Return of Rome Discussion

[Skadidesu]

There was allegedly a closed beta in November of last year, just a few weeks after RoR was announced.
And apparently at last one more since.

They usually only done those relatively close before release and when the game was already pretty much finished.
The closed beta for AoE4 was closer to the release then the time since November last year.
So even for a completely new game they need less time for testing and fixing bugs before release?

Was the beta feedback that devastating? Unlikely.

Maybe there are some other reasons behind this decision. Maybe there is a marketing plan or something like that.

I also don’t see a reason for the complete radio silence. We officially even still don’t know what this DLC really is going to be.
How much of AoE1 and how much of AoE2 is in it?

No reason not to share at last the very basic details and a few screenshots.
Even if they have only done a single campaign mission so far they could at last show a single screenshot of it, it doesn’t even have to have UI in it.

[MatM1996]

@SirWiedreich

That was my favorite official scenario from Age1, tied with another one (called “I’ll be back,” maybe?) where you escaped from a mountain city and the “7 yellow priests” to find a gaia base from which you’d rebuild and destroy the original city. A little rusty as I’ve not touched it in 15 years or so. Apart from that, the best stuff IMO was by Ingo van Thiel.

Yes, there are many missions similar to “The Holy Man”…you have the Yamato “Assassins” and then the Hatti “Opening Moves”…

@Skadidesu

Maybe they just decided not to use the death date of someone for an announcement.

We’ll see if they will actually announce something on the tournament today.

On March 28 (March 15 if we consider the Julian calendar)…the other is April 21 due to the founding of Rome…

@Temudhun

Yeah, I have to say even if I don’t want them to rush the release, the lack of comunication is killing the hype for this dlc at the moment.
Well, at least we’re past the time when the community was tearing itself apart over how the AoE1 civs should be implemented, but I feel like we’ve reached a state of apathy that can’t be good for the future of the game.

Of course, there is so much excessive hype that it can be counterproductive if it does not exceed our expectations…

@thieftdp8498

just 1… playable civ with Aoe2. I hope at the VERY least that its enabled for modders to play between aoe1/2 civs

Of course, later they can add a separate mode where you can play with the aoe 1 civs together with the aoe 2 civs…

@Alexios732

This silence just scream “Bad DLC” for me, it’s like they’re afraid that DLC would be blasted to kingdom come if they’re to show it now. So, I’ll just keep my expectations as low as possible for now, for those who’re not patient enough for the DLC, go and play “Romae ad Bellum” mod.

Na, I don’t think it’s a bad dlc but rather they try to have gameplay to show the new civs… when they launch the puzzle we’ll know that the dlc is close…

@IfDreamAwake

I think dev is struggling with the campaign, fixing bugs, and writing ai, and maybe it’s all stressing them out.

Yes, it may be that since there are so many missions they are complicated by the AI ​​so that the AoE 2 AI adapts to the AoE 1 campaigns and they are neither very easy nor very difficult, especially if they include AoE 2 DE triggers there…AoE 1 DE campaigns look like Wallace’s campaign if you compare them to AoE 2 DE…

@Skadidesu

I also don’t see a reason for the complete radio silence. We officially even still don’t know what this DLC really is going to be.
How much of AoE1 and how much of AoE2 is in it?

No reason not to share at last the very basic details and a few screenshots.
Even if they have only done a single campaign mission so far they could at last show a single screenshot of it, it doesn’t even have to have UI in it.

At least we know that being a port we will have the 10 campaigns and the 16 civs of the original game…

[Skadidesu]

@MatM1996

At least we know that being a port we will have the 10 campaigns and the 16 civs of the original game…

That’s all rumours or jut people trying to interpret the few sentences we have.
We don’t know if they will port any of the campaigns.
Or did I miss something?

[MatM1996]

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome is the fourth expansion of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.It was announced on 25 October 2022, on the 25th Anniversary of Age of Empires.It serves as the port of Age of Empires content into the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition client.

By port of AoE 1 I understand all its content (its 10 campaigns and its 16 civilizations)…

[Skadidesu]

The wiki is not official.

Also is they want to port all content why don’t they just tell us that they want to do that?

Not saying that they won’t do it. Just wondering why they don’t tell us.

