Lets GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I seen now. Weâll see. A general update of Graphic with 4k resolution for all models and units could be interesting. But i Donât know if itâs the case
Another theory could be that the first DLC will be Knights of the Cross and Rose and there will only be variant civs.
The second DLC would be at the end of the year with two civs that have nothing to do with the first DLC, such as Spaniards and Aztecs.
It would be content suicide, IMO. The value lies entirely on new civilizations, at least including one of them in the DLC would be ideal if they want actual sales. Despite that, I am still somewhat inclined to believe that the first DLC may only include variants, only because it wouldnât surprise me that there are disagreements in upper management.
âWe need a product before summer, can we deliver the Variants?â followed up with the actual developers arguing against it, explaining variant-only content does not offer enough incentive for most players. And instead of fighting this uphill battle against the managers, they let it go through, if only to just have direct proof that variant-based content is valued less after it doesnât do as well as the fully new civilizations.
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I donât think Iâve ever heard anything from the developers about them not wanting or liking the variants. If anything the developers are why they were added!
To clarify, I wasnât implying the developers look down at variants. Instead, I think they best understand what it offers mechanically for customers, unlike managers and marketing people, who are more prone to treating a product like a product regardless of essence.
If these two DLCs indeed were originally meant to be a large one, then I think it is very likely that developers would push for splitting them fairly, to include at least a real civilization in each so that their values may be equal and may give incentives to everyone equally.
My point was that, if we saw anything else, such as the first DLC only consisting of variants, then such a decision would probably have been forced through by other groups, as I think the developers would know best that this isnât the most ideal way to go about it.
The only functional reason for splitting these DLCs into variants and non-variant DLCs would probably be for market research, to get definitive answers on what is most valuable to sell for the price of development. Although I would argue that you could get this answer with surveys on the popularity of variants to begin with, without having to risk the âfailureâ of a âDLCâ.
The only other possibility I can imagine, is that the first DLC was actually meant to be free content in the form of a couple of Variants, which ended up being packed into a DLC. I think we got some hints towards this last year, as there was a lot of rumours about something big coming up which wasnât the DLC.
I donât know where this theory that the DLC was divided into 2 parts came from. It could be true, but it could also be true that we have 2 entire DLCs this year, which would be perfect.
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People jump too quickly to conclusions when we still donât know much about what each DLC will bring in terms of content.
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The really big and pertinent question to ask about the DLC is: will these chickens move, or are they statues? 
Judging by the relative positioning from three different buildings, as seen above, Iâd say they are statues, sadly
Past discussion about chickens:
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The studio can barely produce content at a normal phase. The sudden 2 DLC announcement isnât cute nor surprising to anyone with a brain. A compromise was made, and it was presented in a disingenuous way.
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I hope youâre right @Croissantini
How do you know a compromise was made vs. them taking the time to work on the content?
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He doesnât know; itâs probably pure speculation and assuming this is what happened. Not saying it canât be true, but Iâd rather wait for official confirmation from Microsoft or any of the developers if this is the case.
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Youâre right, I donât know, but that is kind of a nonquestion, is it not?
The studio shares nothing about itself. If conjecture is to be dismissed, then there would not be any comments worth a damn in relation to them. We can make leaps based on public events that is outside of their realm of secrecy.
I did note in another comment that it is possible they decided to create additional variants as free content, and ended up packing in into a DLC instead. We have heard since last year that there was meant to be a lot of upcoming content unrelated to DLC, and that didnât exactly come true. In my mind, this signals potentially that the new Templar or Crusader civilization was going to be a patch addition. Perhaps the team involved were so efficient they got greenlit to produce more in exchange for turning said work into a product.
Again, all conjecture. I do not think this was well planned ahead, as remember, we have been notified only two months ago that they were finally ready to announce that they were indeed working on one DLC. You could chalk it up to unclear messaging, but I imagine there has been a decision between that time.
Can I remind you that this is the second announcement of an announcement where they share crumbs?
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Not really. Speculation is good and well, but words like âdisingenuousâ and phrases like âanyone with a brainâ suggest a confidence that perhaps needs challenging.
Weâve heard nothing but speculation from content creators.
Personally, I prefer a single expansion to individual DLC drops, but the two are effectively the same thing nowadays. Expansions are DLC. Everything is digital. Itâs all downloadable content. It all goes under the same Steam âDLCâ tab.
Iâve been agreeing for a long time that public communication needs to be better, not that this has anything to do with the rest of the discussion.
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i would share some considerations:
- Developer said âweâre introducing a large set of new units and buildings and, in some cases, updating the overall visuals of many shared units and buildings to assist with better readability and make sure your experience feels freshâ.
So, are they improve the general graphic or only some models? Becase âin some casesâ and âof many shared units and buildingsâ are in contraddition.
But what should we expect from these improvements? Which kind of improvements?
Looking at this official screenshot
It seems the same graphic and maybe, the only changes could be the sizes of buildings. Models seem the same in term of quality of textures. There are always âplastic weaponsâ and âchikens without animationsâ.
Personally i pretty like the AOE4 art style but we have to admit that unit models have low textures, with plastic weapons and saturated colours and for this reason they look a bit âcartoonishâ.
