The Ship Hasn't Sailed Yet - Continue the DLC, Here's Why

Admins, managers, even devs who may have some sway or influence - if any of you are paying attention even remotely -

Reversing the decision to cancel the DLC and subsequent updates has trade-offs that will quite literally pay dividends and here’s why:

  • Turning a full-negative into a full-positive and will send reverberations across the industry.
  • Sales will likely go up across the board due to the inevitably-perceived goodwill, after what has been objectively perceived as ill-will of immense proportions.
  • Do not underestimate the emotions of your base who you have let down, that same anger will turn into mercy and celebration. Opinion pieces and articles will be written singing your praises.
  • You can take your time with it. People will be happy that they haven’t been abandoned and will be willing to wait for it to be polished (pun intended).
  • You can get away with increasing the price by $5 to offset. People will understand and be willing to pay.
  • The favorable feelings people will have after this will allow them to keep supporting the game and other Age games. Currently 90% of the AoE III players are vowing to never buy another WE game again. This will have long-term consequences but can be turned right around.
  • Devs and players alike are in sync – they both love the game and were excited for this. Cancelling the DLC removes the time, emotions and funds already invested in making it happen.

Therefore:

  • “Taking a chance” with the DLC is not a bad idea in the slightest.
  • The absolute worst that can happen is losing a little bit of money but gaining a huge reputation boost.
  • The opportunity cost of not doing so would mean the plummeting of the reputation as we are seeing now.
14 Likes

I agree, I don’t understand that it is so difficult to create Poland and Denmark because less than 10 people managed to create this…we don’t expect 25 campaigns and only 2 civilizations, half of which exist in the game… (units, textures, 3d models )

10 Likes
  1. If you manage expectations down like this, they’re not going to change their mind. They know darn well if they drop some half-baked slop on us, we’re going to be even more irate at them than had they just left it alone. There is no substitute for quality. Dropping a new DLC obligates them not only to build the DLC content, but also to support it with patches and bug fixes for several months at a minimum until they can rebalance the game. They’re not the least bit interested in doing any such thing.

  2. They’re not the least bit concerned about the loss of reputation. We’re a tiny drop in the bucket fan base among their broader audience. RTS en toto is a tiny drop in the bucket. They’re not losing any sleep over this. They’re simply going to pivot to their big three and trust that we’ll migrate to one of them (2, 4, or AoM).

This game is dead. They announced nothing for Age 1 nor Age 3 in 2025. They’re projects considered “done.”

I would be shocked if we get anything other then a bug fix and even getting a bug fix I don’t feel confident in getting even that for AoE III DE. I hope I am wrong about that.

1 Like

Still a lot of work, unfortunately. Even if you crib something together from campaign assets, you still need to code the units, balance their stats, introduce unique mechanics and home city shipments, etc.