I love age of empires, I played the first age of empires when I was 5, it introduced me to gaming and sparked a great interest in history. But this just seems like an excuse to tape a popular franchise name on a a micro transaction money scheme. Ive been playing COH online and im extremely scared of the micro transaction elements of that game. But I don't much like COH either so i wasn't too bothered, but now i see they are taking a great franchise i have a long history with and instead of making a proper sequel to it that people want ,they are trying to use it as a scam to con gamers out of whatever money they can.
Many of you may be say 'We don't even know what it will be like!" and that its too early to judge, but from what we've seen it looks nothing like Age of Empires, and thats enough to turn me off.
I thought Microsoft backed off making games for the PC market because they saw no money in it. I really don't think they give a damn about this game, or the PC in general. As far as I know no one from Ensemble is doing it, that alone is worriesome and between the art style and the setup, it seems more like Farmville than an Actual RTS. I will say that the persistent world thing they mentioned could be good. But not if the game around is complete garbage. I also hope they simply let you buy the game for 50 bucks or whatever and give you full access to things like COH proposed.
Anyone else not happy about the direction this game is going in?
Age of Empires Online
Game » consists of 1 releases. Released Aug 16, 2011
One of the best-selling real time strategy franchises returns with Age of Empires Online, Microsoft's first title to utilize a free-to-play model. The game is no longer playable, as its servers were shut down in July 2014.
This game makes me angry.
I need to see more of this game then I'm shown right now.
I really can't see a persistent world in AOE because the game always ends in 2-4 hours, so unless they're completely overhauling the game's core ideas then I don't know how this is gonna work.
I was honestly expecting the series to follow the art packet that came with AOE III special edition, which showed a roman soldier with I under it, a knight with II, a colonial soldier with III, a vietnam soldier with IV, and a futuristic guy with V.
So the next game should've been in the modern era.
But at this situation, where all the games made right now ARE in the modern era or future era, then screw that, I'd rather have Roman era.
I think this game is going to be a spinoff, for the record, just like Mythologies, because it doesn't carry the title IV in it, just like Mythologies didn't carry a III.
For the record, I'd have rather had them go back to Medieval, the Saracens were cool :D
As odd a choice as it seems to make this rather than AOE IV, wouldn't it be great for AOE to be the game to nail the free to play model?
Maybe this will comfort you guys:
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/14666-age-of-empires-online-team-is-75-veterans/
It's only persistent capital cities, from what I've read. It seems weird, that I agree, but I have faith in the team behind it.
I've registered to be in the beta, so I'll have to wait and see. If I get in though, I apparently can't talk about it.
" I played it. It's plays like Age of Empires. Hell, the game had no name for a while and I guessed it correctly weeks ago by just playing it.Can't say much more than that. "How did you play the game, are you in the beta? And these types of topics are starting to get annoying, if you don't like the game, then don't play it. I think the game looks nice and AoE is my favourite RTS franchise.
It can't be worse than Age of Empires 3 can it?
I don't even understand what it's gonna be, so I'll withhold judgement.
@ISuperGamerI said:
" @Vager said:" I played it. It's plays like Age of Empires. Hell, the game had no name for a while and I guessed it correctly weeks ago by just playing it.Can't say much more than that. "How did you play the game, are you in the beta? And these types of topics are starting to get annoying, if you don't like the game, then don't play it. I think the game looks nice and AoE is my favourite RTS franchise. "
If you don't like the thread, then don't read it.
Im pretty much the exact same, one of the first games I ever played, oh the nostalgia...." I love age of empires, I played the first age of empires when I was 5, it introduced me to gaming and sparked a great interest in history."
The persistent world elements are only a graphical representation of your RTS awesomeness. The questing are essentially is based on you quelling skirmishes, occupying provinces and so on. Yes it's quite a bit stripped down and cartoony looking but that is the price to be paid to help bring this game to the masses.
I played a lot of the first to AOEs, and I played an early build of AOE Online. It's a solid title, go and get into the BETA. If you don't like it those AoE discs still spin.. I know mine still do.
