Why is aom retold losing players so fast?

I mean, AoM always had fewer players than the other games so I sum it up as reverting to the norm. It is a beloved game for sure so enjoy it on its own merits and stop worrying about player numbers. AoMR has a new game mode coming, and two expansions as well.

It reviewed well and didn’t have a poor launch. I do not understand the anxiety.

There’s a regional difference between 3DE and AoM:R, so they peak at different times:

I’d say they are even right now, though it’s unclear how much more AoM:R will drop or increase when DLC’s get released.

The sad thing is that AoM had so much potential. Yes, AoM Classic was always the younger sibling in the series, but that was entirely due to its population cap. (We’re talking about a game that, in the late stages, would only reach around 15 units on the field at once.)

With AoM Retold, there was immense potential to elevate this and possibly even rival AoE4, if not surpass it.

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All the games have great potential simply because they’re all objectively good games to begin with. ES made some questionable decisions with AoE3 (locking cards behind home city levels) fast forward to 2024 and despite hardly anything going on with 3DE this year, it is still chugging away with solid numbers for an RTS. If I have learned anything over the years is that these games do not cannibalize each other.

Thinking AoMR was going to overtake AoEIV numbers sounds like wishful thinking/high expectations. Stop comparing and start enjoying.

I see where this mindset is heading as someone whose primary game has been AoE3 since 2005 and 3DE. You know, the black sheep of the franchise and the less-than-great rapport us players have with WE. Despite that, we’ve received awesome updates over the years, and 4 DLC with a 5th somewhere out in the wild.

AoMR players have nothing to worry about.

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Yes, AoE3 is marginalized due to its card system, just like AoM Classic was held back by its low population cap.

The difference is that you can’t reform the card system in AoE3 without altering the entire game, whereas increasing the population cap in AoM was more feasible

I know I quit after finishing the campaign. Only reason for me to come back is Arena of the Gods.

I didn’t expect this thread to have so many replies. Seems like people do worry about their favourite game dying xD

AOE3 has a bunch of cool concepts that could have been so much better, but the pieces aren’t put together correctly. There are a bunch of cool cards that could possibly be put together into awesome combos, but all too many of them are best summed up as “noob trap” due there being a bunch of cards that give you free units such as the “3 settler/villager” card in age one, which is then combined with the fact that age one needs a little longer to be allowed to breath and build up a strategy in AOE3. I’d personally lengthen it a bit so that the player could reliably get 3 shipments in in that age and get rid of the extra settler shipments in age 1.

Same as fimbulwinter!

I guess the game is overhyped. And a lot people pretend that aom is their childhood memory and favourite game of all time etc. In reality they mostly just play aoe2 or aoe3…

So on release lots of people try it, soon realised the game is not that fun, as expected, then uninstall game

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Or the contrary, people have the game as their childhood memory, brought the game, played the campaign and skirmish matches, got satisfied and moved on.

I don’t know why people expect that most RTS players play daily as a competitive game. In my childhood all my friends played AoM but not a single one played competitive.

Number of copies sold is a much more important number than the daily players, specially for the studio.

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I’ll speak for myself here: I’m not nostalgic at all, ZERO!

So, why did I see potential in AoM Retold?

  • AoM Retold has the perfect civ system (between casual and competitive): While AoE2 has identical civs and other games like AoE3 and AoE4 have unique civs for each faction, AoM Retold finds the perfect balance. It groups factions by cultural blocks (Norse, Greeks, etc.) and then distinguishes sub-factions within those groups, similar to AoE2.
  • AoM has the best way to advance through ages: You choose from multiple options that unlock units, powers, buildings, upgrades, and more, letting you build your civ in-game. The closest comparison is AoE4, but AoM does it in a more complex

.
Of course, the game needed changes—no wonder it was the least-played of the series (and NO, it wasn’t because it was mythological, lol).

  • The population cap was a serious issue, and I was actually the first to bring it up here on the forum. SEP. 2023
  • Then… I don’t get the choice to eliminate defensive buildings… etc.

The thing is, we say an rts stays alive, it means online multiplayer that is alive. Campaign and skirmish games has no need for the game to be alive they can still play whatever. The purpose of analysing how many players are active is to see if the game has a healthy multiplayer for further development and how easy it is to find games online. If you try to play aoe1 now you can not find a lobby or an opponent in ranked because the game is dead. But you can still play skirmish vs AI.

Of course replayability is an important thing for a game. For a story narrative game the game is pretty much played once, then once all the missions are done, it is done. Online multiplayer games are replayable and it keeps players in the game

You said that, but it being mythological indeed hurt age of mythology. People have in mind that ‘Age of’ series is historical and then they get a game with fantastical elements like Warcraft. Lots of people like games like Command and Conquer and Age of Empires but deslike Warcraft and mythology.

How many RTS games we already have in the graveyard that tried to hyper focus on competitive multiplayer and died…?

What we normally have is RTS games that are very fun to play alone or with a friend that people get interested enough to play multiplayer.

If the AoM game itself is not fun enough that people don’t buy copies of the game or the new expansions, then that’s when its dead.

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Another series comes to my mind, TOTAL WAR, which was 100% historical from the beginning. Then came a mythological game (TW warhammer), and it became the best-selling title of the series (in a series that’s traditionally historical).

Ultimately, APART OF THE PREFERENCES, people tend to prioritize gameplay over setting. You may have a preference for historical games, but, except for extreme cases (e.g., someone with a strong aversion to mythology), people tend to prioritize gameplay. Just as some people may not prefer the medieval period as their favorite era but still favor Age 2, or in my particular case, my favorite era is the Middle Ages, and my favorite game is Age 3

Age of Mythology Retold has more active players than AoE3 without a doubt for 2 reasons:

  1. There are a lot of AoM players on Xbox Live/Consoles compared to AoE3.

  2. In both 1vs1 and team games you can see the active players and AoM has three times as many active players.

That’s not to mention that there will be a replayable game mode like Arena of the Gods in a little while and a DLC that could make more people loyal.

I can confirm when playing comp stomps between AoE III DE and AoMR I see more people from XBox in AoMR and its not even close (both before and especially after the Free Trial version for AoE III DE). When I see someone playing AoE III DE from Xbox it surprises me because outside of myself it seems so uncommon.

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Isn’t this because of the Warhammer brand? Space Marine is selling like hotcakes. The ironically equivalent to AoM would be Total War Troy, and they feared the mythologically aspect, bringing it later into a DLC along with a historical mode. I don’t know if it sold well.

I like fantasy very much (Warcraft 3 one of my favourite RTS), but by paying attention to random people and general public, people didn’t liked fantasy very much. Things changed a lot recently with fantasy media becoming mainstream.

Think this is my takeaway too. The game was never built from the ground up to maintain a consistent multiplayer base, and I’m not sure if there were enough additions or changes to push the game in that direction. In other words; why did we expect it to do any different from the original?

Making a game with this intention in mind probably involves many decisions that were just absent here. I’m not sure if I could personally pinpoint what those decisions could have been, though.

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