[Charyelora]

Personally my hype died off completely, I am more looking forward to the next dlc after RoR :\

[MatM1996]

It’s not official, but we try to get it to have true information (in fact, they criticized me a lot for making the missions pages for the Indian dlc before it came out based on information from wikipedia xd)

[Coranhon1]

It’s because wikia knows as much as we do (nothing). We can only work out an article with info available and not fill with speculation

[MatM1996]

True, but something is something…

[thieftdp8498]

didn’t they mention on roadmap awhile back that it’ll be Q1 2023 release of the DLC? so we only got like 14 days remaining

[TommoChocolate]

@Skadidesu

Was the beta feedback that devastating? Unlikely.

I think it’s more likely that there’s some major technical issue, e.g. they can’t get the two different games to work properly in the same client. Something like that could definitely justify delaying any concrete announcement.

(But I also think it’s plausible that the beta feedback was very negative.)

[xWHIT3W0LFx]

@TommoChocolate

I think it’s more likely that there’s some major technical issue, e.g. they can’t get the two different games to work properly in the same client. Something like that could definitely justify delaying any concrete announcement.

That’s just pure speculation. Just wait and let them finish their work.

It has always been this way: They will release a trailer as soon as their product is like 90% finished. If it takes longer, it takes longer.

[Skadidesu]

There can be multiple reasons why they are taking longer then expected:

1. It’s harder then we think it is to make this DLC work well without creating bugs for normal AoE2DE
2. They are more ambitious then we think they are (the DLC will be bigger)
3. There is only a small team working on it (the priorities are normal AoE2DE concent)
4. They are waiting for something else (like the major patch they promised for AoE2DE first)

The truth likely lies between one or more of those points.

@thieftdp8498

didn’t they mention on roadmap awhile back that it’ll be Q1 2023 release of the DLC? so we only got like 14 days remaining

The roadmap just says 2023. But they already didn’t deliver on all the 2022 promises in time anyway.
But they never guaranteed that they would fulfil this roadmap, it’s just what they had planned to do at that point.

2022 was a slow year for AoE2DE because they were busy working on the Xbox port for a long time. That delayed a lot of other changes and content.

[TommoChocolate]

@xWHIT3W0LFx

That’s just pure speculation.

Yes, absolutely. Pretty much this entire thread is pure speculation. With almost no information, speculation is pretty much all we have.

@xWHIT3W0LFx

They will release a trailer as soon as their product is like 90% finished.

If they’ve had two beta tests, it should be more than 90% finished already (not that the percentage really means anything, but beta versions are usually very close to complete).

[xWHIT3W0LFx]

There were probably more than two beta tests. I looked at steamdb while the first and second beta happended and there appeared a branch called ms_flight which was removed again after a few days (this was probably the beta branch). Since then ms_flight appeared another two times last time I checked. This doesn’t doesn’t confirm that there were additional betas of course, but it could be an indicator for it.

[MatM1996]

@Skadidesu

They are more ambitious then we think they are (the DLC will be bigger)

Well, the biggest dlc is…both of the saga and the RTS genre in general…

@Skadidesu

The roadmap just says 2023. But they already didn’t deliver on all the 2022 promises in time anyway.
But they never guaranteed that they would fulfil this roadmap, it’s just what they had planned to do at that point.

2022 was a slow year for AoE2DE because they were busy working on the Xbox port for a long time. That delayed a lot of other changes and content.

@TommoChocolate

If they’ve had two beta tests, it should be more than 90% finished already (not that the percentage really means anything, but beta versions are usually very close to complete

@xWHIT3W0LFx

There were probably more than two beta tests. I looked at steamdb while the first and second beta happended and there appeared a branch called ms_flight which was removed again after a few days (this was probably the beta branch). Since then ms_flight appeared another two times last time I checked. This doesn’t doesn’t confirm that there were additional betas of course, but it could be an indicator for it.

Yes, I think the dlc is close… Remember that a year ago now, we are all with the puzzle of the Indian DLC; or Be it is not to wait for the DLC itself, but the puzzle…

[Skadidesu]

Maybe some of the betas had a lot less players?
Maybe for more targeted testing.

[LKAOE4]

So is “Return of Rome” a dead dlc ??? We can forget about it ?

[SmokeyBadger250]

I doubt they’ll cancel it after formally announcing they were working on it

[LKAOE4]

But in comparison with all others DLCs in the past, the time between announcement and release was much shorter…