meant for navigation not classification.
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Even if you don’t think about the campaign debate.
What did they promise?
Voice acting: only 1 guy for pretty much everything. On top of that the voice acting is sometimes bugged(at least in my language)
Polished scenarios: i don’t think i’ve read even a single response from sb. saying that this wasn’t just copy paste, there are still bugs(cant say how many).
So especially to the polished part deserves an apology, yes. If you are very generous you could call whatever they did whitewashing… i tend to say they smply lied to the customer, which is unacceptable.
I’m not surprised gl dudes defended it. Was viper in that podcast? Like people already mentioned they live from this game and guys like him already made millions…so what is 13 euros to him?
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“An organized course of action to achieve a goal”.
The dictionary definition of “campaign” is incongruent with ensemble’s use of “campaign” to describe the historical battles. If Ensemble had described it as a unicorn I wouldn’t then surmise the definition had been altered to be congruent with historical battles.
If you needn’t multiple scenarios to satisfy the “organized course of action”, the completion of all in order culminating in “achieve a goal”, then alternatively any arbitrary set of scenario objectives could satisfy the “organized course of action” but then that allows for a sufficiently complex scenario, having multiple sets of sequential objectives, each set then being considered a campaign, therefore allowing a scenario to contain multiple campaigns, which has never been congruent with how anyone has used the word “campaign” before.
Secondarily even if all that hadn’t been the case why was marketing changed to use “single player focused” after the reveal? single player includes the campaigns, historical battles, and skirmishes vs the ai. “single player” is less specific than “campaign” regardless of the definition you prefer.
Why use a less specific term AFTER it’s revealed than what you used to tease? At best, absolutely zero thought at any stage was used to consider what terms would best describe the content.
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I agree, the world “updated” would be better than “inspired”, but it is not that big issue. This is more like game with the words. The Campaign term is fine here.
Still, I do not see reason, why the developers “should apologize and admit, that they are wrong”
They did specific DLC for specific audience - players, who like single player content - scenarios.
It is clearly stated what it is, and DLC is optionable addon, nobody is forced to buy.
Do some remedies.
- Make the Vandals a new civ, and design the Viking wooden architecture set.
- Make a new campaign with 5 or 6 scenarios for the Romans.
- If a player has bought RoR or V&V, they can get the Vandals for free.
- If a player has bought V&V, their Viking civ will be in the wooden set rather than in the generic Central European one, and the Romans campaign is unlocked.
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I couldn’t more strongly dis-agree but everyone is entitled to believe that which they’d prefer to believe.
This line of reasoning is based on the erroneous assumption that the the backlash is based on MP players, who wanted new civs, not reading the description, and being butt-hurt they didn’t get what they wouldn’t ever be getting.
People are finding bugs from the original mods, there’s only one VA across all the scenarios, instead of each scenario having it’s own VA, the V&V map is just the historical battles map re-used, I understand the cutscene graphics are also re-used, there are no added skins, buildings, fauna, flora, anything to spice up the maps, Fetih a supposedly new scenario, is just player swapped constantine XI, and upcycled scenario. None of which could have been known before hand. None of that has to do with there being no civs.
As an SP player myself, I wanted to like this DLC. Unfortunately at every juncture they’ve inaccurately described the nature of the content, cut corners, and otherwise demonstrated incompetence.
I hadn’t brought this up with you before, and it’s not even the biggest thing, but it’s just so indicative of this entire train wreck. When they were demo-ing V&V on the livestream, they did so on the PUP so new upcoming free features seemed like they were part of the paid features of the DLC, which was not the case. Something so basic as “show off DLC” and even that they couldn’t get right.
And I’m not some perma-griper who’s always complaining about the new DLCs. DOI was great. I liked and defended RoR even tho I can see the criticisms. I liked and defended TMR even if I understand the price was a sticking point with some people. I wasn’t even opposed to the icon packs. I thought they were dumb but were exactly as advertised, and everybody has some type of useless trinket so who am I to judge. V&V however has been a trainwreck from day one, and that is coming from someone who should be the target demographic.
And I can’t even defend the gameplay itself. I tried Vortigern. First of all Romans weren’t updated from Byzantines to Romans, despite this being the case literally everywhere else. Then despite not recruiting the saxons any additional times, I kept getting multiple messages that they were getting closer to revolting. So what’s the point of not recruiting the saxons? But then the just did nothing for the rest of the game. So what’s the point of the warnings? And I can’t change my stance with the ####ns so I can’t be proactive with the saxons since apparently the messages don’t mean anything. The Gaels and Franks refuse to land anywhere but two specific points, so setting up towers is very easy. So I just set up towers and puppy-guarded the saxons for about half the scenario. I played a second time just to see if it was a fluke, and this time I destroyed a random pict dock and they resigned, even tho they had like 80% of their stuff left, and said their chiefs were dead, which at least one was still alive. It all felt of rough first draft, not highly “polished scenario”.
So yeah, trainwreck, start to finish, take your pick as what you’d like an apology for.
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