The reason behind this choice is readability, of course, because developers thought thta the main base are multiplayer players but itâs not probably true. The main base are casual who only play with campaigns, skirmishes and co-op vs AI.
It has been stated by Capture Age, the new studio behind the latest DLC âChronicles of Greeceâ and now, behind AOE4, with Worldâs Edge and Forgotten Empires.Here what they said (source: Pre-Order Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Chronicles: Battle for Greece - Age of Empires - World's Edge Studio)
"âCampaigns have always been central to Age of Empires, and fans of the series continue to hunger for more. We therefore decided to make campaign content central to Chronicles â and weâre approaching campaigns in our own unique way, with a strong narrative focus, a new presentation style, and an exciting variety of gameplay styles. Together, the Chronicles DLCs will tell a unified story spanning the ancient world!â. âThe AoE II: DE community is pretty big and spread out. Our most visible cohort tends to be our competitive community, tournament organizers, and streamers, but thereâs a rather massive and understated majority of our players that show up week over week and month over month just to enjoy their favorite Campaigns. They love Campaign content exclusively, and theyâre playing them over and over againâ.
This is true for all of AOE titles.
Now, AOE4 has been most critized for its graphic on reddit (a lot of threads), steam, youtube, Age of empires community and also on different professional reviews.
Many people thought that AOE4 was a step back from other AOE titles, in particular AOE3de and other titles like COH3 (from the same Relic and on the same engine) and Spellforce3.
Unfortunately also other aspects like "wheater effects, physics, projectiles impact on units (one cannon ball could kill only one soldier), low textures on models, determinated a lack of immersion and this is a very importanti thing for the casual players.
All of these criticisms have been listened by Developers and we had a good example in the latest AOEâs Survey New survey!
On this survey there was the last part related to graphic aspects. Developers basically asked to players what they would have wanna see in the future: âwheater effects, high qualiry textures, better animations, physic impact of projectiles, more fauna and biomas, high quality terrains and effects of terrains on units, stylized or realistic art styleâ and more.
So, the same elements which have been critized from many players since the first âAoe4âs previewâ on April 2021.
Personally i would like to see 4k textures on all units and buildings without plastic weapons and more realistic colours. Of course, more zoom levels to see battles more close.
As some people said on this thread, also option for blood would be very appreciatedâŠ
- Look at this new artwork (Crusaders Fortress)
There are logo of Worldâs Edge, Forgotten Empire and Capture Age (the mentioned studio behind the latest DLC of AOE2de).
Thereâs not RELIC logo. Relic is not publicizing this new DLC on their social pages and since the march 2024 (when SEGA sold RELIC) the studio is quite silence.
Unfortunately the studio itself faced a lot of lay-offs and after that they stated they wanna focused on their IPs: Company of Heroes and Dawn of War.
a) Company of Heroes 3 is going to receive a lot of updates and itâs now in a very good state, with a new DLC available this mont;
b) there are rumors (and i believe they are real) about a new Dawn of War RTS developed by Relic
There are also 6 images about new DOW4 maps.
So, i think, as i said in the other thread (this is my supposition) that RELIC is not involved into AOE4 anymore.
Worldâs Edge, Forgotten and Capture Age are the main developers.
This could explains all of this time to release a new DLC (the first will be released on april and the second one on October) and maybe it could be also the reason behind the next graphic improvements: Worldâs Edge and Forgotten consider graphic quality very important because they know that the main audiece are casual players;
- Worldâs Edge is moving on Unreal Engine 5
XBOX is now a multiplatform Editor and the next AOE will be released also on PS and Switch (AOMRE and AOE2de already announced for these platforms. Nintendo just waiting for the upcoming Direct).
Unreal is the most knowed engine and it could help with the multiplatform releases.
Considering the bigger audience related to all of these platforms, i could expect that next AOE5 will cover the "Ancient times " (the most loved period with the medieval times) and will have an amazing graphic moved by Unreal engine.
- AOE reached 60 milions of players and this is a fucking milestone. Iâm very happy. RTS are finally returning.
This im not joking can kill the game because unreal engine 5 has huge optimization problems and it can make the game unplayable for the low system users.But this is a strategy game so maybe it can be ok.I hope devs test this very carefully this could seriously kill the game.
Tempest rising runs pretty good, I think that games uses unreal engineâŠ
That is incredibly obvious. Iâm surprised people donât see it.
The only reason they would announce a DLC before even releasing the first one, is because they know itâs really underwhelming. And why would it be underwhelming? Well, because it now only contains 2 variant civs and a SP game mode that might not even get played depending on how well designed it is. If itâs some sort of Empire Wars, it could easily be a dead game mode. So, what happened is they split the big DLC they had been working on for 1.5 years, whether to boost its price, or because it wasnât hitting the deadline, and then packaged the news to make it sound like great news. Itâs so painfully obvious. And Iâm gonna be honest here, if the DLC only has 2 variants and 1 lousy game mode, Iâm not gonna be buying it, Iâll wait for a 50% off sale. Thatâs not worthy of a year and a half wait.