Why did the community leave the official AoE III forums?

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:20

Hi guys, I''m rhrmn (redhrts) who used to play Age of Empires Online and still occasionally plays Age of Empires II HD.

Anterior2 asked the following questions on the official forums:

"When did the AoE3 community leave these forums and go to ESO-C? The AoE3 section here is a wasteland and ESO-C has suddenly turned into a really active website overnight! It''s like somebody took the old RTSanctuary, HeavenGames, and AgeCommunity communities and put them all together! What was so bad about these forums that it drove everyone away?"

If someone from the AoE III community could kindly answer Anterior2''s questions, it would be greatly appreciated. I believe it has to do with tournaments and recorded games hosting. However, since I have never been active in the AoE III community, I wanted to ask you guys directly.

gibson · Post by **gibson** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:26

The official forums look bleak and like shit. Alot of big name players are admins here which attracted other big name players which attracted everyone else. Also, the tournaments.

momuuu · Post by **momuuu** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:28

Those forums, idk. They're ugly, annoying and terrible. The switch from agecomm to those actually made me quit aoe3 for more than a year. This one is cool and good looking, easy to use and amazing though. It made me get back into the game.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:42

[video src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2eH3vYbdGo&'t=12m32s"][/video]

MCJim · Post by **MCJim** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:44

Everything was fine until AgeCommunity closed. The new forums looked ugly and were buggy. Still, I've been there until ESOC launched, I was always optimistic but in the end, really nobody posted there anymore... When I saw this forum I actually stopped being active on the official forum and switched to here.
One thing you have to remember is that the admins really listen to the community. I can't remember seeing much changes on the official forums if people asked for it.

But it's nice to see you here redhrts! I really have to visit the official forums again. Like I did half a year ago, a couple times a day xD

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 14:49

Thanks for the replies. The draw of well-known players and hosted tournaments makes sense to me. For what it''s worth, the AoE community proposed an AoE forum theme (icons, skins, backgrounds, etc.), but doing so is probably more work than Microsoft is willing to invest right now.

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 15:00

Hi MCJim, I feel you on listening to the community.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 21 Sep 2015, 15:05

It sort of happened all at once for some reason. A few people ran a successful tournament, some people then decided to build on that and then stuff just kept growing until what we have now.

Agecomm was a good place back in the day, as was AgeSanc.

I've been thinking of posting more on official forums but there's a dire lack of activity there which makes it hard to come back.

We also have Metis posting here. Can't top that

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 15:33

There is currently a lot of activity on the official AoE forums, but it is mostly related to AoE: Castle Siege. ')

Metis is a great member of the AoE community.

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 21 Sep 2015, 15:55

The old forums are buggy, shitty-looking, and have no useful content (no replays).

They are also run by a staff that does not care about AoE 3, and therefore doesn't do anything for it. The issues that members of the community cited back in 2013 have STILL not been dealt with. This site on the other hand is run by fans who are actually motivated to make the community better.

This site also doesn't have a restricting censor, and doesn't administer bans for reporting cheaters.

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 16:29

Hi Papist, They launched a new forum and website this summer. Are you talking about them or the old website and forums which launched in Fall 2013 alongside AoE II HD: The Forgotten Expansion?

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 21 Sep 2015, 16:32

rhrmn wrote:Hi Papist, They launched a new forum and website this summer. Are you talking about them or the old website and forums which launched in Fall 2013 alongside AoE II HD: The Forgotten Expansion?

I am aware that they launched new forums, but many of the issues with the old ones remain, sadly. There is still no section for replays or custom files, for instance.

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 16:46

Did Age Community ever have the feature to upload replays or custom files?

Metis · Post by **Metis** » 21 Sep 2015, 18:20

When MS took away the off topic section they rang the first death knell for the old forum. An off topic section is important to a forum as people who get to know each other usually have more things to discuss than those limited to the forum's main theme. After the off topic section was removed, the Agecomm moderators' rather heavy-handed quashing of everything not directly pertaining to AOE did the community a great disservice. Even though off topic discussion was reinstituted in the new official forum it came too late. Most of the Agecomm community had already left for other venues.

The slow, buggy nature of the new official forums also made it difficult to post, which lead many of the few Agecommers who moved there to abandon them. Even now, the response of the official forum site seems slow.

This is not to say that the MS moderators didn't try, at least at first. However, as the AOE III posts dwindled their interest in that part of the forum also waned. Combine this with the abandonment of AOEO and there soon was little posting at all on ageofempires.com. Posting came back with the advent of Castle Siege but few AOE III players even took a look at that game. And, for all the work MS did with AOE II HD its forum is more dead than the one for AOE III. Essentially, the official forum is just for Castle Siege now.

