Not sure if folks have noticed, but the previously cancelled DLC for AOE3 DE, Danes and Polish-Lithuanians, has been announced and set to wishlist on steam.
I’m curious to hear community thoughts on the fact that this old DLC is being revived now, what it could mean regarding AOE3 DE, and especially what it means for AOMR; are they moving away to focus/try their hand at other content, testing the waters for the appetite for AOE3, or are they simply giving the fans of all titles the love they want and we can now rest in hope that, if not soon, at some point we will be getting another DLC for AOM?
Maybe they learned the hard way that messing up with a community is not a good thing and from now on wil ltry to keep everyone happy. IMO the “worst case scenario” would be the same team working on both titles, so DLCs and patches will be slow to both AOMR and AOE3DE
We’ll see to what degree they are actually reviving AOE 3 though. This could be them returning to active development of AOE 3, or it could be a last hurrah to provide some content that was promised and then abandoned as an olive branch to pissed off fans before fully signing off on AOE 3.
Even if they do keep doing stuff for AOE 3, the last couple years we had gotten 2 sets of AOM content each year, so even if they give one of those slots to AOE 3 there is still room for AOM development. I am a tiny bit nervous about the future of AOM but not that much, I could see them proceeding with a cadance of AOM DLC in the spring and AOE3 DLC in the fall in the future, or maybe this AOE 3 DLC is a one-off.
I think worst case scenario would be that AoM content is over already, and they didn’t announce that, nor will they oficially, and the AoE3 thing will also be the last thing there, and after that DLC and a couple of small patches for both games, the team will be laid off and the studio closed.
That is the worst case scenario here.
It doesn’t have to be likely to be the worst case scenario. If the worst case scenario and the most likely scenario were identical, we’d be panicking.
It’s simple. Microsoft’s gaming division now has to be self-sufficient, so every studio has to find ways to make money. The situation right now is: whoever isn’t valuable gets cut.
The ideal scenario for both player bases would be to alternate between games—AoMR in the first half of the year, followed by 3DE in the second half. This seems like the most practical approach to ensure continued support for both games.
Although that I am super happy that AoE 3 fans got what they trully deserved and are getiing their cut content, But I think this is kind of bad news for AoM. I don’t think the devs can commit to two games at the same time.
They haven been making patches for AoM while they were working on the new AoE3 DLC so it seems like they are working on both in parallel. But I assume that they won’t be able to give us 2 DLC for each game each year. So maybe down to 1 DLC per year now?
AoE development has not been struck by the Xbox layoffs yet as far as we know.
Honestly i’d be slightly suprised if the AOE 3 development is more than a last hurrah to satisfy fans. Even before AOE 3 development was ended that game was considered a dark horse because they found the time-period and premise of the game (colonization) to be a touchy topic (not here to debate the merits of that opinion). So given their hesitance about the game premise, i’d be suprised if they continue more development past this (though i’d love to see them add Persia and maybe even Brazil to AOE 3).
But even if they do, I think a cadance where they do the amount of AOM drops they did this calendar year in the first half of the year again (1 major god for an existing pantheon, 1 new pantheon, and a a couple other misc. items) would be ok and as we’ve seen from this year, its perfectly doable.
They did it because they probably believed the rumor that we were irrelevant, both in the saga and in the genre. They didn’t think the world would come crashing down on them, and they managed to unite communities from every continent.
i think that as they saw the age of empires 3 didnt die even without new dlc they decided to come back to try dlc now that they have more free time
this of course affects the improvements for aom retold, but is basically a decision because some part of the developers are doing nothing, so when you someone is at work without nothing to do it has been reassigned, and it was reassigned to aoe3. Source: just imagination and experience
AOE3 players were very resilient to complain everyday and everywhere about the DLC and patches cancellation. Might not sound too much, but one cant forget that WE tried to please less than 100 AOE2 DM players when they were very vocal and loud about the end of ranking system (they wouldnt have it anymore when Empire Wars replaced DM on the matchmaking system). WE said back then “we were waiting for some backlash, though not one that intense”. Im 99% sure they thought it would be the same thing about AOE3: a bit of complain and then everyone moving on.
And what do you think it would have cost them to keep ignoring the complaints?
Whatever their reason for returning to AoE3, I highly doubt it’s that alone. If at all.
Yes, I would wait to see how the Baltic DLC does… remember that whether we like it or not, more people play AoE 3 than AoM, and AoM is an even more niche game than AoE 3 (though not as much as AoE 0E and AoE 1)… if the Baltic DLC sells well, we could see more DLCs for AoE 3 in the future (in Asia and South America), otherwise the devs will return to AoM to make more pantheons…
Yes, that would be the idea… to alternate between games (AoM first half of the year and AoE 3 second half), although surprisingly, this year they’re keeping four games:
January-March (Winter): South American DLC for AoE 2 (Tupi-Mapuche-Muisca)
April-June (Spring): Demeter and Aztec DLCs for AoM and Yue Fei’s Legacy DLC for AoE 4…
July-September (Summer): Baltic DLC for AoE 3 (Poles-Danes)
October-December (Autumn): Norse DLC for AoE 4 (Vikings-Scottish)
Next year they could do:
January-March (Winter): Norse DLC for AoE 2 (Danes-Swedes and Scots)
April-June (Spring): AoM Egypt and Inca DLCs and variant dlcs for AoE 4 (Songhai, Seljuks and Novgorod)
July-September (Summer): AoE 3 Asian dlc (either Persian-Omani or Burmese-Siamese)
October-December (Autumn): New World dlc for AoE 4 (Aztecs and Kingdom of Castile)…
Yes, now that we’ve made such a fuss about the Baltic DLC, now we have to buy it like there’s no tomorrow… I’m even going to buy the Vol. 2 skin pack…
AoM Retold new content/roadmap must not be sacrificed for AoE 3 DE’s resurrection, this is such a poor take of lower expectations. Even though both are using the same engine, the two games must have their own distinct dev teams. Remember World Edge studio is owned by Microsoft a multibillion company, why must a game suffer for the other?