As for mini transactions.. they're nothing to be afraid of. We all want developers to keep their jobs, the only way that's going to happen is if publishers find ways to make money. If you want to support a product and a team, buy, if not, don't. It's not rocket surgery.
I'm enjoying it so far, but I haven't played any of the other AOE games, so my opinion is that of a complete noob. I'm playing it as a single player game - not interested in the multiplayer aspects all that much.
It does get in your face right from the start trying to get you to spend money. Once I'd played it a bit for free I felt that $20 was pretty reasonable so I just bought a single premium pack for Greece -0 since then it has largely stopped bugging me to buy more. That might change as I get a bit further in, but we'll wait and see.
The graphics are nothing amazing but they do suit the game style, and it looks like it's run on anything.
As far as the actual game goes - once you get past the whole "central city" crap, and get to the missions, the actual gameplay is reasonably complex. While I haven't played any AOE before, I have played a lot of other single-player RTS's, and AOE Online is much like any other RTS that focuses on resource gathering. Can be a bit slow at times, and the unit control seems a bit ham-fisted. It can be tough to execute complex strategy - it tends to be "collect all your units and send them against a target, wait for ti to die, then move onto the next".
Having said that it's still pretty entertaining - the unit progression is satisfying and the missions are well constructed. The difficulty level is pretty low so far - hopefully it will ramp up a bit as I get further in.
My live username is "BinaryFart" - hit me up in game if you like :)
I might like it if it fucking worked. Too late now, though - I've already put in way more effort than should be necessary to play a free game.
I played for a short while (enough to do 2 quests) and quit, and when I went to start it back up it didn't work. I downloaded the hotfix they suggest, I've reinstalled multiple times, but to no avail.
I wouldn't call it F2P at all. The free stuff is basically just an extended demo. You are crippled in terms of power and functionality without buying the civilizations.
Now I don't have a problem with paying for the game, that's fine. But at $20 a civ, what if I want to play other civs, with the already planned 4, that's $80 just if I want to properly play all the civs. And you know there will be even more $stuff down the line that you will need to shell out for in order to stay competitive.
The game is not of the quality where I would see myself spending more then the standard retail $50 on it.
@Tennmuerti: Isn't that the case with most F2P? If you want to buy everything, these thing cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
At least once you buy a civ here, you've bought everything for that civ. 20 bucks ain't no "micro" transaction, but it's a better alternative to a shitload of small ones.
Well for one I'm not talking about everything I'm just talking the basic functionality. Just buying 4 civs is already more then retail price. Pay just $20 and you are stuck playing only one race forever.
The bigger issue here is that a lot of good F2P games don't completely cripple you in terms of gameplay functionality. They offer cosmetic enchancements or ways to make your progression faster etc. or they open up more options and alternatives to what you already have AoE:online does not. It straight up makes you better/faster/stronger. AoE:online without the moolah is a straigh up crippled product with a very large amount of missing functionality and gameplay.
Like Jeff mentioned this is more akin to a shareware model rather then F2P.
However unlike shareware of the days of yore it is very likely if not inevitable for the game price to far exceed standard retail price if you will want to stay competitive against other players in the near future.
@Mikemcn: You're not saying anything we, or at least i didn't already think. I watched the quicklook for 10 minutes and whatever small interest i had for playing an AoE multiplayer game died in those 10 minutes.Honestly, I wouldn't take those 10 minutes very seriously. First of all, Brad is just a slow, methodical player. In the time it took him to actually start moving out, I would have won the mission. I'm not hatin', I'm just saying he plays slower than required, which he even admits in the video.
Furthermore, it's relatively early on, and the game actually has a decent amount of depth and complexity. It's worth actually playing before judging. It actually controls and plays well.
@Sammo21: Sorry, I've been away from the site for a while. I don't have an issue with the pricing structure, although I think the premium content price point is kind of high. I can see them lowering the prices of some of the premium content the longer the game is out and possibly even bundling some of it. Regardless of the premium prices... you get to play for free. I don't see how you can complain about free.
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