AoE Online and where it went wrong

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 02 Apr 2015, 20:40

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1019303/F2 ... ng-Way-Age

An interesting talk by Kevin Perry from MS.

As he mentions at the end although he doesn't seem to give it that much weight, I think their biggest mistake was not focusing on replayability which is every RTS game's biggest selling point. And they should've focused more on pleasing the core fan base.
The business model, which he talks about a lot (probably because that's his area of expertise) was actually not the problem if you ask me.

Not having skirmish mode at launch was just a silly oversight, since everyone who was still playing AoC and AoE3 was playing nothing but that. I can't fathom for the life of me how any RTS developer could make that mistake.

Metis · Post by **Metis** » 02 Apr 2015, 21:22

Anybody who quotes Heraclitus in his introduction gets my attention. Thanks for linking the video.

I think you are correct in what was the core problem of the game. Even with the cartoony graphics and "tongue in cheek" attitude I think the game could have been really good. However, they (initially at least) made it far too hard to play with the "social" aspect. I found it cumbersome throwing out an invite or request for a coo-op or a PVP game in the chat and then having to watch a thousand 12-year-olds calling each other names before a relevant message popped up. Why they didn't just transport the way AOE III sets up matches over to it is beyond me.

musketeer925 · Post by **musketeer925** » 02 Apr 2015, 21:32

Great watch and interesting to hear Microsoft's point of view on why things happened the way they did.

SoldieR · Post by **SoldieR** » 03 Apr 2015, 00:34

This is the video I referenced a few weeks back in a post on this site before the updates

aoefan4life · Post by **aoefan4life** » 03 Apr 2015, 01:18

AOEO was very depressing because of how bad it was and now it's probably the last AOE title for pc.

Cry4447 · Post by **Cry4447** » 03 Apr 2015, 01:50

aoeo towards the end of its lifespan was actually a pretty good game. it was well balanced and played well. it just had a rocky road getting there. especially starting the way it did.

i hope they take at least the champion mode with all its civs and make it playable again.

SoldieR · Post by **SoldieR** » 03 Apr 2015, 03:11

Ya I really did love aoeo by the time it was more complete.

iNcog · Post by **iNcog** » 03 Apr 2015, 04:59

-- deleted post --

divine_moon · Post by **divine_moon** » 03 Apr 2015, 06:17

u guys got some of the points but what i found funny was MS scrapped it in a very sloppy manner.
Some people PAID (not me ofc ') ) for the premium content civs & gears & stuff, they should've released some patch which would allow the paid players to continue to use their civs @ least offline or something like that.. :O

Garja · Post by **Garja** » 03 Apr 2015, 07:48

By the time AOEO approached its end it was barely enjoyable. Basically the real work on making a game should have started from there. The balance was poor and the graphics (which were terrible in itself) also affected the gameplay in a bad way.

Basically AOEO was wrong in:

-1 business model (the free to play and pay to win thing)
-2 game model (the capital city thing)
-3 pvp balance (unit train time/cost, imba civs, age up features)
-4 graphics (not only cartoonish but also hard to click/select units and other things)

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 03 Apr 2015, 08:09

Yeah people keep saying "but the game itself wasn't bad", not sure I agree. Besides the shitty graphics and poor balance, there was nothing new in its gameplay. It felt too much like a mechanically dumbed down AoC.

Honestly though I think the graphics alone made the game doomed to fail. It just didn't feel like a proper new AoE title with its complete lack of character. AoE games all have a nice historic feel to them, like you're controlling a past empire. This was entirely absent in AoEO.

Metis · Post by **Metis** » 03 Apr 2015, 22:21

calmyourtits wrote: It felt too much like a mechanically dumbed down AoC.

When RE began to develop the game they said that it would be easier to "grok" than the previous AOE games. If you are not familiar with the term, it''s from [em]Stranger in a Strange Land[/em] and can be taken as intuitive understanding. Essentially they meant exactly what you said -- the game was being dumbed down. Whomever was calling the shots at MS definitely didn''t know the AOE community well. The complexity of AOE III is what many like about the game. I think they thought that if they made a StarCraft, with only a couple of civs and simple gameplay, combined with a World of Warcraft, they would be as popular as those two games, forgetting that the AOE fanbase wanted a PvP RTS with new content. Also, if they expected that the AOE fanbase would pay extra for vanity items to decorate their units and home city then they [em]really[/em] didn''t understand us. I would bet that almost nobody decorates their HC screen with the things like jugglers, etc. that you can add there.

Good ol Ivan · Post by **Good ol Ivan** » 03 Apr 2015, 23:18

metis wrote:
calmyourtits wrote: It felt too much like a mechanically dumbed down AoC.

