Thank you for that. This franchise has never been on hold. The closest period was in October of 2012 when development of AoEO stopped. However, that was not made public until the first week of January, 2013, and the game would be supported into 2015.
Behind the scenes, Kevin Perry left the helm as our franchise’s executive producer and was replaced by his understudy Ben Brooks. Ben stewarded about three years of near constant re-releases of legacy titles (including the early days of FE’s formal involvement) as well as AoE:Castle Siege, which was legitimately no slouch. The first such release was in 2013, and Castle Siege was released in 2014. From all accounts, Castle Siege performed better than expected, made a lot of money, and kept everyone busy between a steady diet of rereleases.
Ben would later join Kevin at MS HoloLens and be replaced by Justin Robey, who would then step out of the picture when Adam Isgreen came aboard.
This kept going at a good clip and opened up room for MS to secretly redouble its efforts to conceive AoE4, which began in earnest by mid 2017.
Yeah,when someone tell that the franchise is hold between 2005 and 2017…i send that image with the forgotten AoEs in the middle…the only years that the franchise not launch any title were 2001 (because SWGB); 2004 (because rest of the devs) and 2009 (because Halo Wars and the closure of ES)…
As I’ve explaines earlier: the 95 hr game between Rubenstock and Andre is a once in a lifetime thing. Using it as an example against AoE 2 doesn’t really support your point.
Those that offer constructive criticism vs those that troll are a separate conversation. I wasn’t talking about them. I saw it here and still do from time to time. Obviously, the people that come here just to spread toxicity should be dealt with accordingly.
At the same time, I don’t see how some on this forum go out of their way constantly to belittle the older titles as if they are completely worthless and waiting for those that enjoy those games to “retire” Whatever the heck that is supposed to mean is helpful. Of course, those old-timers are gonna defend this franchise’s legacy.
It’s good the AoE2 players on this forum surprisingly don’t tend to venture outside their little oasis because that never used to be the case in all the years I’ve been around. A thread like this could be so much worse than it is.
And that’s why as one of those old timers I said when this game was released welcome to the non- AoE2 club. There are plenty of people who enjoy all the games to varying degrees and there are plenty of others whose tribalism causes much strife in the community as a whole. As you know this isn’t unique to AoE4.
I dont think so. any criticism is faced with extreme down vote to collapse the message thus effectively silenced/censored. multiple valid complaints/concerns such as graphics, UI and several others that actually shows here on forum but is met with harsh personal attacks on reddit. it made sense why game is dying since the minority are loudest and push actual palyers away.
its like where the toxic fan base gathers for sure.
I’ve occasionaly posted light criticism on reddit but yeah if you search for criticism over there you wont find much. I’d say that’s more of a result of reddits ranking system though which has it’s ups and downs.
on time would be on release, but that didn’t happen did it, and this one only scratches the surface of how much was missing at launch, then relic took an eternity to implement some of it, and even now, year and a half since release, there’s still problems in this aspect, if your view on RTS is the way forward then tell me, why has every single game that followed that logic failed, why are those games not talked about outside of listing failure examples? you are an example of someone who has fundamental misunderstanding of in this case AOE but is still adamantly trying to teach those that do understand it what AOE was suppossed to be, and if anything, post launch only proves why overfocusing on competitive leads nowhere but to mediocrity
We just dont. Back in 2005 A illegal copy of that game only take a CD which was sell at around 10000 vnd, you could buy it at every corner in VietNam, i mean big city. Nowaday we could just download the 1997 version on the internet.
It’s actually true that AOE2 was only played because of nostalgia. We can see this from a lot of evidences:
No AOE2 player wants to play new civs. They just want to play the 1999 version. The DLCs all flopped hard. So there has been no new civs or content updates since then.
The players thought the 1999 version was already perfect and stubbornly refuses any modern QoL improvements (eg auto reseeding or villager count next to resources). DE introduced a lot so the players hated it, causing the player count to drop from peak 70k to around 10k.
Nobody plays any new mode. All streams and tournaments are the standard mode.
So when these people die out, others will then really start to appreciate the innovations of the shiny new AOE such as branched upgrade options, units throwing torches at buildings, automatic mines and receiving free batches of units by earning points.
Sarcasm aside, AoE2 did a great job improving its QoL, graphics (as far as they can) and providing new content (now they want to include AoE1 in the game) for over 20 years.
I also have to say 4 truths (if I’m wrong, you can comment):
Proportionally to the number of players, AoE3 sells more DLCs. So it is true that they win with the DLCs of 2, but not so much for the audience they have. (Steam numbers).
There is an important nostalgia component added to a greater accessibility to the game. This is a reality and must be taken serious.
Modes like Empire Wars or DM are played very little (there are only EW tournaments in RB Wololo and little else).
Yes, there were players who criticized the automation of tedious tasks because it reduces the number of clicks (some had to accept it) just as the early game has practically not changed much or not at all.
There are always someone criticizing something. But that is still accepted by most players.
A less successful example would be AOE1DE with not enough improvements to attract “modern” “non-nostalgic” players but in the meantime too many for the true “nostalgic” players.
2HD was not a huge success either. It was not until 2DE that the playerbase boomed and persisted.
So “AOE2 remaining relevant because of nostalgia” does not hold. On the contrary. It remains relevant because it keeps up as much as it can.
I have another idea:
someone report a bug, while another ( @GorbMort ) report that everything is perfect.
the end of story, game will never-ever improve.
Jokes, aside:
you saying “game is dying” and put blame on toxic forum.
But the real issue is, that some people say “game is dying: point1, 2 3”.
they hear replies: “no everything is perfect: check comparison aoe4 and simps5”
So you did the first right step into acceptance of reality that there are not white ponies and pink sky.
PS forum is like 20-100 people. noone care about forum.
actually, even dota failed to drive people away with toxicness.
