How was the ESOC team involved in developing DE?

[querty]

Hey people,

I am just scrolling through the DE balance changes and most of them are EP.

Now that the game is out and NDAs are no more: How did all of this work out? Were you involved into the development process from the beginning? Did MS simply 'steal' balance changes and maps? I mean it is great that the balance of DE ist based on the work of this community, but it feels weird that there is no official statement about the partnership between you and MS (none of which I m aware of that is).

The same obviously goes for maps...

[edeholland]

Official statement:

From here: https://www.ageofempires.com/news/interview-joss-ellis/

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

No dansil maps in DE though, I'm sad. Fraser river was my favourite map.

[EAGLEMUT]

No dansil maps in DE though, I'm sad. Fraser river was my favourite map.

Fraser River wasn't made by dansil though...

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

No dansil maps in DE though, I'm sad. Fraser river was my favourite map.

Fraser River wasn't made by dansil though...

Oh my bad. I guess since it is one of the later addition I thought it was by him.

[Durokan]

Hey people,
How did all of this work out? Did MS simply 'steal' balance changes and maps?
The same obviously goes for maps...

In my answer I'm not going to mention anyone else out of respect for privacy and potential for lashback about more restrictive NDA's. I think I'm in the clear to talk about surface level information, but I signed a more restrictive NDA (real and contractual) than the beta people. Other people did contribute to the process, but I'm only going to list parts about myself. They can share their own parts if they wish.

Initially someone from Microsoft's business team reached out to all of the map makers independently and asked for our 5 favorite maps. At that point there wasn't any communication between any of the map people. At that point there was no formal NDA, just a request "to keep it quiet".

Sometime later, I was simply asked how long it would take to balance the RE maps by a prominent community member. This wasn't in the context of DE. Just basically a DM asking the above. I got excited and said it's something I've been meaning to do. I said I'd balance a few and we could throw a RE-balanced tournament using only those maps. Because of this interest, I was asked to sign a formal, contractual NDA with FE and was added to a chat channel of theirs.

From there I was asked to port the maps that Microsoft had received explicit written consent to use. I do not know if Dansil/Vividly had been asked about that aside from their top 5 maps. There was a tier list of which maps I wanted added first due to the colossal amount of content and limited time/motivation of volunteer map men. The maps were ported in that rough order of priority. I was under significant time pressure during a lot of the process and Garja's maps only required changes in the lighting/texture/relocation aspects so I focused on those. I wanted to add more of my maps but they required some balance and location adjustment so I left those as later options and chose to focus heavily on RE balance since people are already familiar with those and the amount of new content was already feeling overwhelming.

I wasn't really ever asked to explicitly rebalance RE maps, it's just something I had git access to so I did them when I had time.

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

It's a bit sad that you did this work for free but thanks a lot !

[Durokan]

It's a bit sad that you did this work for free but thanks a lot !

I'm really happy I got to contribute to this game in an official(ish) capacity. It's been a dream of mine for a really long time. Hopefully it will be good me professionally as well if I choose to explore game design more.

If you got to add to the game of your dreams would you turn it down because you didn't get any compensation? Also can you imagine the game without any EP maps in it? Is it worth dying on some hill about some relatively small amount of money in the grand scheme of things for the importance of the success of the game? At the end of the day where do you draw the line? $100,000? $10,000? $2,000?

On one hand I haven't been getting any compensation for anything I've done on this site. It's only different because it's daddy MS. And again, it was a gray area as well due to how things happened.

On the other hand happiness, exposure, and love for the game don't pay rent so what are you going to do lol

[querty]

So there seems to be a relationship between some esoc members and ms right?

Can you use this relationship to help fixing the lost of issues that players stumble across in the early release days?

I mean posting kasiers list in the official forum is great and all but sending it directly to your contacts at ms might be better?

[Rikikipu]

So there seems to be a relationship between some esoc members and ms right?

Can you use this relationship to help fixing the lost of issues that players stumble across in the early release days?

I mean posting kasiers list in the official forum is great and all but sending it directly to your contacts at ms might be better?

As @Durokan said we are in touch with them, but we can't promise anything for things that are not related to maps. Note though than the DE team is working hard to make a great game and is listening to the community a lot anyway

[_H2O]

Yes, in short ESOC played a large role. Maps and balance. The new content we didn’t play as much of a role in. We also shared all we know about exploits and other issues that were important to support a healthy community.

[Dolan]

At the end of the day where do you draw the line? $100,000? $10,000? $2,000?

At least a few million bucks, imo.

[vividlyplain]

I do not know if Dansil/Vividly had been asked about that aside from their top 5 maps. There was a tier list of which maps we wanted added first due to the colossal amount of content and limited time/motivation of volunteer map men. The maps were ported in that rough order of priority. I was under significant time pressure during a lot of the process and Garja's maps only required changes in the lighting/texture/relocation aspects so I focused on those. I wanted to add more of my maps but they required some balance and location adjustment so I left those as later options and chose to focus heavily on RE balance since people are already familiar with those and the amount of new content was already feeling overwhelming.

I wasn't really ever asked to explicitly rebalance RE maps, it's just something I had git access to so I did them when I had time.

For the record, I was never asked. AFAIK this happened prior to me being on the maps team.

I'd certainly volunteer any/all of my maps and help with RE balance if asked.

[edeholland]

I got some more background information for those interested. @querty @fightinfrenchman

The developers behind AoE3:DE know ESOC, so it's no surprise they looked at the ESOC Patch before starting work on 3DE. The developers have mirrored some ESOC Patch changes directly (like a lot of bug fixes) but there has also been an influence from beta testers who were familiar with EP.

We are in touch with them for our own development purposes, like cooperating with us for the API for the Elo ladders, moderation (enforcing the NDA on ESOC and exchanging moderators between ESOC and official Age of Empires platforms) and media & tournaments (stuff like streaming on the official Age of Empires Twitch channel and the AoE website and Steam promoting our tournaments).

About the relationship between ESOC and MS: it's not anything official, but mostly people who know each other and talk on Discord. Robo, an old Escape studio employee, is now working for MS as a tournament organiser and community team member and is setting up the first 'official' partnership between us and them.

For me personally, I am grateful to be able to talk to some of AoE studios' employees on Discord for moderation and other community management things.

[iamgaming]

Were you asked about Royal Green Jacket card change?

[[Armag] diarouga]

Lol

[Challenger_Marco]

Were you asked about Royal Green Jacket card change?

It's a bug.

[edeholland]

Were you asked about Royal Green Jacket card change?

That change is a bug, it's supposed to give damage bonus to heavy infantry, but mistakenly does damage against all AbstractInfantry. I expect this to be changed in an AoE3:DE update very soon.

[fightinfrenchman]

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

[harcha]

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

We can only guess what goes on in their minds, but you can ask them yourself on the official forums, Mr. SmartASS.

[fightinfrenchman]

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

We can only guess what goes on in their minds, but you can ask them yourself on the official forums, Mr. SmartASS.

I don't have an account there

[harcha]

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

We can only guess what goes on in their minds, but you can ask them yourself on the official forums, Mr. SmartASS.

I don't have an account there

Did you get banned?

[fightinfrenchman]

Show hidden quotes

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

We can only guess what goes on in their minds, but you can ask them yourself on the official forums, Mr. SmartASS.

I don't have an account there

Did you get banned?

Noh

[edeholland]

Did the ESOC team give them the idea to make browsing games unusable or did they come up with that on their own?

This is also a bug, something that was probably missed during development because there weren't enough lobby games to make scrolling necessary. Will be fixed as well.

[fightinfrenchman]

Will be fixed as well.

I would certainly hope so lol