“splitting the attention of the dev team” as if there’s only 4 people in the world who can develop these games and they just can’t find anyone else who can do it.
Maybe the managers just can’t count to 4.
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I feel like layoffs would have hit the news to some degree (even if just game industry news) if that were it. But who knows…
But are you going to invest to pay a salary to more people, for a game that is already at least partially free-to-play? I also don’t know how sales numbers looked for the last couple AoE3 DLCs, that probably played a part in it as well if they weren’t exemplary. Plus the “political” side of that game that they get squeamish about.
With two games of similar size, two groups of people making two games will make more money than one group of people working on one game.
People were already asking for more DLCs, and the devs cancelled the one DLC they announced before even starting development. Don’t push the blame on customers or lack thereof.
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@OmaDesala what part of the team worked on AoE3 first do you not understand? Why should I take this silently, whether from you or from the devs? And why should I care about your opinion if you don’t care about our situations?
You’re also being way too confident if you think Microsoft doing this to one game (two if you include AoE1) means they won’t do it to other games, especially Retold which isn’t doing better than AoE3.
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@RatcicleFan bro this is the AOM forum here, don’t expect too much if you want to complain 
better get back to the aoe3 forum if you want to complain without hearing from guys like me who don’t care
Guys, I understand your frustration and sadness, because I am also very depressed by everything that happened. Here I can only ask for solidarity and empathy from the entire saga community towards the aoe3 community and on the other hand, I must ask the aoe3 community to please not disturb the other categories of the forum and the discord server unrelated to aoe3, because members are already starting to complain.
If you don’t want to hear these kinds of comments without empathy, I recommend just ignoring them and focusing your frustration on the corresponding categories, that’s all.
Sorry if the message does not sit well in this context.
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I think this discussion absolutely belongs on this forum, I think AoE 3’s situation pertains to AoM:R because it shows how WE treats a game they no longer feel is profitable, what if AoM:R stops being profitable enough, I sure as hell lost a little bit of faith in this company with what they’ve done to the AoE 3 players even if I don’t play the game myself.
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Yes, if AoE 3 dies, which has twice as much as AoMR… the next one will be Retold without a doubt, then 4 and when only 2 is left they will say “nobody plays new RTS” then they will abandon it with the rest of the saga, like in the pre-DE era (2007-2018)…
The thing is that they are focused on 2 and 4 too…so it’s not like AoM suddenly has more resources…
Yes, that’s true… AoE 3 is an uncomfortable game for World Edge (you know, colonialism, subterfuge slavery with colored settlers and stereotypes of native and Asian civs)… AoM is easier, because it’s simply classical mythology… at most the most controversial topic they could have is Indian mythology and whether or not they include Abrahamic religions, which I don’t think will happen, because they are monotheistic religions…What I do know is that the last DLC for AoE 3 sold quite well…
Yes, for me they tried to cover too much and like the myth of Icarus they got burned for flying too high… Also yesterday I read that since Relic had many layoffs last year, the Tilanus FE team in charge of 3 DE and Retold had to learn to develop in Relic’s Essence engine… The Sultans Ascends has Forgotten Empires written all over it and the civs of the Anniversary update are a copy and paste of 3: the Ottomans are the same (cards, buildings that automatically produce units and being focused on gunpowder) and the Malians are the Ethiopians of 3 with their automatic mines…And about AoM, at least we know that we have the clause of having at least the Chinese and the second pantheon (I bought the premium edition and I would be pissed if they cancelled it)…afterwards it is likely that they will kill it, or with luck they will put Celts and Mesopotamians in the game…
Yes, we can cry on the forums, but that won’t make the devs back down… that’s it, AoE 3 is dead and all we can do is turn the page and move forward…
Is it dead tho? I mean you can still play it. It’s more like… you know the game heroes of the storm? I played this game with friends at launch then blizzard stopped supporting but some ppl still play it 
Way too often in life it’s better to move forward/onward - why not here?
I mean you have all AoMR now! That’s something really positive otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
I mean you guys know we waited over two decades for retold and it still happened and now it’s time to shine for AoMR during AoE3 was one of the games who I assume partly stopped AoM getting more attention. Now it’s the other way round why not? It’s not like you can still play the game (like we did with old AoM) maybe mods will keep it alive for old AoM there were great mods you also have AoE4! We don’t have AoM2 and 3 (yet?)
And I don’t know about you but I am here in this forum for AoM/AoMR and not AoE.
