I do not understand how people are still playing AOE2DE

[FloosWorld]

We had a similar topic last year on the AoE 4 part of this forum:

I Really Hope This Game Replaces AOE2: It's Just Better

EDIT: It’s so obvious that, if AoE4 fails to get younger players into the franchise, there will be no demographic in the future to market later installments like AoE5. Remember that there was only 6 year difference between AoE2 and AoE3. Between 3 and 4, 16 years. People just thought that there is no hope for sequels after the third installment failed to take the crown. It is only after Microsoft’s investment that AoE was revitalized. There is SERIOUS INCENTIVE to help this game take the crown a…

Let me quote my reply to it:

I Really Hope This Game Replaces AOE2: It's Just Better

Btw, I think that AoE 4 won’t ever replace AoE 2 (or 1, 3 and Myth). The simple reason for that is that all Age games have their audience, with some overlap in playership. In my opinion, the “rivalry” between the games only exists in the minds of players who only play one game of the series extensively thinking that “their” game is the best and the others are bad. I also don’t think AoE 2’s ongoing success is soely/almost exclusively based on nostalgia. That may be true for the CD version and…

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Graphics are highly subjective imo as they are not really comparable. AoE 2 is a 2D game with prerendered graphics and imo in that category it’s still one of the most beautiful games out there as that style tends to age well over time, see also Caesar 3 for example.
AoE 4 on the other hand is a very good looking 3D game that imo looked ugly and a tad washed out on release before they changed how things were rendered with one of the season updates iirc. I remember having to use the sharpen function of my GPU to actually improve 4’s visuals.

Music is also subjective. I personally prefer a “classic” soundtrack the older games had but can also see why other prefer the dynamic option AoE 4 went for.

Sound design on the other hand is really well made in AoE 4 and probably the best the series had so far.

That being said - the AoE series does not work like your average annually released series where the new game must replace the old one. If Microsoft decides today to shut down AoE 2 DE’s servers, people would then just go back to Voobly as they already made mods that allow you to play with the DE content on the old CD Version.

I played a lot of AoE 4 about half a year before its release as part of my work for its companion book and I think this period sadly spoiled the game for me. The game indeed improved the past 3 years but overall I still see the aspects where it didn’t improve a lot from the time when I very actively played it whenever I boot it up. But I’m absolutely happy for the people that have fun with it as at the end of the day, we’re players of the same franchise.

Edit: Something I forgot to mention - AoE 2 is in a somewhat unique position that is attracts both SP and MP players solely due to the sheer amount of content it has accumulated over the past 25 years. The only other Age game that comes close to this is AoM mainly due to how narrative-driven the base game campaign is.

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@MatM1996

in terms of multiplayer and mechanics it became obsolete since 2002

Not really because as for (competitive) MP, AoE 2 is still the most played in the series, whether it’s ranked or playing custom scenarios. With mechanics I think you refer to activatable abilities?