When RE began to develop the game they said that it would be easier to "grok" than the previous AOE games. If you are not familiar with the term, its from [em]Stranger in a Strange Land[/em] and can be taken as intuitive understanding. Essentially they meant exactly what you said -- the game was being dumbed down. Whomever was calling the shots at MS definitely didnt know the AOE community well. The complexity of AOE III is what many like about the game. I think they thought that if they made a StarCraft, with only a couple of civs and simple gameplay, combined with a World of Warcraft, they would be as popular as those two games, forgetting that the AOE fanbase wanted a PvP RTS with new content. Also, if they expected that the AOE fanbase would pay extra for vanity items to decorate their units and home city then they [em]really[/em] didnt understand us. I would bet that almost nobody decorates their HC screen with the things like jugglers, etc. that you can add there.

Heh, I always decorated all of my cities. I know no one gave a shit, but I still felt like making it prettier.
I would never pay extra money to decorate it tho.

Also tl'dw, Im not going to waste an hour hearing some guy talk about a game I dont like.

tilanus · Post by **tilanus** » 04 Apr 2015, 16:28

Even though sceptical in the beginning, I could gradually begin to enjoy the AoEO "graphics". In the end it was an Age-of gameplay with simply other aesthetics, just like AoE3 looks &' feels softer than AoE1+2. I remember though it first was a big hinderance for me as well to get even in touch with AoEO.

As for balance, most F2P titles that do not limit to sell cosmetics (like Skins in LoL) have a broken balance because it easily splits the players into privileged and outclassed ones.
The business model was the biggest issue for me, all the time, even after they changed it. Kevin Perry tried to make a point by saying the civs in AoEO had so much more content and work done to them that the price was justified. I really disagree, because even though it makes sense in a cold calculation from a sales point of view to demand more for more, it really is not what the age community - which he was trying to held so high - is looking for. It sounds unfair, but having to pay for hard work that doesn't matter for the player will feel like a wrong and overly expensive investment. AoEO is just a good example why you should never outsource the core elements of a brand for the sake of sales. The players won't forgive nor forget.

The freedom to frequently switch between slightly alienated civs in a free, non-leveling corrupted skirmish environment is an important key to typical AoE gameplay. Fully unique civs are more typical to Blizzard titles like WC and SC. Leveling systems in strategy video games are mostly a bad idea, because they first reward the already better players in an inappropriate extent that is unhealthy to the idea of competitiveness and a smooth game access for newcomers. IMO AoEO was still a fun game though if you take away the horrible business model.

SoldieR · Post by **SoldieR** » 04 Apr 2015, 18:57

The game was very well balanced what are you guys talking about And I was the best player besides mistake so I have a good feel for balance

And nothing new in gameplay ?! Whatttt . this game was completely different pace. Rush at two mins or second tc at six mins...so much variety and viable options.

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 04 Apr 2015, 19:34

As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem for AoEO was not having single player. There are actually very few RTS players who go online, so excluding that demographic was not a good idea.

Goodspeed · Post by **Goodspeed** » 04 Apr 2015, 19:44

AoEO had more single player than any previous AoE title...?

Papist · Post by **Papist** » 04 Apr 2015, 20:17

calmyourtits wrote:AoEO had more single player than any previous AoE title...?

I meant offline singleplayer. The majority of gamers never even go online, either because they are a)too young, b)don''t have internet access, or c)have no desire to.

DivineFire · Post by **DivineFire** » 10 Apr 2015, 08:04

An interesting talk, his attempted jokes were so awkward tho lol

Aramir · Post by **Aramir** » 10 Apr 2015, 13:25

papist wrote:The majority of gamers never even go online, either because they are a)too young, b)don''t have internet access, or c)have no desire to.

wait what? who doesnt have internet access in the year 2015? also majority of gamers is not too young to play online i mean its just not true

so only c) is valid for me but aoeo had a singleplayer so everything good when its about that

bart331 · Post by **bart331** » 10 Apr 2015, 20:01

very interesting talk, it explains a lot of the decisions they made in the whole process, and they are pretty spot on with most of the mistakes. It is also funny that most of these mistakes were predicted in their own forums but ignored anyway. Bottomline in the end was too much fatal errors and a too low quality of the game. Its a shame though that they couldnt keep the game running even while they didnt produce any new content.

Good ol Ivan · Post by **Good ol Ivan** » 11 Apr 2015, 04:18

aramir wrote:
papist wrote:The majority of gamers never even go online, either because they are a)too young, b)dont have internet access, or c)have no desire to.
wait what? who doesnt have internet access in the year 2015? also majority of gamers is not too young to play online i mean its just not true
so only c) is valid for me but aoeo had a singleplayer so everything good when its about that

Idk, it took me a few months to make an ESO account because I was afraid I would get #rekt in multiplayer.

Mr. Pecksniff · Post by **Mr. Pecksniff** » 13 Apr 2015, 06:53

papist wrote:As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem for AoEO was not having single player. There are actually very few RTS players who go online, so excluding that demographic was not a good idea.

Yeah Diablo 3 forced players to be always online in order to play, even if they were only playing alone, and that''s the reason why it sucked.

Mr. Pecksniff · Post by **Mr. Pecksniff** » 14 Apr 2015, 10:22

Call of Duty is more realistic than AoE tbh

noissance · Post by **noissance** » 01 Aug 2017, 04:53

What improvements does project celeste bring to the table?

ESOC

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