We're not getting 2 DLCs this year, but 4!

Hype!!

They’re totally not just fragmenting the content pack planned for this year for greater revenue and to make up the mismanagement which has pushed most of the content for later this year.

And before you react negatively, I do genuinely prefer this and have asked for it in the past, to get parts of a DLC rather than wait a year or two for all of it at once.

However, it feels disingenuous to present it like so. More than a year of actual silence, followed up with “surprise 2 DLCs”! Is honesty too much to ask for from these studios? Does every interaction have to be some cloak and dagger act?

How about this, yea? “We’re splitting up our DLC into two packs so that we have more time to polish and finish parts of it for later this year, we decided to do this so you may enjoy some of the content before summer!”

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It is actually good thing,

They could do more, cheaper and thematic DLCs, wchich would sell better, than 1 big mix.

I do not like, how is Japanesse civilisation “packed” with muslim campaign and thematically unrelated variant civs in The Sultans Ascend…

I would prefer thematical Jappanisse addon with Japanesse civ and few missions

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I never could have predicted that getting two DLC in a year would bring a wave of conspiracy and suspicion.

They make the largest DLC for 15$, it’s a scam and a money grab.

They release 2 DLC in a year after having no DLC last year, it’s a scam and a money grab.

Apparently, the shock and confusion from having no communication means the developers were secretly plotting against us the whole time!

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They’re doing it how I prefer and have asked for in the past. However I’m still going to make a negative post whining about it. OK.

Do you enjoy being treated like a fool? Then good news everyone: I have some bad news to share.

Do you enjoy acting like a fool? I’ve got good news for you, it’s not hard. Start by pretending that when gamers who love RTS are happy when they get more quality content it means they think the devs, publishers and stock holders are all saints doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. /s I’ve paid a total of around $30 for all of the content in AoE 4 and gotten an insane value from campaigns and multiplayer. Now we’re getting more spaced out in two 2025 releases. Oh man, that really is terrible and I’ll be such a fool to enjoy it. LOL.

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I really don’t understand where this negative view comes from toward the developers of AoE4, as I think they have done a great job with AoE4 over time.

The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is their communication with the community, but that’s easier said than done. It’s hard to speak when they aren’t ready to talk about upcoming news. But apart from that, AoE4 is, in my opinion, the best title in the franchise, and it has the potential to become even greater in the future if handled with care.

There is no way for any of us to know how much content will be in each DLC or what type of content, as we simply do not have that information yet. People base their opinions and assumptions on a general overview map for all Microsoft titles for 2025 and complain that there is not enough information for AoE4 DLCs.

Of course it does not, as they said themselves they will give us a deep dive later, giving us more details about what is to come. I do not understand how any of this can be considered bad when we know nothing yet apart from the small overview from the roadmap announcement.

Let us wait until we have all the information before we start forming opinions. I have no reason to doubt their commitment and support, as up to today they have done a great job with AoE4.

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This game could have had plenty of DLC by now if the management wasn’t so atrocious. Previous DLC sold really well. No one said they should do it for free, but that’s what they ended up doing because they couldn’t organize themselves to release more frequent paid content. And now they’re splitting the content into smaller pieces to compensate for that. That’s still somewhat fine. But what’s not fine is lying to your customers and treating them like they’re idiots.

I keep hearing that, yet the numbers stay the same. It’s certainly the most modern title in the franchise, but objectively speaking AoE2 is appreciated more.

Numbers will always change, and AoE2 has decades of content, so it is not strange to see more numbers for an older game with that much content.

Give AoE4 time, and I am positive it will reflect similar, if not more, numbers in the future. But regardless, it has a very healthy player base, so it does not matter that it is not on the same level as AoE2 right now.

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Well, then you’ll be happy to know there is none of that in this thread. I am and have always directed my criticism towards management and the overall production strategy. I’ve stated in this post even that this is what I prefer, and in other posts how much I enjoy the game.

No, I will not wait and I find it impolite for you, Gorb and Medic constantly entering threads to tell everyone to withhold from stating their opinions. There is plenty of information to go off on and you three keep pretending that any opinion built on available information to be invalid. If you think so, stop replying to said invalid opinions.

This thread in particular is pointing out the manner in which things are presented to the customers, which I have always had a problem with.

I don’t think I’ve ever told someone to not say something. If you make a faulty claim without evidence and I call you on it, that’s a very different thing.

Making things up about other posters while complaining about “impoliteness” is a bit rich.

Can’t we work together instead of against each other?

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You derail every thread to talk about semantics and keep trying to erode any discussion trying to tackle subjects of which we, can never get real insight on due to the nature of legality and customer, developer relations.

These threads can exist without the presence of contrarians inherently against speculation. Every thread, every comment seems to be a vendetta or personal principle against speculation. This being a forum, it is perfectly acceptable and in the realm of possibility–save yourself the energy and try to add to things rather than detracting.

Forums work best when those interested actually contribute. So, I invite you to try and instead contribute to this thread and focus on the criticism for the way in which the developers keep treating us, rather than change this into a thread about you three. Let’s keep this topic on its rails.

Giving my opinion, however uncharitably you want to phrase it, is not the same as claiming a forum poster wants you to “withhold your opinion”.

These are two very different things. You can also call this “semantics” if you want, but I don’t think you’d like it if done to you. So can we move forward more constructively please? So we can contribute to this or any thread without these kinds of attacks?

