Age of Mythology: Retold has tremendous potential if done right, and the reason players are leaving is the lack of content.
The gods in Arena mode were quite frankly disappointing, so the new DLC needs to deliver not only a good Chinese pantheon but also additional content for casual and multiplayer players.
Let’s hope for the best, as I want Age of Mythology: Retold to receive new content for many years.
I forgot to mention the utter condescending attitude towards all other players not in the top 100. As if it takes a genius to understand an RTS game. Its all about how fast you can move the mouse, not that you are a superior species. As if I never saw a pro game with commentary. Sheesh.
I said it before and I will say it again. This elitist attitude “pro players” show has not only killed individual RTS games but the entire RTS genre. Between being such a loud minirity the studios don’t even know there are RTS players who aren’t about competitive PvP and climbing the leaderboard, and esports turnaments in Korea with big money attached to it, it caused to abandon their games identity and completely rewrite the lore and redesign their aesthetics and completely redoing their games balace, beding over backwards to that scene, catering to them exclusively, alienating 80% of the players, producing games that are literally unplayable, unless you do a lot of PvP, loose money big time, and then give up on RTS games entirely.
It’s only about now that the RTS genre is slowly crawling back after over a decade of barely even existing.
don’t think there is, at least not in aoe2. pro players regularly play teams with lower ranked viewers and there is community games with all skill levels allowed to play. There is also low elo legends series which is very popular. Maybe in other aoe games you talking about
I think part of the reason game studios cater the pro player scene is that they give a lot of (largely) free exposure (in effect advertising) for the game, and helps keep the game in more of a public spotlight than it might otherwise, which can help drive sales. But the downside is what you mention; it can end up alienating casual players. Honestly I think this is more of a concern in AOE2 where there is more of a pro scene, but it can come up here in AOM as well. MS had shown with some of their AOE2 projects last year that they are at least trying to keep the single player side of the fence in mind (as scuffed as Victors & Vanquished over there, and Arena of the Gods over here was, at least they show that we’re on their mind) and I hope that the message they got from poor reception was “people wanted this but were disappointed how we did it, lets improve” as opposed to “welp people didn’t want that, lets just focus on PVP” but time will tell how they respond.
I remember an interview on Gamestar with EA in 2005 or 2006, where it was about C&C3. They said they were aiming for the esport throne held by Starcraft. The entire interview was all about competitive PvP, graphics, esports, and the challenges in creating an observer mode.
Barely anthing about story or lore.
In the final game, most of the lore from the previous games was either completely rewritten from scratch, scrapped entirely, or poorly summarized in short text blurbs that could be unlocked as part of an ingame database. And that game became the sole reference for C&C lore for many players that joined the C&C community with that game.
The gameplay was essentially a copy of RA2 with a few elements of Generals added to it.
When it comes to story and plot, it was framed as a sequel to Tiberian Sun, but when it comes to faction design and actual plot, it was Tiberian Dawn all over again, with a sci-fi coat of paint, and with a more or less generic Alien Invasion added on top.
The way Tiberium worked was also completely rewritten. While it remained a green crystal that comes out of the ground that can ebe harvested for money, the lore behind it is completely different, with no trace of the original lore left, safe for one or two lines in the ingame database, saying it “evolved”. That way, and how it was implemented in the game, made it a generic resource, completely void of the threat it represented in the past as well. Yes, the story still tells us it’s dangerous, but you don’t feel that in the gameplay. Not once. Not even in the most extreme situations.
And the tiberium ecosystem with the mutated landscapes from Firestorm? Veinhole monsters, and other Tiberium life that could threaten the players troops and even the base? Gone, without as much as a mention in the database. (Maybe half a sentence about how Tiberium had almost organic seeming appearence, before it evolved.)
Like, even if you agree that it was the best entry in the series, gameplay wise, and there are valid points to that claim, you can’t deny that the lore was changed and re-written in a massive way. Something EA would not be able to get away with today. Despite none of the lore changes having anything to do with politics, other than making the political situation easier to understand for someone who has no idea about the lore and just has one look at an ongoing match.
There are people who even prefer the new lore. I STRONGLY prefer the old lore. Even tho some aspects of the new lore are cool and make sense, I disagree with the majority of the retcons.
And the balance patches always favored fast paced, spammy multiplayer tactics, with base building features being weaker than in previous games from the very beginning, and getting weaker as patches came in, which hurt the singleplayer campaign, to the point of certain missions becoming almost unwinnable that were previously well managable. Like cranes not being able to make turrets made a big impact.
Sorry, was a bit of a rant, and went way over board.
But I assume you get the point.
@Armilus Yes, the old lore is much better. Despite its age, I only played the first C&C, I didn’t like playing the later ones. You could feel the passion of the devs and studios for video games. They were trying to make good games instead of focusing on the esport scene or competition at all costs. The 1st one is still a masterpiece like no one makes any more these days. Long live Kane! Peace through power.