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Yeah it’s not going somewhere nice, I think the will release the china dlc and the other one, and that’s it, what game did you develop when it has almost the same numbers it did pre definitive edition
Honestly, a lot of this depends on the next two DLCs that they’ve already promised and sold with the bundle package; AOM:R is great, but it really hasn’t added anything new yet other than the Norse military re-work and balance patches. These upcoming DLCs are where the truly new content will come in, and if they manage to actually put some effort into the PR on that it could pull player numbers back up. I also think that they might have incentive to at least make a couple more DLCs after this because the AOM:R team is the AOE3 team, and while they are ceasing new content for AOE3 they still stated they will provide some balance support and keep the servers running; AOM:R DLC will in that way also fund what they’ve said they plan to continue doing for AOE3
The big “if” is whether or not they will actually put the necessary time and effort into PR, and that’s what worries me, but I tend to be an optimist so I have hope at the very least. We’ll see.
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AoMR is much better than EE or AoT, so as long as we get 2 new pantheons, we can be happy. Only Chinese DLC would be disappointing, but at least it seems high quality.
Realistically thinking AoMR was badly monetized and not released at high pricepoint, which makes the game better but not have much longetivity. Maybe AoMR release was always intended to be “make still alive game even better” rather than a flagship for RTS genre.
Ultimately hoping we get Chinese + 1 other pantheon, in addition to having 4 major gods in each pantheon. Can’t expect much more from a business. I would just feel bad if they go back on existing promises or only Norse had 4 major gods. Retold is already amazing game and is capable of delivering everything AoM fans hoped for past 10+ years.
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@Riba I think they’re going to add a bit of premium DLC to boost sales, like they did with Freyr, “5€ for the new Greek god for example”.
But I think they will and I’m even very optimistic if the real DLC sells well I don’t see why they wouldn’t allow themselves to do more, there are so many new pantheons to add… And let’s not forget that the more content there is, the more likely it is to keep players coming back for more.
Yes, maybe I’m exaggerating… I mean it’s dead in the face of the future and the potential that the game had… obviously you can keep playing the game as you have until now… I actually wanted to return to the game with the release of the Baltic DLC, but now I’ll only return on the 5th anniversary to play some historical battles and do the Pachacuti, Moctezuma and Almeida campaigns… in the meantime I’ll stay with Chronicles and the Retold New Year event (I’m also playing a custom Zheng He and Genghis Khan campaign for the Chinese New Year)…
Yes, I think the same…we will have the 2 pantheons and a new paid god and then we’ll see…AoE 3 had 2 launch civs (Swedes and Incas) and in its first year it had 4 civs (USA, Hausa, Ethiopians and Mexico) (in the case of Retold there would be 2 pantheons divided into 3 gods/civs each, which would be a total of 6 civs)…with the new Greek god, there would be 7 civs and after that there would be nothing…
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@MatM1996 don’t be so negative, nothing tells us the future is bleak. The next 2 DLCs could be a big success, as long as sales are good I don’t see why everything would stop. Once again, it doesn’t matter how many players there are at the moment, the game is very new and it’s taking time to build up a solid base. Also, Microsoft’s policy towards AOM is more lenient than with AOE3, which was a “thorn in their side”.
Just because AOE3 ended in a video-game disaster doesn’t mean that AOM will be just as catastrophic in the future.
True except that AoE 3 was/is a more popular title. As well as the fact there is significant crossover of players between the games meaning I wouldn’t be surprised if said players don’t buy content for AoM due to how AoE 3 de was treated. Why give money to a company that is garbage.
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Yes, I hope so, I really hope so because it’s a great game and because I bought the premium edition… but AoM was never more popular than AoE 3, that’s why I’m a bit pessimistic, but if at least AoM survives, well at least I have an alternative to AoE 2 to play (I play AoE Online too, but it’s more of a MMORTS than a classic RTS per se)…
One explanation could be that they believe more in Age of Mythology: Retold for future revenue compared to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, and thus chose to abandon one game to focus on the other.
At the end of the day, it is business, and they will do whatever they see as the best decision. Now, whether or not this was the right decision, we will not know for a while.
Age of Empires III: DE was always viewed as the “least popular” Age game, so despite the player count being higher, perhaps they found that not many people bought the DLCs—at least not enough for them to keep new content alive.
Maybe they saw potential in the preorders for AoM: Retold and chose this game? We can only guess at this point. Let’s hope AoM: Retold doesn’t end the same way, because it doesn’t matter what games we like; if one dies, it is bad for all of us.
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