The curious case of AoE 4 graphics (lots of screenshots)

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Again, nobody knows, and those who do are under NDA. You can make up what you want, of course.

Sure, if they say they’re going to deliver something and they can’t, for whatever reason, that’s a problem. But a 2019 YouTube video (which is I’m assuming what the source of the screenshot was) is not representative of the final product. If it’s from current marketing material, then that’s misleading and I fully agree that it is (misleading).

Missed this. This is a pretty exclusionary thing to say, c’mon. Tthe dividing line actually seems to be “likes the game” or “doesn’t like the game” (for whatever part of the game is being discussed). People can be positive about the game, and measure it to past releases. I do. It just so happens the last non-Definitive release was 17 going on 18 years ago, and that one really doesn’t scratch my itch in the way that II (and I) did back when I played them.

It’s not a matter of hate. It’s guesswork at best, and unfair beyond that. I’m on the Council, and I am under NDA. I’m not the only one (hey Andy). You’re asking questions that can’t be answered, and at the same time insulting people who have put time in to (in their mind) better the game as best as they can.

And beyond that, “listening to the players” will always mean listening to a minority. Relic could listen to everybody in this thread, and that would be a minority. Relic could listen to everyone on this forum (in the impossible event everyone said exactly the same thing), and that would be a minority. And, frequently, “overriding actual experts”. There’s a reason nobody likes an appeal to authority :sweat_smile:

I’m a software developer, I know a bunch of stuff, and I have spent years involved in gamedev as a hobby. But that doesn’t make my opinion fact. It just makes it informed opinion. There are tons of people like me, with the same kind of expertise, with different opinions. Who overrides who?

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And moving chicken and horses.

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No, you don’t understand. Something something implementation gone wrong, can happen to anyone. We can’t blame the AAA studio for their 60 USD game not having animated chickens and horses.

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You can blame who you want, but for the record blaming “small groups of players” is not blaming the studio :wink:

Who was arguing against animating poultry anyway? Me? That’d be a funny one.

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no nda stuff needed. the last trailer before release and THE BETA was release 1 month before official release. if they were almost done they would release those feature on release but they didnt and failed and lied about that. You can make up what you want to deflect that one, of course.

so if its misleading why you re supporting this instead of being against it because the game becomes unfinishied and way lower in the current aoe standard and damage the gaming industry as a whole. Even indies and some AAA are way more honest than aoe 4

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honestly, while i’m in agreement till you say indies, i wouldn’t count AAA’s into this, standards there ceased to exist years ago, now why did standards collapse like this, imo, investors having more or less reasonable revenue expectations is a big one

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The joking response: there should be people that do not want to get “distracted” as something like small tree mod or cube tree mod exists.

The serious response: but there are always a million reasons why it is not practical to have these implemented at release. But as always I consider that as basic especially for a 2020s game.

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The 2021 trailer looks a lot like the game we have now:

The screenshot someone posted further up the thread is from the 2019 pre-alpha gameplay footage “first look”. It’s a completely separate video, posted two years earlier.

Because I feel you’re misrepresenting the game, given the fact that you’re talking about “the last trailer” (which I’ve just provided) which shows the game looking pretty much exactly as it did on launch.

What people seem to want to understand is what changed from 2019 onwards, and if any of that can be brought back.

(some folks just want to take potshots, and that’s fine. Disappointing, but fine)

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On a sidenote they took away my beautiful flags that is in the video :frowning:

image
image959×833 63.8 KB

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I see but at leats half nintendo games and some other in other plataforms do. i only wanted to point the difference is even higher than your average AAA game dissapoint

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thank you, literally this

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You seem to like pointing to people who are under NDA such as yourself from being on the council, as if people are personally blaming you, they aren’t. Like I said it’s not a bad game, but as someone else said above every time I’m like let’s play again it’s just blah.

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Seems to me the gaming industry has reached an awkward stage where a certain level of quality (which ties with a huge minimum amount of investments) is usually considered “standard”, but that amount of investment has become risky. So the response is naturally and slowly lowering that standard.

That’s why we have releases that are actually EA, EA of EA, basic functions that are added a year later, etc.

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pretty much (20 characters)

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Some people are! Literally! In this thread! :sweat_smile:

But more than that - it honestly just limits what can be said, and therefore, what can be asked. Relic employees will also be under NDA. It’s not 2005 anymore. We don’t get Relic representatives making happy chat on forums anymore (I miss those days).

This is why I’m saying there aren’t answers for the questions being asked. All we can do is speculate, and ask for more. I’ve got nothing against people asking for more. I have nothing against people not liking the game. This was a thread about graphics, right?

I thought there was a good bit of discussion around biomes, water, and so on - stuff that could hopefully be improved. And then some folks went and circled back to “players overrode the devs” and here we are.

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now to be fair to aoe4, custom game engine alone won’t come cheap, even just modifying essence for it, if anything essence being made for squad based RTS games first likely added more obstacles to overcome, alongside far from easy to use tooling (which can be seen in content editor), now if i had to make a call on what game engine to use for AOE4 (making a custom one, using a pre existing one etc.), honestly i have no idea how i’d approach it, not even remotely envious of the one in charge of such calls
i bring this up because there’s no information on AOE4’s budget, but its safe to assume RTS development given its delicaties is not a cheap endevour

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That wouldn’t be a difficult call seeing as working on furthering this engine would also help the production of CoH3. It is likely a big part of why they even took the contract, as it would benefit the company in multiple ways.

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My personal hope is that because it’s being used concurrently in CoH 3, that Age IV continues to benefit from that development and we see further improvements as the game continues to be supported.

Might be unrealistic, but I think Age IV has done well enough to warrant it.

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unit pathing and couple other areas couldn’t be shared directly tho
still squad RTS first engine

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They did? I don’t remember that post, but literally the entire council could have said we like the original graphics keep them, and it is very possible relic would have ignored those people anyway. Corporations work like that sometimes

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