SHOULD WE PRE-PURCHASE THE GAME? POLL

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
21

Yes because you don’t know whether it’s finished, and if you love the franchise, I never think it’s a waste of money. In the olden days you didn’t even know how wa game would be at all until launch day. Then you’d have to buy it to see it. I don’t remember there being much of a refund option just coz you didn’t like the game.

Success of AOEIV might motivate them but preordering won’t

Won’t know till launch

Garbage is my opinion. Marketing your campaigns but tailoring your game for competitive play.

Suggestions are here from all different people who love all different parts of the games if they wanna implement. I think these forums are the best for feedback despite the arguments as no one here does not have passion for the game. It’s all passionate AOE lovers arguing about what they love or don’t love

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22

That’s entirely their fault, there’s no debate. But unless they can force me to spend money, where my money gets spent is my fault/responsibility.

If I decide to spend it on AoE4 without having played it (not the case since I did play the beta a bit), that’s my decision to spend my money without seeing the product first and it’s 100% my responsibility that I did.

Now, in the US at least there are ways you can deal with outright false advertising and in most cases you can at least get your money back if you aren’t happy with the product.

If those options are available to you (and viable, dealing with false advertising may not be realistic for most people while getting a refund is), then not getting your money back is also your fault.

Note that I don’t mean you personally, but rather the consumer.

Believe me, I know. I work at a AAA game company that sells in EU and there are a lot of things that are done differently there.

For example, you know all those “Sign me up for your newsletter” boxes you have to opt into in the EU?
In the US they’re very often op out instead (checked by default).

The more protection you have from a company being able to take your money through false pretenses and keep it, the more the responsibility falls to you.

That’s only slightly debatable, but not in a way that actually matters. :stuck_out_tongue:

The fact that there’s nothing to be lost by not pre-ordering isn’t really relevant as to whether a pre-order is worth it/safe.

Yes, but of both sides.

The vast majority of the controversy I’ve seen is subjective and doesn’t bother me.

From playing the game the real problems I have are with the UI and in reality I’ll end up getting used to the new keys just like I do when moving between different RTS games.

The controversy is the kind of thing someone should be looking at before pre-ordering and use that as a data point for whether or not to do it.

I haven’t seen anything on the forums that would indicate to me I won’t enjoy the game, and I’m unlikely to be the only one.

23

I’m really trying to not get political here.

…my original point is to discourage preordering because there’s no real downside.

I visited America once to study timber wolves, and I saw the insane amount of advertising there. I personally preferred my time in China, but I’ve got nothing against Murica.

I will most likely also enjoy the game, but it naturally needs improvement.

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24

I understand that, but in practice there isn’t a lot of downside to pre-ordering either if you live somewhere that has any consumer protections; having to ask for a refund would be about it.

Discouraging people from doing something just because the other choice doesn’t have a downside isn’t super productive IMO, and doesn’t really help things in the long run.

It doesn’t, for example, stop people from buying games just because they saw a good review someone was paid to write and then hating the game.

Yeah, my point was more that the US is generally far less consumer friendly than the EU in my limited experience, and yet you can still almost always get your money back even here, greatly reducing the risk of a preorder.

The part where the AoE4 pre-order really gets muddy is the gaining AoE2 content. Since I actually wanted the content, and have been enjoying it, I’ve already gotten some value from my pre-order.

If you consider it to not be value from the pre-order because I could have purchases it anyway, then I got a discount on the game by pre-ordering. Then if I’m happy I paid less and if I’m not I get my money back and it’s the same as having not purchased the game at all.

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25

I don’t think Microsoft really needs anyones pre-order money all that much

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27

It’s currently sitting at #16 in the Steam global top sellers list so apparently a lot of people are pre-ordering it. I’m kind of up-in-the-air about whether to pre-order the day before launch or just on launch day. Do I want a bell in my town centre or a camel? Hmmm

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28

The pre order question comes down to are you going to buy it anyway on release. If you are you might as well preorder. I preordered aoe 3 de because I knew I wanted to play it. Same with aoe 4 preordered as soon as I could. Don’t know how much I will play it after playing the betas but it’s not not like I spent a fortune on it

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29

The only reason I see to pre-order is because it gave the DotD AoE2 expansion for free. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bothered. Since I knew for a fact I would buy DotD and AoE4 it would have been illogical not to, I would have been throwing away $10 for no reason.

