Question for the devs about DLC content

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

From the latest steam news article:

’
Today we are excited to release The Sultans Ascend expansion for Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition - now available on Steam! Did you miss out on the news? Here’s the highlights of what you can look forward to in this expansion:

  • 2 top-requested civilizations – the Byzantines and the Japanese
  • 4 variant civilizations
  • 10 new maps
  • 2 new biomes
  • 8-mission single-player campaign
  • Lots of new unlockable content, including Masteries and Achievements!
    ’

Are the new maps and biomes only available in custom games?

Are they available in quick match and ranked modes? If no this is very very poor form, these are the two modes the majority of players play. This would essentially mean people pay for this DLC but still don’t really get to experience those aspects.

I can see the latest news post says ‘Expansion-exclusive maps join the Ranked map pool for a limited time’. And further down the post it says (Expansion Preview!) next to some of the maps in the map pool list. What is the actual point of that? It’s not going to motivate people to buy the DLC because if they do they can’t even play those maps.

I’ll end my little rant by saying I think the price point is fair and you could even have the same price but only lock the new civs (including variant civs) and singplayer content + unlockables behind the paywall. Locking maps and biomes behind the paywall is lose-lose for everyone, it doesn’t make sense.The other ‘solution’ is to have separate queues for DLC owners and non-DLC owners. Obviously that’s terrible so all I can say really is I’m glad you didn’t go down that path at least.

2

Anyone? Can we all agree the ‘expansion preview’ idea for map pools is really bad?

I highly doubt making the paid DLC only civs and campaign would negatively affect sales. In fact it would boost them imo, theres people out there like me who dont want to play until the maps get better.

Just rotate the new maps into the map pool permanently to keep the game feeling fresh and increase its longevity. Otherwise have fun with the backlash later when everyone else gets sick of playing the same old maps when theres so many other ones you could be using in the map pool, but dont because reasons

EDIT: Seeing as the expansion has already released with new maps and biomes advertised, I guess you have to keep them locked whem creating your own custom games or sp skirmishes. Unless the player owns the DLC. Thats fine.