Two decades

[Kingfisher1787]

@Kingfisher1787

it’s impressive how poorly they managed everything. 2 years ago they could have given us a send off patch focused on balance and bug fixes. They could have told us how much they enjoyed working on the game and most of the community would have thought things ended on a high note, especially if there were a few signs it was coming.

But let’s say they don’t do that. Instead of announcing a DLC, announce that it’s been a joy to have updated the game and that they will be working on minor balance issues and bug fixes going forward with one-to-two small patches per year until the game is stable and doesn’t have any major issues remaining.

Okay, but they had no foresight so they announced the DLC, figuring it’s a later problem. In October of 2024 announce it will be coming in October of 2025 for the 20 year anniversary. Get some community help (I’d imagine there are a few talented modders could be convinced to help out on a DLC for a small paycheck and having their names in the credits). Or just give it the development time required to actually make fairly simple 2 euro civs. Go traditional with them, each having roughly 1-2 truly unique units and 0-1 UBs. At least 70% of the cards can be totally recycled, and a sizable subset of the player base would actually find a “vanilla feel” very comforting after some of the DE civs.

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.