30

I’ll buy it on launch day.

It is useless to pre-order a big game if it does not give you something relevant that motivates you to do it, but I see well that anyone who does see relevant what they can give extra can preorder it.

I sincerely think that many of the games that are not “free to play” and that are not finished have something to do with pre-ordering them.

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31

Oh sure, what options should I add?

33

[mod hat on] Any topic about the ultimate quality or acceptability of a game is argumentative in its nature. However, it is also completely within the scope and purpose of this forum. Not only do these forums have a vast history of tolerating complaints of all stripes in our games, but there is nothing in the Code of Conduct that would suggest otherwise.

Frankly, if we tolerate people praising our games, then we should tolerate people criticizing our games. It’s healthy for the community to have an internal outlet to discuss this and to offer feedback, ideas, and solutions. It’s healthy to have those debates and let the truth set us free.

What is not healthy is doing any of this in bad faith, disrespectfully, or antagonistically.

I’ve been here for about 10 years, and this forum is a beautiful sanctuary that takes work. We have a new game and lots of new faces. I hope you all stick around and feel you have a voice here. As we gain more people, we moderators (particularly @anon63664082 and me right now) intend to continue to do our best to keep our beloved community in tune with this balance.

Please remember to attack the arguments and not the people making them. Be excellent to each other and leave this forum better than you found it.

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34

Great poll, I enjoyed it a lot. glad it helps you too. I look forward to more in future.

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35

39% voted yes.

What the actual F***?

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36

Pre purchasing is always against consumers’ own interest.

Smartest thing to do is wait until the game is released and check out some videos/streamers.

If the game convinces you, and the crucial critizisms you had with the game so far got worked on, go for it.
If not and the game seems off, don’t.

In the end it’s completely subjective anyway.
If you like the game, purchasing is worth it most likely, if not then not.
Blindly preordering something is always a bad bet tho, since you never know what you buy yourself into.

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37

Those people have played the game

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38

Well how are we defining finished? The game is clearly not “broken” or “in alpha” like a few people around here have said, but it’s also obviously going to be getting post launch patches. We know some things like the scenario editor are scheduled to come spring 2022.

People voting yes have probably played the game and enjoy it already.

39

I love AOE too much to not have it :joy: even if it sits on my desktop idle like AOE I. Hopefully they add things later to make the game a lot more fun. But it ain’t a disaster that’s for sure.

40

damn my feeling right now, but its so hard to take a decision, I have been watching the latest facebook posts and keep seeying the same ugly UI, I am sorry but it is a deal broker just like the no crew on siege. I play in a competitive way and that UI and confusing siege weapons are so hard to deal with

41

lol that’s fine, if you have no underlying desire to by the game then it is pretty expensive to just buy it. You need Atleast one solid reason to spend so much money on the game. But hey, I ain’t your accountant or moral counsel lot :joy::joy: if you still want to/don’t want to buy it then sure. You should be certain with every decision you make in life!

But I’m surprised you play competitive with all the graphical clutter on the screen :joy: if I was playing competitive, I’d probably want it as simple as possible in order to prevent games where I lost because something confused me or got in the way :joy:

42

Oh well again, I play AoE 3 and COH as my main games rn. Trust me all the graphical clutter is very important, I dont understand where people started to think its not that important in competitive games… I am always playing classified matches in AoE 3, its really easy to read, visually speaking, and doing micro with such great graphics is great because I can easily drag my units in a quick mode, instead of looking everywhere for my siege or the confusing unit upgrades (from AoE 4 UI). Then just go to watch the reprise and its a blast… not mentioning how amazing it is to do cinematics with the scene editor lol

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