Well, you have stone avaliable at the start and if you dont build a granary at the beggining, you def are screwed.
Another improvement would be farms with different variations with less and no pots, to have more diversity around the farming fields.
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But that is even later in the game, I meant specifically the early game.
Yes those pots are an eyesore, not to mention they interact with other units sprites in a badway, like appearing in front when they should be behind or vice versa…
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The game is fun to play, however it doesn;'t excuse the half-done and bare feel of the release.
It just makes it more annoying, because this could have been great DLC and remaster of AOE1
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I suspect if enough people buy it they’ll eventually add more things to it and improve it over time.
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To be honest I think it should be the other way around. First improve the game, then generate sales.
Aoe1 is too sacred to become a cash cow. They should invest in it for the sake of the company’s image, to increase people’s hisorical interest etc. AoE was released in times when games had to have purpose, not like nowadays BS games with stupid plots and boosted graphics. It was based on real history, it was Epic. That was written on the CD cover, EPIC game of empire building and conquest.
What if they treat the game that started the entire franchise like this, it will be a definite quality downgrade from the Ensemble Sudios times when they cared about attention to details, creativity etc. Game is 25 years old, they have to have come up with ideas during that time.
And I mean it’s Microsoft for god’s sake, can’t Bill Gates spend some of his charity money and hire Sandy Petersen for a while? I mean he was the richest person in the world for quite a bit, I can’t imagine they are sruggling THAT much to fix AOE1. I mean the original was developed by like 20 people.
You are passionate about AoE1, we get it, but you have to accept that it’s just a product for Microsoft.
One product of many products.
There are people working at Microsoft that are passionate about AoE1 too, or else this DLC would likely never have been made.
But there are so many other games out there that also have a lot of fans.
And even the whole games thing is just a side business for Microsoft.
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So what, does that give Microsoft an excuse to release half-done cash cow games to milk the player base?
I mean if the game is Ok, I will pay 50 euros, not 10 and won’t complain about it. It’s a game that build the reputation of Microsoft, I know things don’'t work like they did in the early 2000s, but seriously, would you rather not have a good game than having Microsoft spend a little bit more?
You sound like their lawyer, lol. We are trying here to push them to improve the game, it won’t hurt the company that much. In fact it will be better to push them to release more masterpieces, rather than failures.
We are giving out suggestions and it won’t cost THAT much considering the engine, the AI, the movement of the units and pretty much everything important in the game is already fixed and is there in some shape or form.
How much will cost them to release a patch or an upgrade with few additional unique buildings and improvements over the bare bone (wtf censor?) game? I don’t think it will cause them financial trouble. I’m not asking them to make AOE5, just to be more thorough and have attention to detail.
They ciuld have checked AOE heaven, played the top custom campaigns, read the popular threads there, check out what mods are they doing (because the guys there did a great job unlocking some hidden buildings and features and lots of other mods), the exploit tricks that people put in the campaigns to make them more creative. To see what the hardcore AOE1 players’ opinion on what’s right and wrong about the game.
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Well I don’t disagree with that… but alas that doesn’t seem to be the way things happen these days.
Eh… I dunno… its a game, its a good game sure, but at the end of the day it’s just a game… if they can do things to modernise it and make it better they should. I don’t think anything is “sacred”.
lol I like this sentiment… but like I’d imagine he probably has a few things higher up on his list of priorities than AOE haha
I think RoR is what AoE 1 DE should have been since the very start, instead of what we got. I also think that, even though in itself it is a good, it has some very significant drawbacks.
From a gameplay perspective, the additions they have made (gates, trade, formations etc.) are very, very nice. However, since this is the second time the remaster is done, I think most of us were expecting more, at least a bunch of new units to improve the game. There’s a bunch of topics making very good suggestions on what to add in the AoE 1 sub-forum and I’m sure the devs must have seen those…which means they deliberately choose the conservative approach and not to add more substantial changes, most likely to appeal to the vietnamese players.
This brings us to the second point, which is the big issue in how this DLC is marketed and sold and to who it is targeted to. First of all, this really should have been a standalone DLC for AoE 2 and the AoE 2 romans should have been part of a different DLC (maybe with a campaign) for like 5 bucks or so. Putting everything together has pissed off AoE 2 players quite a bit, as you can see from the steam reviews. This was just microsoft being greedy and also resulted in a very confusing marketing of the product (it was not so clear to the average customer which romans where in which game doing what).
The other problem is the target audience for the DLC: in my opinion targeting primarily the vietnamese players, which are still playing the original AoE 1, was a rather foolish choice. They should have tried to generate sales from the international AoE 1 and 2 audience (especially 2) proposing this DLC as an alternative game mode/setting for the much popular second game.
TLDR: overall, while I think the game itself is good, I doubt it will generate that many sales unless the devs are willing to put in the work to actually improve the game, especially in terms of content. I think a lot of people would be more willing to invest time and money in a game if the devs show that they supporting their product.
PS: some time ago, we had actually a nice discussion regarding some of the changes we wanted to see in the DLC, this would be a good start for the devs: [poll] What AoE2DE features would you like to see in Return of Rome?
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Idk as soon as i hit imperial age with uhd where theres a big spike in units in a 4v4 match it starts dropping fps and slowing right down
“We were somewhere around the Barracks, on the edge of the map, when the upgrade began to take hold. I remember saying something like “My sword feels a bit heavy; maybe you should take the lead…” And suddenly there was new armor all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge flags, all wavy and colorful and floating around an interface, which was going haywire while we were moving out to the Dacian Villages.”
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Oh, I experienced that yesterday. Glad it wasn’t just me.
Now if only the devs can fix the issue where AI player names are just completely wrong…
aoe1 DE had 1x. 2x and 4x quality settings for sprites, those then affected the zoom in and out, aoe2 de only has 1x and 2x variants, also aoe2 de sprites have 16 rotations, vs 32 of aoe1 de
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I wholeheartedly agree with this, couldn’t have said it any better. Let’s hope the future for Return of Rome is brighter than AoEDE’s.
I love that you care. Really, I do - and agree with most of your points. It’s not just a matter of cost, but rather mismanagement by the wrong people (bureaucrats) in the wrong places, either purposefully put there or maybe through plain incompetence. These people only see a product, and usually don’t have good knowledge about it - oh sure they know it’s popular but that’s about it. It’s also a matter of allocating resources and meeting deadlines, because time = money. Sometimes it works out, but more often than not the results can be quite lackluster. I see it everywhere and it is a sign of the times we’re living in, unfortunately. Quality suffers because of this. All I can say is vote with your wallet and keep letting your voice be heard.
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I would say that the devs will focus 100% on both since, tech wise, they are both aoe2de now.
AoE2 is 20€, RoR is 15€ even combines that’s less then AoE1 on release (and that’s not adjusted for inflation).
Have you ever worked with someone else code from 25 years ago? Then tell me again if it’s easy.
Microsoft is a big company, releasing this DLC in a “bad state” will have basically no impact on their reputation compared to way more important titles like Halo or the Forza series.
You can criticise the product as it is, nothing wrong with that.
But I don’t think you can argue that you are entitled that Microsoft delivers exactly the product you want.
Ignoring all the people that wanted it in a different way. Many people have many different things they expected from RoR that are very incompatible.
You can definitely criticise them for bad marketing and communication.
People didn’t have those very different expectations if they would have told us what the game was going to be.
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If MS doesnt deliver a product, that does not suit me, it is a me problem, I just would not buy. If MS does not deliver a product anyone wants, then they have a problem, noone would not buy or if bought they would be unhappy they bought a product without knowing what is actually in it to satisfy them.