For devs and tournament organizers, they want games to have a competitive environment. Regular tournaments and lots of viewers will bring in money, increase the amount of attention in the gaming world. However aoe3 was deemed as not suitable for competitive play and are always excluded from competitions. The reason behind is it is difficult to organize events when the whole community is split.
Firstly players split by regions. EU/NA players have no communication with Asian especially Chinese players at all. When i say at all, they have literally no chat, never play together, have no idea who are the top players from each others regions, organise separate tournaments, and bash each other. This situation is not good for the game when EU, US and China are the 3 biggest market for this game. And also English speaking players don’t really play with Spanish speaking players either. Chinese speaking players don’t play with any outsiders, nobody knows each other despite there are lots of Chinese players on top of the rating ladder.
Second split is the perpetual argument of vanilla /pre-DE vs DE. Pro players don’t support DE, looking down on new DE stuff, hate DE civs, refuses to buy DLCs, organise tournaments excluding DE civs, argue about balance issues of DE civs, this of course discouraged devs from developing new civs. The community is also split between those who play de civs and those who play vanilla civs, the two sides usually flame each other which is not healthy for the development of this game. There is also streamer like samurai revolution who just refuses to play DE at all.
Third thing is the split and flaming/constant hate between top players. Like the non stop attacking between revnak and kaiser while both players were in top 3…top players formed several groups exclusive to their own clan and it is like a civil war among aoe3… it is impossible to create harmony and bring them all onto a bigger stage.
There is also the supremacy/treaty split and players really hate the other one. Btw somehow most of the treaty players are latin Americans idk why so they have their own clans and languages which are very exclusive.
All these makes the development team feel there is no possibility to organise a successful LAN tournament or anything big, there is also no need to further develop this game if new content is not welcomed by top players. Gradually this game is abandoned
5 Likes
The fact that the tournaments of this game are not organized would not be the biggest problem if the game was sold… Poland is also a huge marketing market and it could attract people to the game… I think the problem is the zero advertising of this game…
9 Likes
Yeah, I mean even a few more official X posts would have been great (based on player numbers we should have gotten featured in around 15-20% of the X posts), There are a lot of holiday themed sales that would have been possible as well. The first that comes to mind would be 76% off of the USA DLC on the 4th of July weekend. Might even have been possible to do that as a bundle with the base game for 76% off of both. I’d imagine there are relevant Italian, Mexican, and African holidays that could merit sales for their respective DLCs too.
But it wouldn’t need to stop with just sales, there are plenty of cool historical events that could be used for advertisements.
4 Likes
The worst part is how there was finally momentum. ESOC had 2 events which did well, were drama free, and got recognition. Treaty is doing some cool event and advertising. Most the old guard dont play.and balance was better. Hell assertive ui has restored a lot of functionality and im sure could have been integrated.
And then the axe fell.
11 Likes
The main reason for the lack of communication between Chinese players and players from the West (EU/NA) is not as extreme as you’ve framed it. It’s primarily due to the language barrier, not a total unwillingness to interact.
And this isn’t just an issue in AoE3; it’s a common problem across all the Age of Empires games. The language difference is significant enough that it creates a natural divide. This isn’t something unique to AoE3—it’s just part of the larger internet ecosystem where language and region naturally create silos. 毕竟在我们东亚,绝大多数人都完全没有办法用英文正常交流。
Treaty players, particularly from Latin America, have their own distinct community, but that doesn’t mean they’re “exclusive” or that there’s inherent animosity between them and other players. It’s just a matter of preference. This isn’t a “Latin America vs. the World” issue, it’s just a difference in playstyles that is common in any game with multiple modes.
So, blaming the game’s decline entirely on these issues seems off. The game’s decline, if anything, is more related to a lack of fresh content, and developer support, which affect all competitive games. Fixing these other issues, like communication barriers and divisive preferences, won’t solve everything.
22 Likes
Agree. Main reason of AOE 3 DE decline is the game lack of new contents, not friendly with mods,…
4 Likes