Machine translation of info from the podcast:
Alexander Flegler is one of the best-known and certainly most successful modders who have worked on the Age of Empires franchise to date: He began his professional modding career at the age of 13 (really), set up an international modding team at 16, and now works at Forgotten Empires, which not only launched the Definitive Editions of the first two Age of Empires in close cooperation with Microsoft, but is also currently working on the Remastered Edition for Age of Mythology.
In an interview with Dom Schott, Alexander Flegler talks about why he’s so passionate about the modding world in the first place, what role historical research plays for him, what his first job in the “pro” gaming industry was like, and what experiences he’s already had with Crunch. The two also talk about their school days - because they both went to the same high school. Only one grade apart
Machine translation of the Zeit article’s free paragraphs:
“Age of Empires 2”: The unlikely survival of an unlikely game
Our author spent sixth grade playing Age of Empires II. Now the game has been re-released for Xbox, and he explores his feelings: was everything better before?
April 29, 2023, 3:19 pm
Screenshot caption: Each civilization has a specific architectural style. Pictured here: the Lithuanians, entrenched in a fortress modeled after the famous Trakai moated castle. © Forgotten Empires
Page 1:
For some time now, I’ve been going back to sixth grade. My transformation back into a teen began a little over two years ago. Back in the first fall of the pandemic, during a time of many heavy conversations full of sighs, an old school friend told me, “We’re playing AoE 2 again now.”
AoE 2, Age of Empires 2, is a computer game. Not just any game. A legendary real-time strategy game around which a loyal fan base has built a cult. When the game came out at the end of the last century, in 1999, it had a profound impact on me as an eleven-year-old. I’m pretty sure I spent 70 percent of sixth grade talking about nothing else. I have hazy memories of Flo and Hannes and Michi and Benne and me dressed up as longsword fighters and fighting with swimming noodles on a hill in André-Länd (I don’t remember why the area was called André-Länd, there was never an André around). Quite possibly I missed a solar eclipse because of the game.
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Page 2/3: Will AoE 2 work with an Xbox controller?
The game sold two million copies within a short time. Millions of children and adults rejoiced in fighting with Joan of Arc
against the English or with Barbarossa against the Saracens. And a competitive scene quickly emerged that played the game as an e-sport.
Microsoft, the publisher, fueled the hype and hosted a tournament with $100,000 in prize money. But it soon turned its attention to other projects. The golden age of real-time strategy came to an end, shooters and role-playing games became more important, and more money could be made with consoles and mobile games, and AoE 2 could have gone the way of many games: born, hyped, forgotten.
Page 3/3: “Automation is broken”
Der Vorwurf, im Jargon: “Automation is broken”. Übersetzt: Die Automation ist zu mächtig, sie wird in Partien zu leicht ausgenutzt werden. Die Community, die sehr viel Sportsgeist besitzt, mag es nicht, wenn Dinge “broken” sind. Das Spiel ist perfekt ausbalanciert, keine Strategie ist übermächtig, alles kann gekontert werden. Und immer, wenn neue, zu starke Völker eingeführt werden wie zuletzt die Gurjaras, melden die Spieler den Entwicklern, dass diese “civ” jetzt ja wirklich “OP” ist, und die Entwickler machen sie ein bisschen schwächer.
