Recently just played AOE3 with a few friends, we were an hour into the game when suddenly we got an Out of Sync error and all of us got kicked out to the menu during the heat of the match. This has been going on since 2005 or so from what I can tell with every game that uses ESO. It is extremely simple to exploit, yet occurs easily on its own anyway. I can’t remember the last full match I finished in AOE3 online. Please don’t use ESO for AOE4, implement a different online service that isn’t exploitable if you (Relic) haven’t already.
It’s probably naive of me to even think they’d use anything but ESO, in which case, god save us all.
Ensemble Studios developed ESO, Ensemble Studios Online. Since the studio has been defunct for many years, it doesn’t make any sense for Relic Entertainment to use the same code as ESO for Age of Empires IV online multiplayer. You can be rest assured Relic Entertainment will use a more modern solution.
If you would like to troubleshoot your out of sync errors with ESO, please create a topic in #age-of-empires-iii:aoe-iii-support.
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That’s true and gives some peace of mind. I’ll try and delete my whole AOE3 folder and reinstall, maybe something is messing with it.
This is not even really at all about ESO. It is a common misconception that ESO handles anything during online matches, while in fact you can complete a match successfully without any issue even when meanwhile the ESO server completely shuts down / catches fire and burns to ashes / gets nuked from orbit / whatever.
Out of sync error indicates a synchronization error between the players participating in a given match, and it can happen regardless of whether you’re playing over ESO or Gameranger or LAN or anything. Unfortunately, some players have been known to exploit this vulnerability of the peer-to-peer networking, and trigger an out-of-sync error intentionally in order to avoid losing games.
It is likely that AoE4 won’t use peer-to-peer networking, and there will be a server actively handling matches. It is absolutely certain that server won’t be ESO, which is essentially a discontinued, barely-running legacy service. It is quite sure ESO will be dropped even for AoE3:DE, in favor of Xbox Live servers (like the other DEs).
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