After two decades of charting new worlds, building mighty empires, and seeking adventure, thank you for making *AoE III* and *AoE III: Definitive Edition* your gateway to exploration and history. Set sail and relive your favorite campaigns again!
Celebrate *AoE III* ’s 20th and *DE* ’s 5th Anniversary by trying out *AoE III: DE* on Steam!
Check out our blog on how to start playing today:
New Free Trial Comes to AoE III: DE on Steam! - Age of Empires - World's Edge Studio
After two decades of charting new worlds, building mighty empires, and seeking adventure, thank you for making AoE III and AoE III: Definitive Edition your gateway to exploration and history. Set sail and relive your favorite campaigns again!
Celebrate AoE III ’s 20th and DE ’s 5th Anniversary by trying out AoE III: DE on Steam!
Check out our blog on how to start playing today:
Two decades and all we get is a dumb social media post.
We got 2 expansions, 4 DLCs, a lot of support, balance and much more.
If that’s not enough, it’s all good, but not that dumb either.
Balance is a very generous thing to say.
To not sound as salty though, a final patch to fix the most outstanding bugs would leave me content.
You know what we also got?
An abandoned Baltic DLC. No marketing during releases. No representation in Red Bull tournaments. No campaigns. An eSports montage that only features AOE3 campaigns that wasn’t foisted on any other game. A half-baked and poorly planned F2P mode. A final state of the game riddled with over 100 bugs (and increasing) documented by players. A final balance that features an Ottoman civ so broken they are chosen 12% of the time. Abandoned maps that Vivid almost finished. Abandoned explorer packs that were largely complete. A civ rotation schedule that isn’t updated. An explorer skin unlock rotation that wasn’t updated for 2 years and is now broken. A studio that cared so little about the game and us that they called monitors “cannon galleons", misrepresented an event in the French Revolution as occurring in AOE2, and when sharing screenshots didn’t even notice it displayed that they hadn’t opened the game in 3 weeks.
No. The good doesn’t wipe away the bad. The good folks at FE and Tantalus were able to balance out the ignorance, incompetence, and ambivalence at Worlds Edge for a while but that only worked while EW was under Shannon Loftis. All we have received from the studio for the last three years has been constant disrespect.
I will not pretend like this is somehow acceptable. The very studio that stabbed us in the back 9 months ago is now trying to fake appreciation by saying “Thank You.” I will not return the false face. And based on the social media reactions, most other AOE3 fans aren’t going to pretend either.
No, it’s not enough.
People want a balanced game, with a clean user interface where they can see who’s online/offline, and a game without bugs, exploits, or errors.
They want new campaigns, new civilizations, new maps, and new game modes.
They want respect and fair treatment for the game and the community. It’s more than evident that they deliberately try to ignore its existence as much as possible.
There were many good things, there’s no doubt about that, such as the fact that it was the only game with revamped cinematics, and great work with the DLC, and polished and reworked civilizations and other aspects of the game, but this is what they’re expected to do. These are welcome things, but they’re not favors, because that’s what you buy the game for.
Players are asking for things they’re willing to pay for. Being conformist is not healthy for the game..
I forgive them, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to trust them again. Trust is earned, if they wanted to earn a lot back, fixing the game would be a great start. I’m not even saying I definitely won’t buy AoE5, but I don’t expect to buy it at release, and I am going to have to seriously consider whether the game (which is currently an unknown quantity) merits further support of a studio that was willing to string us along for over a year.
Edit: for reference I believe I purchased AoE2 DE, AoE3 DE and AoE 4 all around release. I even considered buying AoMR shortly after its release in part to support the series. I didn’t end up getting AoMR, which I’m glad about given that it’s association to AoE3 would have been a significant factor in the decision.
I actually will say, at least we got a post. I’m not sure I would have expected one
Why is this comment flagged as inappropiate?
@coyotekiller114 is only telling the truth about it
No. This is BS
If they actually care about the game the post would be really different
There are some Elite Bootlickers among us who can’t handle the truth.
To be fair, I had just repeated a criticism of them. I simply would have expected them to say nothing at all, like they have so many times before.
Ah yes ! Two decades of continued support, dedication from the brand. I can’t wait for the next patch and DLC, renewing that commitment to a franchise beloved by an astonishing number of people despite its age. It’s been a while.
To good business practices, reciprocity, and sane management ! Cheers !
Hear, hear. I’ll never be unsalted over Aoe3’s handling.
@coyotekiller114 @OperaticShip743 I decided to give my point of view with this beautiful controversial testament.
I hope it’s clear what I think about all this.
It’s the best nickname I’ve ever been given, I spit out all the chocolate milk hahaha
You’re funny. But blaming one party for the decisions of another party, when the first has had literally no inputs to the actions of the second, is the clinical definition of manipulative and toxic behaviour. This is on top of other inaccuracies and outright lies written there. Particularly the fact that aoe3 and aom share a good portion of that toxic community, yet somehow that’s fine in aom but bad in aoe3. Also launching some accusations and then preventing the ones accused to give a reply is also toxic behaviour and even illegal in some parts of the world.
If your post was sanctioned by the marketing department of WE, then there’s no hope for the age of empires saga and it is only a matter of time until the other projects tank too.
That’s my 2 cents. Feel free to delete my post after reading it.
Thanks.
Whoever thinks the decision wasn’t purely financial is delusional (scentific definition).
FYI other communites are not very peaceful either for the past year.
And why do you close your own topic (as a mod)? Let it open for discussions.
Okay, I respect your opinion. I still think that a significant part of the blame for how things turned out is ours. I really think we should be self-critical. I also want to add that everything I said is how I saw things, but it is the truth, discuss it with the community.
I’ve been dealing with other communities for a long time. I’m serious when I say that we’ve gone too far with our behavior. Obviously, there’s much more to this forum than this, and on the other platforms too, and it’s crazy.
At the last minute, I decided to close it. I don’t know if it’s the right decision, but I’d rather let it circulate internally within the community first and at least get some discussion going, since we had so much to do with everything that happened with aoe3. The sad truth is that no one has dared to bring it up yet.
Blaming the consumer for being dissatisfied is a wild take. Consumers make their wants known and producers weigh these and act (or don’t). That’s basic economics.
And this community is mostly positive. I’ve met a good deal of people who even tho since my kid I’ve not much time but can still drop by streams, support events, and talk. Far more positivity even if the memes get a bit esoteric.
The simple fact is WE promoted a product they cancelled and the backlash wasn’t handled well. There is still a market for Aoe3 clearly and if they want to capitalize on it they will. They’ll just need to figured out how to move past the ending. Not the fans fault, we didn’t bully a VA or attack a McDonald’s.
