Weird marketing

It feels like i’ve seen this same trebuchet documentary like 4 times now. They just keeps shoving this into promotional material and its actually pretty annoying. Surely you’d think they’ve filmed more for the campaign/promotional material.

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I watch gamescom trailer 15 Times and ım so so hyped. I agree op devs should give us hype making videos.

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It’s not Relic that does the marketing for the game it’s Worlds Edge.

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Relic has nothing to do with the marketing.I think Microsoft should already show some 20 min gameplay.Im not sure why are they doing this.The only reason is maybe , after closed beta , they want to make some changes , and then we might see a very long gameplay.They want to be 99 % ready.this is my guess

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Fair but my focus isn’t Relic, its more the promotional material. Of which Relic, World’s Edge, or Microsoft are in charge of.

Well I think that you should then make that clear. There were already posts similar to yours and they always put Relic on the spot eventhough they probably really don’t have a say in what is to be used in marketing or how it is to be used.

As far as I understand, the game will include clips with historical facts.
In AoE 2, we had textual historical references in the History section, and in AoE 4, the developers want to do this in the form of videos, I think this is quite interesting and much better than dry text. I’m certainly not completely sure about this information, but several bloggers have talked about it.

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I agree the marketing for this game has been very bad most of the time but let’s hope that after they have finalized the feedback from the CB they give the public at least one MP match so we can watch and talk about it without the NDA.

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yeah don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of them. Its just they keep saying its a “new reveal” and then we see the same recycled trebuchet clip.

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I think it’s a strange Microsoft NDA policy. The new Halo has exactly the same marketing situation, people are just as worried. I don’t know if this is a good choice for working with games, but this applies to all Microsoft games, not just AoE.

yeah np, i’ve edited it.

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Are you asking more treb-like vids to be released? Say, for catapults?

If so, I don’t really want more of them revealed in Marketing promos. The treb vid already gives us a good sense of what the interesting documentary-style vids will be like, so why not wait for the game’s release to see more of them and experience them firsthand for the first time while playing? I don’t personally want more vids spoiled early. What benefit would there be to seeing similar vids on mangonels/catapults, arrows, uniforms, shields, etc. pre-launch?

The treb-like vids are locked in stone; they’re not dynamic with each play-through – unlike actual gameplay. There’s a finite supply of vids, as well. And once you see one once, there may be little need or desire to view again. You’ve already admitted you’re already tired of seeing the treb video after 4 times; you maybe saw enough after just one time. If you buy the game, wouldn’t you be upset and bored if the game cut away to show you the treb video and a number of others you’ve already seen due to them having already been in promotional material that you saw once or more?

I just think they should be treated as precious gems that should be viewed when playing the actual game. To release more treb-like vids would be a little like watching a movie trailer for a funny movie where they put all the worthwhile jokes in the trailer, so that when you actually buy a ticket and watch the movie, everything was already spoiled and the movie isn’t funny or enjoyable.

On the other hand, I do agree with others (and you, if you’ve said this) about how more gameplay footage should be shown of the game, with like 1, 5, or 10+ mins of gameplay… not just the quick 1- or 2-second glimpses we’ve been getting. (Because gameplay is dynamic and ever-changing. No two matches will ever be exactly the same… unlike the treb-like videos.) And within those clips could definitely be long-form snippets of campaign gameplay. Not a ton of footage, and maybe not one complete ‘mission,’ so to speak… but enough to get a good sense of them.

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On the other hand AoE name is marketing by itself and if they make open beta before launch and it is good that’s all the marketing they need.

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20 mins of gameplay would be great! (once they’re ready)

In a recent interview, they said the beta build was (I’m paraphrasing since I don’t have the video in front of me, so don’t quote me) at least a month or two old. Once they incorporate some feedback from the beta, assuming they do, it’ll be great to see ‘current state’ footage :smiley:

I wonder what changes they’ve already made and what they plan. With them doing so many updates still (as also mentioned in that GAMESCOM vid I saw), that may be why we haven’t seen much footage yet. They could be waiting to lock it in to put their best foot forward, and then do a media blitz? If that’s the case, I look forward to it!

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I just want them to do long plays, that alone can sell the game. They don’t need to do anything else, just ask devs to stream and do play sessions.

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Im asking for different promotional material basically. Gameplay, actual indepth civ showcases. There is so much they could do. But instead they just keep posting the same video in Gamescon, Relic livestream Q & A etc. Its like they are afraid to show us anything else. Which is dumb imo.

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maybe? I still feel whoever is in charge of marketing could be doing a better job.

I’d like this as well but judging from the twitch stream last day they only did 55 minutes and before it ended the community manager said that they have to go back to their teams because they “miss” them.

I take it that they have still a lot of work to be done before the game is released, so they don’t get that time to stream for us. At least that’s my guess.

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I also think relic has nothing to do with art style

I think these kinds of threads are too pigeon holed into a single perspective: gamers.

With the current trend of making games more accessible to more people (we’re no longer in the 90’s/2000’s where games are made mostly for nerds) I’d imagine that this marketing campaign is aimed at parents/uncles/aunts/grandparents who may want to buy something educational for their child/niece/grandson/granddaughter. Or it’s to appeal to those who started playing AoE games in their childhood who are now parents (mostly) and may want to pass on that same delight that they had when they were young to their own children.

They’re also trying to differentiate themselves from Starcraft which really dominated the RTS competitive scene and is mostly centered around tight balance and intense competition so they are heavily leaning onto this “historical” brand.

Maybe this is just me but I haven’t heard of an RTS with a campaign that tries to teach about history (instead of merely having missions based on them) so I think it’s not bad for them to highlight this feature.

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