AOE4 All We Know From April 10th

[PancakePrincess]

time will tell

I mean, I guess, but the game has been play tested for the last 3 years by a group of 30-40 players, and there are multiple teams affiliated with MS that are testing it all the time.

You sound bought btw. I know you know better than this

Holy moly, what is going on with the forum recently? Is it so difficult to behave in a decent manner? Every thread I go it's either politics, the DE hate train or stuff like that. Srsly, wth?

[Riotcoke]

Surprised no one is talking about the information in the virtual village on ageofempires.com yet.

I think most people are just digesting the USA civ right now.

TELL ME YOU WENT TO THE COMMUNITY COUNCIL?

Quite a few of us.

I believe we're allowed to say we were on it, but not what the game was like.

[RefluxSemantic]

Show hidden quotes

time will tell

I mean, I guess, but the game has been play tested for the last 3 years by a group of 30-40 players, and there are multiple teams affiliated with MS that are testing it all the time.

You sound bought btw. I know you know better than this

well i was part of the process, and ive been part of past processes. this one has a lot more focus. im not saying its going to be perfect, but it will surely be better than past attempts.

Total sellout. A socialist like you should know better.

And lets not even pretend GS is wrong. That'd be ridiculous.

[Goodspeed]

Show hidden quotes

time will tell

I mean, I guess, but the game has been play tested for the last 3 years by a group of 30-40 players, and there are multiple teams affiliated with MS that are testing it all the time.

You sound bought btw. I know you know better than this

Holy moly, what is going on with the forum recently? Is it so difficult to behave in a decent manner? Every thread I go it's either politics, the DE hate train or stuff like that. Srsly, wth?

Just a lil poke. Poking is fun you should try it

[PancakePrincess]

Show hidden quotes

time will tell

I mean, I guess, but the game has been play tested for the last 3 years by a group of 30-40 players, and there are multiple teams affiliated with MS that are testing it all the time.

You sound bought btw. I know you know better than this

Holy moly, what is going on with the forum recently? Is it so difficult to behave in a decent manner? Every thread I go it's either politics, the DE hate train or stuff like that. Srsly, wth?

Just a lil poke. Poking is fun you should try it

Fine fine, it's hard to tell who's joking and who's serious around here. At least for me. Sorry!

[Dolan]

Show hidden quotes

time will tell

I mean, I guess, but the game has been play tested for the last 3 years by a group of 30-40 players, and there are multiple teams affiliated with MS that are testing it all the time.

You sound bought btw. I know you know better than this

Holy moly, what is going on with the forum recently? Is it so difficult to behave in a decent manner? Every thread I go it's either politics, the DE hate train or stuff like that. Srsly, wth?

Yea wtf guys let's focus on the positive.
Even tho the world is in flames, we can still play games.

[SoldieR]

Holy shite, I just realized aoe4 is Age of Empires Online: Definitive Edition

[gamevideo113]

Holy shite, I just realized aoe4 is Age of Empires Online: Definitive Edition

[gamevideo113]

If anything AoEO was the real AoE4 that everybody slept on

[RefluxSemantic]

I still think that at least the screenshots look stunning. Its a state of the art game. Its just that for birdseye view, state of the art is significantly less detailed especially when you zoom in, so people think these are budget graphics.

Some of the animations are not the greatest though.

[Dolan]

The studio making this probably just took the engine from AOEO, slapped a couple of new skins on it and charged Microsoft a couple of millions.
Bam, new yacht for that boomer CEO owning the company.
They be flying bitchez to Dubai, swimming in the pools.

[RefluxSemantic]

If anything they probably used their own RTS engine, as a studio known for making RTS games.

[n0el]

If anything they probably used their own RTS engine, as a studio known for making RTS games.

or built a new engine since the relic games don't function like age games.

[gamevideo113]

Doesn't really look like it's Bang Engine, but i don't know

[RefluxSemantic]

I dont even care. The visuals are stunningly beautiful. They just need to clean up a few animations.

[Astaroth]

I still think that at least the screenshots look stunning. Its a state of the art game. Its just that for birdseye view, state of the art is significantly less detailed especially when you zoom in, so people think these are budget graphics.

Can you explain that? I don't quite get it.

Generally, the models seem less detailed than e.g. in AoE2 DE IMO (I know its 3D vs 2D).

[RefluxSemantic]

I still think that at least the screenshots look stunning. Its a state of the art game. Its just that for birdseye view, state of the art is significantly less detailed especially when you zoom in, so people think these are budget graphics.

Can you explain that? I don't quite get it.

Generally, the models seem less detailed than e.g. in AoE2 DE IMO (I know its 3D vs 2D).

Models look more detailed imo. You just dont often zoom in so far in RTS games, so you dont notice how low detail things are. Aoe4 looks state of the art to me, its just that our perception of whatever good graphics are is skewed by stuff like third person RPGs, which just arent as demanding for your hardware. I dont know any game from this perspective that I think looks noticably more beautiful.

[lemmings121]

hopefully they dont make the same mistake as aoe3de and design everything to be looked zoomed in 50x, but when you actually play the game in normal zoom, things dont look right.

[EAGLEMUT]

@Dolan AoE4 runs on Relic's Essence Engine.
Obviously it must've needed some major modifications to make an AoE game on it, there are both huge upsides and downsides to this approach.

