It seems to me they’re rushing out a variant for each civ, because it’s cheap and it brings in some revenue, and then they’ll fire everyone and focus on outsourcing the AoE name to the Chinese devs that made the pay-to-win mtx ridden AoE Mobile. It’s clear for a while now that Microsoft has thrown in the towel for the AoE franchise. The community is pretending to be happy to receive some crumbs because they love the games, but deep inside they know what’s up.
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I recommend checking again once the sale has ended. AoE 4 is obviously boosted atm because the DLC just has been announced and is preorderable.
And on Steam, DLC revenue is counted towards the base product. 
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It would be good to follow up, but #18 is no small feat. It also means that the DLC is selling well, as in the general fanbase outlook is optimistic. A completely different reaction compared to the barrage of doomsayers on the social platforms.
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Yeah MS threw the towel with AoE while a go
I agree
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Now we know
In terms of content, Sultans Ascend is their biggest DLC to date
Comparing the price of both simply feels like a step back. Lets dive in
- Sultans Ascend with a launch price of 14.99 for 2 ORIGINAL, FULL UNIQUE CIVS, 4 variant civs plus A NEW CAMPAIGN of 8 Missions, 2 new biomes and 10 new maps
- Dynasties of the East with a launch price of 19.99 for 4 VARIANT CIVS plus a SINGLE PLAYER ONLY Roguelite experience, 6 new biomes and 8 new maps
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It’s not the end, just disappointment. You can criticize your own country while still loving it.
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It will be the first I don’t pre-ordered because of the decreasing value. I will wait a 50% sales.
It’s like the franchise is cutting costs to the bone, frankly.
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Eighteen civilizations is not enough civilizations? There’s a few fan favorites missing (we know who they are) but beyond that i don’t really feel the need for a lot more civs.
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Are you suggesting we should keep our expectations as low as possible so people don’t feel disappointed?
This is supposed to be the biggest RTS game out right now. People are always going to have high expectations.
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Relic only takes orders. Microsoft is directly responsible for the game.
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No.
I was making an observation that the thing people were most upset about was not receiving certain things, and those things were never actually confirmed.
What it lead to was dozens of posts on every media platform asking if the game was dead and posing the question of whether or not the developers cared about their opinions.
It was extremely clear that the reaction was pretty over blown. I thought that might stem from unrealistic expectations. Obviously there were some hurt feelings regarding that observation.
Such is life.
We go through this with every DLC launch. The same people have been saying the game is dead for 2 years now.
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I’m old enough to remember folks who said this game would fail on launch and lose all support within 12 months (of release).
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I won’t be surprised if a decade or two from now they end support of the game and a couple of those people are here saying “I told you so”.
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Exactly
100 percent of agreement!
They gonna get stuck with II DE forever and ever
Thats their plan
What does the death of a game mean to some people?
- Is it simply the fact that they no longer update it because it’s complete up to that point. No more DLC releases?
- Or would it be the servers shutting down?
- Or would it be the massive decline in players, to an extremely low number?
In my case, no Age of Empires dies. As long as it’s playable and can still be played with friends, for me, it’s still alive.
However, I believe that Age of Empires IV will have a much smaller number of unique civilizations compared to Age of Empires 2.
This obviously means that we’ll never see some civilizations in AoEIV.
However, AoEIV can still offer a large number of playable options due to the high level of variant creation.
Even if most people are concerned about this… unfortunately, some civilizations will never see the light of day.
But I don’t see it as the end of the world, since AoEIV has to be different from AoE2.
AoEIV has and needs to have its own identity. ----> In fact, it already has its own identity, which is precisely the existence of the BELOVED AND INCREDIBLE VARIANTS!! Love them or hate them, it’s up to you.
However, everyone should keep their fingers crossed that their favorite civilization gets in. =P
- Note: My favorite civilization is in South India, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed here!!! =P “Chola/Vijayanagara/Hoysala/Muvendhar/Tamils/Cheras/Pandya”, at South India, if they release a new civilization, there will be plenty of options for different Variants. Whatever happens is a win, lol.
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I’m going to go crank up my game PC and play some AOE3DE.
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AoEIV is about where I’d thought it would be, nestled comfortably between 2DE and 3DE.
As a fan of the entire franchise who wants all the games to succeed, between what happened earlier this year to 3DE, the continued misfires of 2DE, and the obvious lack of funding for a Sultans-esque IV DLC, it is perfectly understandable why people feel dejected.
Hopefully next year things will turnaround. I have no idea if the DLC will be good, but variant civs don’t move the needle in a postive direction for me. I may have wrestled against my WE boycott if this DLC had proper civs because I do enjoy IV well enough despite some glaring shortcomings. Unfornately, none of them have been adressed after 4 years. Still, I think the game has plenty of potential for more growth, if properly funded, and therein lies the main issue. As someone said upthread, that’s on Microsoft.
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I’m old enugh to remneber most of them were covered by sc2 and wc3 audience which dont match with the aoe audience most of it
As cogent as always.
he is just wondering what else to say. So much for a boring guy. Besides “everyone’s a critic.” 