Kudos to the creators and maintainers of this new "Agecomm." The work here, not only with the forum but also with tournaments and videos, has breathed new life into this old game and its dwindling community. While I don't necessarily agree with all of the decisions made here (mainly regarding the locking of posts about the rash of cheaters we are now experiencing), you are to be commended for putting in a lot of work keeping the community alive. Good job.

We also have Metis posting here. Can't top that...

If I could fine a "blush" emoticon I'd add one here.

Post by **edeholland** » 21 Sep 2015, 18:22

metis wrote:Kudos to the creators and maintainers of this new "Agecomm." The work here, not only with the forum but also with tournaments and videos, has breathed new life into this old game and its dwindling community. While I don''t necessarily agree with all of the decisions made here (mainly regarding the locking of posts about the rash of cheaters we are now experiencing), you are to be commended for putting in a lot of work keeping the community alive. Good job.

We also have Metis posting here. Can''t top that...
If I could fine a "blush" emoticon I''d add one here.

[img style="max-width:100%'" src="http://www.weerwolvenvanwakkerdam.nl/forum/Smileys/default/azn.gif" alt=""]

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 21 Sep 2015, 18:28

rhrmn wrote:Did Age Community ever have the feature to upload replays or custom files?

No, it was an issue there as well.

But that was just an example. I was frustrated by MS''s failure to act in a general sense.

medinos · Post by **medinos** » 21 Sep 2015, 19:25

They don't even do they job when we report cheaters THEY CAN JUST FUCK OFF
It would be good to make here aoe 2 forums too
This forums are really good made and make this forums official pay this people for their job..
And most importanly the forums were always thrash the official ones..

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 21 Sep 2015, 19:28

medinos wrote:They don''t even do they job when we report cheaters THEY CAN JUST FUCK OFF
It would be good to make here aoe 2 forums too
This forums are really good made and make this forums official pay this people for their job..
And most importanly the forums were always thrash the official ones..

I agree with the AoE2 suggestion. Perhaps it could be a trial run and, if successful, be turned into a full forum.

RadiatingBlade · Post by **RadiatingBlade** » 21 Sep 2015, 19:57

papist wrote:
medinos wrote:They dont even do they job when we report cheaters THEY CAN JUST FUCK OFF
It would be good to make here aoe 2 forums too
This forums are really good made and make this forums official pay this people for their job..
And most importanly the forums were always thrash the official ones..
I agree with the AoE2 suggestion. Perhaps it could be a trial run and, if successful, be turned into a full forum.

Most of the active AoE II community resides on AoCZone. It may be difficult for a new online community to compete.

TomGR · Post by **TomGR** » 21 Sep 2015, 21:19

jerom wrote:Those forums, idk. They''re ugly, annoying and terrible. The switch from agecomm to those actually made me quit aoe3 for more than a year. This one is cool and good looking, easy to use and amazing though. It made me get back into the game.

Pretty much this. Agecomm was like counter strike 1.6. It was very simple but hell it was fucking addictive. This new forum as well as the treaty tournament made me return to the game since it seems like the community has been revived.
I would like to take the chance to thank everyone who contributed to the creation of this forum, the admins and everyone who is helping to make all these tournaments.

Jaeger · Post by **Jaeger** » 21 Sep 2015, 23:39

The new official forums look dope as fuck

evilcheadar · Post by **evilcheadar** » 21 Sep 2015, 23:48

We're goobers that's why. If a link to this site hadn't showed up somewhere I was looking I may have gave up on aoe and community. I looked at the main forums---> nobody there for no reason really. They worked fine for me.

momuuu · Post by **momuuu** » 22 Sep 2015, 01:18

Im not sure what it was, but there was something with those new forums that made me leave. I dont quite know what it was exactly.

Einfein · Post by **Einfein** » 22 Sep 2015, 01:22

I can't speak for the community, but I personally came to this site because it was active, all about AoE3 and was running the Winter Tournament (best finals ever!). I was on the official forum for a short time, but AoE3 felt extremely neglected on it, all the admins seem to post only things about AoE2 and AoT.

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 22 Sep 2015, 02:21

rhrmn wrote:
papist wrote:I agree with the AoE2 suggestion. Perhaps it could be a trial run and, if successful, be turned into a full forum.

Most of the active AoE II community resides on AoCZone. It may be difficult for a new online community to compete.

Ah, I had forgotten about that. Nevermind, dumb idea.

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