Not at all. Speculate away!

Saying “the developers are doing X” is not speculating. Whether X is positive or negative.

You’re confusing disagreement with some kind of silencing. I disagree with you about how the developers are treating us. I am allowed to, correct?

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I’ve never specifically told anyone (to my knowledge) not to share their opinions. I’m only sharing my personal opinions and suggesting we shouldn’t assume anything without all the details. That’s common sense to me, but you do what feels best for you.

Everyone has the right to feel however they choose, but can we at least stick to the facts and not make things up just because we feel a certain way?

Plenty of information is available about the two new DLCs?

Where is that information that I haven’t seen? As far as I know, all we know is the small overview shared on the roadmap for all their titles, and that more details specifically about the two DLCs will be shared at a later date with a deep dive. I’m not saying you can’t form an opinion on this limited information; you can, but I think it’s unwise considering we don’t know all the details yet. How can any of us create an honest opinion that way?

This is literally a post speculating the cause for a sudden 2 DLC announcement. What do you expect? Genuinely. It’s like a priest walking into a stripclub.

This is literally a post speculating the cause for a sudden 2 DLC announcement. Sigh, what can I say? You three have a personal issue with speculation and you can’t help but comment in every thread and post that does so. I urge you to contribute to threads that are meaningful to you instead of telling others off.

You’re right. You didn’t tell others to not share their opinions. Worse, you told them to hold off from forming them to begin with.

In case you’re still confused, the post isn’t about the DLCs themselves. It is metacommentary on how we got to a point of announcing 2 DLCs suddenly after more than a year of waiting in mostly silence. The speculation is completely warranted for someone active on these forums. This isn’t some random comment out of nowhere. They’re thoughts built upon months of nothing to work with.

Granted, I firmly believe that while there is bad management involved, communication is pretty damn bad. Last year’s DLC was great and honestly, had they communicated it better and more thoroughly and maybe been more active rather than have players rely on faith alone, I think I would have had way fewer problems with them.

It is quite possible the same is happening now. They could be working on two great DLCs, but from how they are communicating, it is hard not to be skeptical about it. We’ll see, as you say, but I can still rant on about how they are awful and relaying their products.

My working theory is that they split one DLC. I don’t have enough faith in them currently to think otherwise. I’m happy to be proven wrong. And if this is true, then I’m not a fan of how they’ve communicated this.

I’ve never told anyone they can’t speculate.

Again, there is no issue in speculating. You are just making up things at this point, like me having issues with speculating. I’m doing it myself around these forums. The issue is how certain comments are written as facts and not as an opinion/speculation on a topic where we don’t have all the information to form an honest opinion about it.

Where have I ever said to someone to hold off from forming an opinion? I think you either misread my previous comments or took them the wrong way. Perhaps I didn’t write it clearly enough, as English is not my mother tongue, but I can guarantee you that I don’t go around the forum with that purpose in mind.

You are right about the communication; they could do a better job at not keeping us in the dark, but at the same time, I understand that if there is nothing ready to share, then what can they tell us? It’s an issue I don’t have the right answer for, but I do see it and feel it just like anyone else. Every time we go into another year of silence is not great, but I understand why it happens.

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I’m not one to play with semantics and bother people about the lack of proper communication. What you’ve written is effectively this. Unless you mean otherwise, I urge you to correct it. But, you approached this post with the mindset can be summarized with that last comment alone. That we ought to not FORM opinions UNTIL we have ALL the information.

You understand that this means the post shouldn’t even exist, right? Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but that is what these words mean. Again; I don’t play around with semantics. So please correct me in your stance.

That’s a good excuse. Except AoE2 still has more people active on the 1v1 ladder. I think it was 50% more active players last time I checked. It’s hard to attribute that to more content, especially since AoE4 civs are much more distinct. If AoE4 was done right, being newer and more modern should have made it comparatively popular at least in the short term, if not more popular. The reality that we need to accept is that it’s not as popular, in any department. So it’s hard to claim it’s the best entry in the franchise, even if it is your favorite one (or mine).

You might argue that AoE2 is too high of a bar. But that bar could have been lowered with better support: more frequent paid content, addressing the players’ biggest gripes (how often do you hear people complaining about the AI breaking, or them being matched against much stronger opponents in team games?), or improving what players disliked about the entry to begin with (removing the input delay, improving the quality of textures and animations, adding historical flavor to the UI).

This is most probably the management’s fault (although the team working on the game doesn’t strike me as incredibly competent either), but the game has been neglected and often felt like the bare minimum was done. There is no ambition here to make this entry the flagship of the series, and I don’t expect to ever see the graphics or the technical aspects improved at this point. Maybe in a DE version. I can still remember the overly wordy patches with very little actual content, that sounded like they were trying to justify their contributions rather than bring actual improvements to the game.

I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not saying that people can’t form opinions. Everyone has the right to express how they feel or what they think about it.

What I’m saying is that when we discuss things that aren’t confirmed, we should frame them as opinions or speculation rather than presenting them as facts. That way, we keep the conversation open and honest without misleading anyone. It’s totally fine to speculate and share personal perspectives, but until we have all the information, we should be careful not to state assumptions as truth.

Can we now move back to the topic? I’d love to continue this conversation.

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