So it’s no secret that the DLC details are out and it kinda sucks for the average player who frequents an AOE2 community. The DLC is a not even subtle attempt to jebait the Vietnamese AOE1 players into using an official Microsoft™ Product™ to play their AOE1. It is pretty clear that we weren’t much of a factor in this expansions creation, and it explains the weird prerelease cycle it’s had compared to the other expansions. I don’t think Forgotten Empires really expects that they’ll be able to stoke american/european/south american/non-vietnam Asia interest in this content.
If you’re an Age 2 fan that’s interested in Age 2 this expansion offers you:
-Maybe one of the campaigns will be played as the AOE2 version of the Romans, so MAYBE 1 campaign
-An non-ranked only Civ
It’s frankly abysmal.
If you’re a general Age fan that’s interested in having a better way to play Age 1 this expansion offers you:
-The quality of life for AOE1 you had hoped it’s definitive edition would have given you
-17 Civs
-3 Campaigns (Most civs don’t have campaigns this means)
-A new separate multiplayer mode from AOE2, which means it’s livelihood isn’t guaranteed, remember the now dead Battle Royale mode? What if these 17 civs are locked into a completely dead multiplayer, with no campaigns to play them in? At that point nothing is left but
This could end up alright for you, or it could be abysmal.
So here’s how I think the expansion pack needs to play out with updates and changes to make it a worthwhile purchase.
-Absolutely 100% necessary that a setting for custom made games that allows crossover games be made to ensure utility of the 17 civs into the future. With even things like trade making it over to this update of AOE1 there’s really zero reason that the 17 civs shouldn’t be able to at least co-exist in a casual environment. Nobody is saying they should be in ranked AOE2, that it should be mandatory for custom games to allow AOE1 civs, or anything like that, but the option to crossover with them would be fun and give these civs a much needed avenue to guaranteed usage.
-Rome needs to be ranked capable if it’s going to exist. This was a lazy, inexcusable choice in the first place and needs to be resolved ASAP post-launch. They’re literally no more drastic than anything else you’ve been adding to the game in terms of game design, it’s simply an unwillingness to balance the civ because AOE2 players weren’t the financial focus of this DLC. Lazy lazy lazy.
-AOE1 needs guarantee of continuing updates and balance changes. An update that gives each civ a unique unit should absolutely be one of the first things in the pipeline for AOE1(2).
-You (probably) can’t make expansion packs for an expansion pack, but AOE1 should receive small-purchase campaign packs to fill out the content that the 17 civs can experience. 3 campaigns between 17 civs is pitiful and no amount of fixing the other stuff will fix that.
This is just a further issue of laziness in this expansion implementation. Courting Vietnam was more important than the expansions quality, so instead of creating a rough stat parity between the two we have this mess.
It’s not that controversial, it’s just annoying. If there’s going to be 100 threads, please stop posting a counter on every single one. Just comment on the 100th thread or something, and not on all the others.
What would be a good idea was turning into a AoE 1.5, bringing the game to the AoE 2 gameplay and designs with a hybrid system and not just bringing Aoe 1 like it is.
You aren’t adding anything worthwhile to the threads by posting a count, and because you’ve done it on 70+ of them or so, it’s definitely spam. That makes it annoying.
I fully agreed with your post up to here. But this is just a wacky, if semi-popular idea that’s best left up to modders instead of devoting more dev resources to questionable endeavors. At most I would suggest that the Editor units of AoE1 be available in AoE2, so that enthusiasts could create their own such whimsical matches.
Honestly, I’m more with you on this than not (although yeah, you should stop). I understand why people are annoyed with you, but the needless proliferation of dozens of RoR threads is way more annoying, IMO, whereas pointing it out is a secondary and more minor annoyance. RN the forum is more of a fustercluck than when the “Great Bombard” guy spammed all his Turks threads before he was finally banned. Wish people could have a little more focus and restraint and contain the discussion in up to a dozen threads, instead of 70 or wherever we’re at now…
Some people only read the top 3 discussions which is why we get so many of the same, in fact, that is what happened to my comments, they were a joke to my discussion and a form of Sarcasm.
Please if you haven’t before l, just read the first 5 posts of the link below and you would understand what I meant.
