Return of Rome Discussion

Since the original thread got unlisted and locked due to the talks of leaks, I suggest starting a new thread about Return of Rome BUT WITHOUT ANY MENTIONS OF LEAKS.

So let’s start all over again, shall we? :sweat_smile:

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I mean no offence, but with the low, borderline non-existent amount of information officially revealed to us, I don’t expect this thread to go very far.
We’re nearing its release now and the developers have thrown nothing our way, so without the leaks I wouldn’t have had many reasons to get excited, and even today with what we do know, my hopes aren’t high.
SOMETHING has to give.

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As @FranksAreLame said. If there were no leaks, there would be no hype. 3 or so months and all we got was picture of the cover of new expansion.

Not only we got no new, developers forget the name of expansion and in latest patch notes they called it “Return to Rome” instead “Return of Rome”.

Edit: some say that release date is 15 march cause assasination of Ceasar. I believed that Dawn of the Dukes is going to be released 15 july when battle of Grunwald happend ( there were 2 battles of Grunwald for poles and bohemians in expansion ) and not only dlc was released later, we did not get any information about it. I don’t understand why Microsoft marketing is bad. Nothing to excite for community.

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Age of empires é péssimo em marketing.

Essa DLC deveria estar sendo alardeada aos quatro ventos.

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I can understand the lack of information but I wish threads weren’t closed due to leaks…

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If it’s just the one post on the forums you read, that was total speculation.

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Yeah, I know. I meant that hyping around date that would be perfect for release of expansion doesn’t make sense.

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I think the devs should release at least a crumb of information.
Like we added this and this technology, this and this new feature, we are planning to add X civ. So we know what direction the game is going. Is it going to be more like AOE 1 or AOE 2?
And we are planning to release it at the Xth of april or w.e.
Otherwise we are just like blind people trying to figure out what changes should be made and which civs/campaigns should be added.
If they release some info we can discuss it and make suggestions on improvements.

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Something I critiziced when AoE 4 was in development was the radio silence the team had up until the release apart from some rare bits of communication inbetween:

  • 2017: initial announcement
  • 2019: setting revealed at XO19
  • 2021: Gameplay reveal during Fan Preview Event, announcement of a beta that didn’t came up until August, marketing focus on the campaigns, Technical Stress Test in September during the final weekend of Red Bull Wololo and release in October

As a fan of the series I always wished Microsoft would take inspiration from other dev studios such as Paradox does it with the dev diaries for Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings so you exactly know what to look forward for. I can see that as maybe teasing campaign content, focusing on certain civilizations or regions that become important with a DLC etc.

The interesting thing is - FE did that with the African Kingdoms DLC for HD Edition. The DLC was announced about two weeks before its release, dev blogs followed and even a competition to become part of the campaign’s voice acting was held.

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Definitely right! Developer diaries to Age of Empires games is my great dream.

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Quick note: the first dev blog related to African Kingdoms was posted all the way back in April 2015 and in fact, at E3 2015, the release window was announced (Fall 2015) - check the video below @ 1:36:

Imo that’s how to do it.

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Agreed, feels bad that we don’t get to see these types of interviews, especially with the hand puppet Alfred the Alpaca (I can’t find the video with him)

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I mean, when a video game development has more leaks than official communication, I always suspect the leaks to be deliberate from the company on some level. It’s the same thing as when the next Assassin’s Creed game was revealed to a random dude on a plane by an anonymate Ubisoft employee twice. It may be genuine leaks, but it may also be Microsoft’s way to build hype and reveal stuff to the community.
It may also take less time and money than more straightforward marketing methods.

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Wouldn’t it be a good strategy in times of social networks:

Give all employees that work on the project one specific information/footage or whatever. All of them who want. They can share that on their social media, forums and so on. Wherever they are active.

This way you get a broad reach while keeping the control about the shared footage/information.

If you do this like 1-2 weeks before the official launch announcement it’s basically a free tease that costs you absolutely nothing and everyone profits.

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Am I the only one who is only excited for the second DLC? Like no one plays aoe1 and Romans don’t fit aoe2.

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More people would play AoE 1 if DE wasn’t a Windows Store exclusive for over a year and if the changes DE made weren’t that conservative because overall AoE 1 DE feels like a mix of The Conquerors and Rise of Rome.
I see the DLC as an attempt of the devs to fix a mistake because no matter much much they try to patch AoE 1 DE, the player numbers won’t increase anymore.

Assuming there will be a new civ: If Romans don’t fit, we have to remove Huns and Goths as well.
While the ancient Romans definitely doesn’t fit as a potential new civ, the split West Roman Empire (395 - 476) would definitely fit and if they were added, I see the Italians in Attila and Alaric being replaced by them.

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Hilarious. They really deleted the thread even though there weren’t even substantial leaks beyond what most people know either way? I mean technically there were some leaks included but deleting information that is kinda public knowledge in times of social media, idk…Doesn’t strike me a convincing approach to content moderation. I can’t help but feel that’s a pretty desperate act.

Anyways if people aren’t allowed to talk about that stuff what’s the point of even talking about the dlc here? Bad information policy in addition to that moderation policy doesn’t deserve to hype that dlc the way I see it. Ofc just my opinion but if they don’t want the dlc to get attention so be it. The alternative ofc is to simply label the leaks as rumors.

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No, definitely not. Really hope they’re going to show us at least a picture of what we can expect. To be honest I hate their “roadmap” with zero info.

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Be careful what you ask, it can comes true
If you ask for some leak or info 1-2 weeks before the DLC will be launch then we may have that, 1-2 weeks before that
That means that the release won’t be soon

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We have a Roman civ and a new Roman civ would overlap too much with them. Not to mention that west and eastern rome were practically the same while they existed

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