There are more ways to add SP content than just adding campaigns. I only play SP content, yet never play campaigns. I play SP skirmishes.
All the new maps, trees, water, and environmental features aren’t made in a vacuum for free. If they didn’t get around to adding a campaign or two in favor of all this other SP content for once, I think many SP players are okay with that. Not to mention 5 new civs to play with. Give it a chance, maybe as a SP player you will appreciate all the new stuff, too.
Personally, campaigns are a waste of time and energy for the most part. I’m glad they made a bunch of new stuff that will benefit my SP matches. If “the pattern” had to be broken in order to make everything they did, so be it, imo. And hopefully they do more SP Skirmish-focused DLCs in the future. We are never or very rarely a priority
Someday I may play through campaigns, but it has never been my focus and it may be years before that happens. There are a ton of campaigns, so if or when that time comes, it will take me forever.to get through them.
The update for SP skirmish is free. If it’s the only thing you care about, don’t buy the new dlc, it’s too expensive if it’s only to get the 5 new civ.
SP player are the most important playerbase for every game of the AOE franchise. So if they are disappointed about the new content, it will have an impact on sale.
Personally, I don’t care about skirmish, that’s not what makes me play the game, i’m more interested in the storytelling brought by the campaign.
And how exactly would a skirmish DLC look like?
What could justify a paid DLC like that?
They add random maps in most updates for free, what else do you want?
Hittites: had iron weapons — medieval
Mycenaeans: had full body armors — medieval
Greeks: had crossbows and catapults — medieval
Macedonians: had pikes — medieval. No. Early modern
Roman Empire: so medieval I don’t even need to explain
Scythians and other steppe peoples: had horseback riding and armored cavalry — medieval
Zulus: used spears and shields as main weapon — medieval
USA: has 50 states each with its own government and legal systems — medieval
The British Empire in WW2: had a guy preferring longbows and swords — medieval
The Old Republic: its most elite force uses melee weapons — medieval
Edit: before this DLC announcement I never see anyone comparing 3K to “middle ages” because it is not even a meaningful comparison. There is no concept of “middle ages” outside Europe. The term itself is coined by Renaissance scholars in Europe. There is only “China in the middle ages” and that is also a meaningless historiography only useful when you want to synchronize events in different parts of the world that had little relations with each other. You can define “Chinese middle ages” as much as you want but that is a loose.
You may say the Thirty Years War is Europe’s “Warring State period” so they should be in the same game as Chinese Warring States (200 bce) and Japanese Warring States (1500s).
And all of the sudden people start digging into sources and comparisons trying to prove why 3K is middle ages because WE says it. WE may have contributed more to historical researches than gaming.
BTW they call you mental gymnastics and historical buffs when you argue in the same way as theirs : )
Exactly what people asked for, for years, and everybody wanted. A sure hit with the potential to be the best dlc in aoe2.
It’d have been even cheaper, faster to release, and less work than all this weird, wonky, and unfinished garbage that doesn’t even make sense.
They wasted a lot of time and money to produce something that nobody asked for, and worse it’s not even well done.
They won’t. There are always people unhappy when their expectations are not met. I don’t think they’re going to cancel the DLC or make it a chronicles in an attempt to please those who are unhappy now.
Why are the developers mute is the bigger question. This kind of controversy, especially in a relatively small playerbase like ours, is not healthy, and will not just go away.
Personally, i think a rename is the best approach now, becasue it worked with AoE4 before and it relatively easy to implement.
Relative to games where the community of low engagement casual players is so massive that community forums are not actually represntative of broader communtity sentiment in many cases. FIFA, Call of Duty, that sort of stuff.
Those games (Call of Duty type action games) don’t really have a stable playerbase. People just come play for some 100 hours then drop the game. In case of Age of Empires, playerbase keeps playing the game for thousands of hours, in some cases even for decades.
Yeah, thats what i mean. Its a game with a very engaged and active userbase. Thus, community sentiment in forums like this one is actually representative of broader sentiments for the most part, and can have significant financial and critical impact.
On Steam, I think you can ask for refund if you’ve played 2 hours or less. So if it turns out they’re not on ranked and that is a showstopper for you, seems like an easy refund request would solve the issue for you? Is a blanket refund or demand for free for everyone really warranted?
I wouldn’t want a refund. It brings a lot of cool things. As with most things in life, there is probably some disclaimer somewhere saying, “Actual released product may be different than what is currently being marketed for pre-sale. Product is subject to change.” It’s a caveat emptor situation, imo, based on how life has worked for a long time, and especially for gaming development where we know things can easily change on a dime with bugs, feedback received through alpha/beta tests and forums, and the like. If I don’t like what I see, I can ask for a refund within 2 hrs of gameplay at my discretion… and I will if need be. I doubt there will be a need, though
If they give everyone the DLC for free, I wouldn’t complain, of course. But it just seems odd to half-expect that. You could probably cancel your pre-order now and then buy it at a future date if the DLC suits your needs. I.e., Wait for reality to meet your expectations, sort of thing. Just a thought if it helps ease any worries about the situation
This is literally the 1st time an aoe2 DLC gets ubiquitous hate. V&V whatever, I can’t care less about it when I can get free campaign mods anyway. This one tho, it ruins the game even if I don’t want it. Even just imagining facing Wei / Shu / Wu on the ladder makes me want to uninstall the game. And what’s worse, I do want to play Jurchens at least.
If you are a player who cares only about game mechanics and not history context, it’s fine. But you don’t need to defend the obvious cash grab. There are much better civ candidates, to make EVERYONE happy.
Not sure how you define haters. The one who dislike the DLC? Actually, a lot of guys dislike the DLC for good reasons. You can check the recent topics to find out why.