Hi I missed out on the AOE 4 Stress Test is there anywhere I can still get the game before I Pre-order it
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Can anyone help me to play the AOE 4 Stress Test version
Highly unlikely unless there is another official beta.
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So Sad Just wanted to play the game
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I’ve heard they might do another test starting October 19th, but nothing official so I don’t know for sure
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That would be awesome let’s hope 
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We’ll see what happens. Even if they don’t have another beta (stress test) it is almost release time anyway
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Btw just a minor thing - I don’t think we should use the word ‘beta’. The game is pretty much done, words have meaning and I don’t think it nearly qualifies to be called that- even the last one was just called ‘stress test’. It’s not the same code as a normal build, obviously, but if something can be called beta few weeks before release, considering how long things take to change and add- a game can be called ‘beta’ for some time after the release. And their marketing department wouldn’t want an unofficial ‘beta’ sticker on a ~60$ game. That’s why they dropped it and focused attention on stress testing network functionality 
It would be nice to have a normal god*damn demo version. I remember when I played demos for previous games I was blown away each and every single time.
For anyone bored, waiting for IV to be released:
AoE I demo: Age of Empires Demo : Ensemble Studios : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (works on Win10)
AoE II demo: Age of Empires II: Age of Kings Demo - Free Download (fileplanet.com)
AoE III demo: Age of Empires III demo Download | TechSpot
Just to put things in perspective and appreciate them more it’s worth checking them out.
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Oh yeah I remember playing the demo of aoe3 Nilla and bought the game right on release in 2005.
Probably the happiest day of my gaming life, what a hell of a game!
Starting with aoe1 as a child, later playing aoe2 and years later getting to touch the demo of aoe3, i couldn’t believe my eyes and thought my god how advanced this game is!
My pc could barely run it and some years later I upgraded my hardware and was blown away again.
Started to play online in around 2009 and when I first got decent cable net in 2011 I reached the rank of a major (?!?) 31 on ESO.
Without the demo, I probably would have never bought the game, as I never liked to invest money into something I wasn’t sure of.
After the demo I was 100% convinced of HAVING to purchase this amazing game.
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Yes this is my problem will I enjoy the game or do I spend $$$
If I don’t get the chance to make up my mind
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yes, all we would get now could be a stress test no2.
Or a DLC Civ beta, but that I doubt.
Free demo weekend, maybe
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The stress test keeps popping up in my steam giving me hope it might happen again
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Beta is simply the last stage before release. If it hasnt been released yet it’s a beta, if it’s been released, it can’t be a beta.
Additionally, betas are usually old builds that happen to have been a good stopping point for the team. Many bugs that are present in betas may have already been fixed, and features missing in beta may have already been implemented, you’re just playing an old build because it was stable and playable.
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What developers call their game build matters less and less with every passing year. Thank you for a dictionary explanation, but sadly it isn’t really helpful or useful - unless you think developers are wrong and it wasn’t a stress test 
How can it be a beta? You pointed that yourself - it was a separate build with most features cut out, just a few basic things meant to provide enough framework to allow players to create and play multiplayer matches with a tiny bit of content that was provided to them.
There is a definition of ‘beta’ stage for every studio CEO out there. It doesn’t matter, ultimately.
There are games released in an extremely poor shape yet they are considered finished and sold full price.
There are games released in early access that perform great and offer enough content to be realistically called a finished product.
There are games with ‘beta stage’ slapped on them that is used purely as a community and expectations managing tool, not a reflection of actual development stage and quality.
Sometimes it’s used as a damage control tool, meant to create an atmosphere of ongoing development studio engagement, where in reality there is no time/money/other resources to do any actual work that would result in noticeable improvement of the quality of the game.
etc. etc.
Last event was purely focused on testing netcode and multiplayer functionality, with other things like visuals, game balance being a secondary concern.
I’m sure a real beta for Age of Empires IV exists, or rather- existed, since the game is finished and has been for some time- now they are working on day0, day1 patches and other stuff.
If it was available to anyone outside of dev team- I’m not aware of that. Even closed ‘beta’ was at best- a broad vertical slice of a highly selective part of the whole AoE IV experience.
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Then why the fuss about calling it a beta? I’m aware that it’s a loose term thats defined by the developers, but there is a bit of structure, generally Alpha = adding features, Beta = Bug fixing and optimizing, Early Access = Game released unfinished (Alpha or Beta), and then there’s released games. If they have an official release date, then anything before that is going to be considered a beta or early access, regardless of the state of build. Anyways I wasn’t trying to start an argument I just didn’t feel like we needed to police our language on a game that is effectively in the beta stage with release in two weeks.
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sad aoe 4 is not making me have that feeling…
There is no fuss. Just pointing out that term is very broad with many definitions depending on who’s being asked, and with every year of the evolution of video games as a media and that whole market - it’s getting more and more murky and meaningless.
And in the end, it’s safer and healthier to restrain from stating that some things ‘simply, clearly, obviously are this and that’, because they are not.
That encompasses a wide array of various issue, starting from ‘what is a product release’ to ‘what is a game’, but since we’re talking about beta (that wasn’t called a beta by their owners, because it was a multiplayer stress test) I’m just talking about this particular subject.
Remember that devs already mentioned in interviews that the two betas we played were considerably older builds than what was currently available to them.
In that sense, if another stress test is to happen just before the public release, I’m sure it won’t be very close to the final version, but instead we’d get another older build, so we can safely call that a beta.
All that said, I doubt that with 2 weeks before the game’s release we’re going to get another chance to play. There’s simply no time to collect and analyze bugs and feedback. Betas are not just for us to have fun, they have a purpose.
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Calling it a stress test has no bearing at all on the fact the game is in beta. They called it that because it’s purpose was to stress test the servers… this was done on a beta build.