First of all, I apologize if it is too late now to bring up this topic again. I just registered on this forum.
I play AoE2 since I was a kid, AoE2 is one of my favorite games all the time.
I was a big fan of 3K legends and I used to read the Romance of Three Kingdoms 三国演义 (the classic novel adapted from 3K history) everyday when I was a kid.
BUT in my opinion, the 3K DLC is one of the worst things happened to the game. I will not buy it, unless the 3K civs are moved to chronicle-type mode.
There are many reasons people have discussed: historical accuracy, hero mechanisms, … For me, there are two major reasons:
Messy game concept: 3K civs Wei Shu Wu coexisting with Chinese as playable civs looks really weird and jarring. Are Wei Shu Wu not Chinese?
No respect to customers: as customers this is simple: don’t buy it if the products or attitude is bad. When the dlc was announced, there was no indication of 3K civs. Then people were shocked when the title comes out. I also believe that 3K civs were originally planned to be in chronicles, but for some reason they chose to insert 3K civs into main game. This is deceptive and lazy, no communications, and no respect to customers. Combined with the news that the promised AoE3 DLC got cancelled, and also every update to AoM Retold brings bugs, and not being fixed for months, I suspect something is happening in their team. These issues are not uncorrelated. What will they do in the future?
The only good thing about the dlc I can think about is that the custom scenario makers now have more units to play around. But again, make these units accessible only through map editors but not in normal games.
The 3K DLC is also controversial on chinese social media. My observation is that younger players tend to be more casual and say: “hey it’s just a game, just play”, while old players tend to be more serious: it is more than a game. No one can really persuade the other. Just unfortunately for the latter, devs choose the more casual way.
They also lied about the need to have 5 civs to tell the stories they wanted to tell. They needed Jurchens and Khitans to tell only the Xie An story? Which is locked behind another DLC by the way.
Chinese don’t have a medieval campaign on top of that they released the DLC with no campaign for Jurchens and Khitans!
Feels like too much disrespect towards the players.
When we were shown Tangut buildings and units, we actually shouldn’t have expected Tanguts to be added, it’s our fault for having extremely high expectations.
When we were told Chinese wouldn’t be split and the new civs would be from around China, we should have actually expected a Chinese split, though without considering it a “real split” because reasons.
Everything is our fault, we are crybabies because of our outrage, we were always wrong. We have to buy everything they put out, or else we’re mean.
I do remember in the official tease there was a man with feather fan and silk kerchief, which was the typical dressing of Zhuge Liang, the famous strategist during the 3K. It is very recognizable for chinese people. But still, many people didn’t really think he is Zhuge Liang, but someone wearing similar clothes in a later historical stage (as it is not exclusive to Zhuge Liang). Those who did think that he is Zhuge Liang still thought the 3K civs would be in chronicles.
So, to put it more accurately, there was no indication that 3K civs would enter into the main game, coexisting with old civs. This is unexpected for most people, whether they anticipated 3K or not. The shock is just larger for those who never thought about the possibility of 3K.
I think people who have spotted it would at most assume it’s a map editor asset, or a scenario/campaign (which is already wild enough), not 3K civs on ranked.
True. Missed this one too.
If you were to show me this figure saying it’s an iconic Chinese figure (or should I say iconic Shu figure, whatever that is according to their logic now), I would probably guess Zhuge Liang.
But this came out at the time when:
Clearly Jurchen and Tangut stuff were teased.
Five civs that are not Chinese split were announced, so I mentally ruled out 3K (fools).
I remembered watching SOTL new civs reveal video (that’s often how I’d like to see new stuff first time rather than official announcement), and when the first 3K “civ” was revealed, an intense rush of fever, disbelief, and insurmountable cringe stunned me.
I knew that was Zhuge Liang, but thought he was just a scenario editor hero, like how we have Sir Gawain as a unit in the game. After all Cysion said Chinese wasn’t split… And when the content was announced and read the DLC’s name I first thought it was some weird way to refer to the time when China was divided between the Song, Jin and Xi Xia dynasties, because why would it be the actual Three Kingdoms? And we saw the Tanguts, so the Xi Xia should make it in…
But no, I guess I was just too stupid to think Shu of all things was going to be added as a civ despite all the signs pointing otherwise.
3K civs are not expected from any normal logic (perhaps, except from a purely commercial logic). We are not fools, but people with normal logic and reasonable expectations, fooled by the company
Despite signs of 3K elements, they never explicitly mentioned the world “3K” until the title was announced. This gives a feeling of sneaky and dishonest behavior. Maybe they knew it would be controversial, so they were not mentioning it earlier. Maybe it is because of the bad management/ coordination of the company…
Devs, you still have time to fix it and restore the faith of players.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins got announced for Nintendo consoles, centered around the Three Kingdoms era.
Now, normally, that’d be exciting news, but I practically rolled my eyes, because I’ve been turned off to the 3K era entirely.
My disappointment for 3K in this game is so high that it’s literally spilling over into disappointment for ANY game about the 3K era. That’s an accomplishment, and not a good one.
WE just enhances the impression of “3K=I want Chinese money but don’t want to pay the effort”. It’s a big insult not only to the players but also to the studios (eg Koei) who actually paid the genuine effort digging into the subject.
I am by no means a knowledgeable person in history, and I haven’t gotten time to read all of the posts. Again, the key point of this topic is the bad product/service of a company from a customer’s perspective, which I think is the true elephant in the room.
That said, it is a pity that there aren’t many Chinese people here (and on English platforms in general) to justify or falsify the arguments on our own history (there are knowledgeable people of course, but they mostly appear on chinese social platform & this kind of discussion takes time). I appreciate anyone who digs carefully for the true history.