[Dolan]

Knowing how Microsoft sees gaming, AOE4 won't be focused on competitive play, so I think there won't be as much focus on complex unit control, like in those classic competitive RTS games.
That's why the animations seem off in the preview, because probably the main focus is the visuals and just having that AOE2 classic experience of building castles and fortified bases and attacking them with big groups of archers and heavy cav.
I'm thinking that's the case because Microsoft never published a competitive game or supported competitive gaming.
Their vision for gaming is more like a pastime for corporate millennials who come home from work and want to play a few casual games before going to sleep.
They're not Blizzard or Riot, so don't expect them to develop an RTS like companies whose exclusive line of business is gaming.

[RefluxSemantic]

hopefully they dont make the same mistake as aoe3de and design everything to be looked zoomed in 50x, but when you actually play the game in normal zoom, things dont look right.

Thats specifically what they are not doing. They've increased the size of the weapons and decreased the size of some buildings to improve readability and gameplay. Its what makes people call the game cartoony right now. (even though honestly the same really applies to all games to some extend). Im sure these changes will end up feeling good once you zoom out. They didnt screw up the realism just for shits and giggles, its probably because it improves the gameplay a lot. There is apperantly a big team of (semi) competitive players playtesting the game and these people supposedly gave the feedback that they needed to do some of these things to improve readability.

I personally have faith in this approach. If they end up making the buildings much smaller, its because they are convinced it makes the gameplay better. In the few shots of the gameplay trailer fully zoomed out, things actually look wonderful. I just think the arrow animations are objectively shit, but some of the other animations were impressively polished and clean so Im willing to bet they are going to improve this animations.

[Goodspeed]

Knowing how Microsoft sees gaming, AOE4 won't be focused on competitive play, so I think there won't be as much focus on complex unit control, like in those classic competitive RTS games.
That's why the animations seem off in the preview, because probably the main focus is the visuals and just having that AOE2 classic experience of building castles and fortified bases and attacking them with big groups of archers and heavy cav.
I'm thinking that's the case because Microsoft never published a competitive game or supported competitive gaming.
Their vision for gaming is more like a pastime for corporate millennials who come home from work and want to play a few casual games before going to sleep.
They're not Blizzard or Riot, so don't expect them to develop an RTS like companies whose exclusive line of business is gaming.

Their decision makes sense from a risk management POV, but I genuinely believe the AoE formula has the potential to be the biggest in the genre, and it's just disappointing to see that they're still thinking small.

[Dolan]

@Dolan AoE4 runs on Relic's Essence Engine.
Obviously it must've needed some major modifications to make an AoE game on it, there are both huge upsides and downsides to this approach.

Right. Yeah, I've just read about this, AOE4 is gonna run on the 4th edition of their proprietary engine.
Yeah, building a game engine is expensive, only few companies can afford it, or those that don't have the big budgets to do so might cut corners and develop a more simple engine.
That's what I'm expecting from Relic, since they're no Riot or Activision, they're just a company contracted by Microsoft for a new AOE.
So I think the engine won't be as polished as those built by Blizzard or Riot.

[Dolan]

Knowing how Microsoft sees gaming, AOE4 won't be focused on competitive play, so I think there won't be as much focus on complex unit control, like in those classic competitive RTS games.
That's why the animations seem off in the preview, because probably the main focus is the visuals and just having that AOE2 classic experience of building castles and fortified bases and attacking them with big groups of archers and heavy cav.
I'm thinking that's the case because Microsoft never published a competitive game or supported competitive gaming.
Their vision for gaming is more like a pastime for corporate millennials who come home from work and want to play a few casual games before going to sleep.
They're not Blizzard or Riot, so don't expect them to develop an RTS like companies whose exclusive line of business is gaming.

Their decision makes sense from a risk management POV, but I genuinely believe the AoE formula has the potential to be the biggest in the genre, and it's just disappointing to see that they're still thinking small.

I hope I'm wrong, but this is the vibe I'm getting from how Microsoft sees gaming. I don't think I've ever seen them organise a big global tourney like Riot with tens of millions audience, big prizes, stuff like that.
On the other hand, they know they have this classic franchise in their portfolio and they don't want to let it rot, they'd rather use it to populate their XBOX offering with their own proprietary titles. It ties in with this tendency of big corporations to build their own closed ecosystems with everything in it (devices, OS, browser, games, chat service, app store, etc).
So I bet AOE4 is going to be a decent experience for AOE2 fans but maybe more for casual players than for competitive ones. If the focus is on selling merch and unlocking civs, casual gaming brings more money.

[duckzilla]

I hope I'm wrong, but this is the vibe I'm getting from how Microsoft sees gaming. I don't think I've ever seen them organise a big global tourney like Riot with tens of millions audience, big prizes, stuff like that.
On the other hand, they know they have this classic franchise in their portfolio and they don't want to let it rot, they'd rather use it to populate their XBOX offering with their own proprietary titles. It ties in with this tendency of big corporations to build their own closed ecosystems with everything in it (devices, OS, browser, games, chat service, app store, etc).
So I bet AOE4 is going to be a decent experience for AOE2 fans but maybe more for casual players than for competitive ones. If the focus is on selling merch and unlocking civs, casual gaming brings more money.

That would be fantastic.