Why the (online) interface of DE should be improved

[MCJim]

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, more than one year later. To start: it may be said that it's very valuable and pleasant of Microsoft that DE still gets so much support and love. The official devs try to make us happy with roughly one patch per month, and that's awesome, whether you agree with the changes or not. However, while I'm sure that the balance aspect of the game will keep having everyone's attention, I do have to say that I'm quite upset to see barely any (online) interface/menu improvements. In this case, I'm mainly talking about the online aspect and the overall menu interface. Why is this important? First impression, usability and (nostalgic) feeling of this game are crucial and always part of the game. It makes the game popular and gets people returning and playing again and again.

Let's take a look at ESO. The place where we previously met, chat and shared our time together. What's the first thing that comes to mind? Outdated? Yeah. But characteristic? Cozy? Sociable? In the end, ESO worked and we loved it!

ESO

Now, let's take a look (below) at the online interface the Definitive Edition uses. I do have to say that, of course, I appreciate the effort the devs put into making the "new" multiplayer interface, but I hope they are starting to see and realize that the new interface comes nowhere close to the reason we used and loved ESO. The new multiplayer lacks characteristic, the social aspect and most important: overview. Also... Important features are missing. Why isn't it possible to view who's online and who's not? Why is it not possible to see who's in-game? Why is it not possible to do something else while waiting for a game in quick search? Why is there a bigger threshold to whisper someone than on ESO? What I'd like to see is a social online interface with overview and additional featues like a ranking & award system, on front friend list, easy to find other players, online/in-game statuses, ladders, clans and many chat options. Basically, a more updated and modern version of ESO.

DE multiplayer

I've not been the only one posting about it. I'd invite you to (re)read this thread: viewtopic.php?f=982&t=21742 A guy called Arc_gu1ll3_sp clearly explains why we love ESO and focuses on some great options in the ESO interface.

Why is (or was ☹) AOE3 multiplayer so great. In ESO one copy or CD key of the game is linked to one unique player account. That is your account, people know you by it and you know people by theirs. You get to know players, what civs they are good with, how they like to lame or not and so on.

Let’s continue with how easy ESO makes it to be aware of who is online, what they are doing and interacting with fellow players. Chatting, finding games, inviting to games or clans or getting info from any existing account is super easy and straightforward. Your list of friends is visible no matter in what tab of ESO you are, even if you are in a game room. There is a green circle if they are online, red if they are offline and a AOE3 symbol if they are online and playing. You can chat, check the profile or invite to a game in just 2 clicks on any of the names in your list.

I want to focus specifically on the multiplayer “social side”, which is the main reason for me (and probably for many) for loving AOE3 multiplayer.

Last but not least... (We are talking about the UI's and interfaces anyway ) On the official forums someone posted some community-made rework suggestions of a new in-game menu. What do we think about it? Look at the suggestion and current situation below. I'm not saying we should exactly copy this interface, but look at the additional potential features! A queued game, friend list, news/updates, rankings, etc. All on the front! Should we want something like this? I'd like to hear your opinion!

Post your opinion about ESO and the DE online interface below and tell about your preferences and what you're missing! Do you also have examples from other (online) games? I'd also really appreciate if the devs would take time looking into this and perhaps, improve the online interface, making it less anti-social and use the good features of ESO.

Want to read more about the potential new interface? Watch this thread: https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/new-u ... /176858/26

[fightinfrenchman]

I was actually considering genuinely trying to get into DE but the bugs in the beginning as well as the absurdly bad interface described here really turned me off. I'm still not convinced if the developers are really that incompetent or if they were intentionally trying to make it bad

[gibson]

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

[InsectPoison]

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

[kevinitalien]

since the release of the game a lot of people have complained about the interface just like the obs, we are still waiting for an answer unfortunately, but it is clear that it would be incredible jeez

[kevinitalien]

btw the left interface is just amazing lol

[gibson]

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

I dont really see the problem with that honestly.

[fightinfrenchman]

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

I dont really see the problem with that honestly.

It would be fucking cringe, for one thing

[Dolan]

It looks schematic and that's probably because the number of people working on this can be mapped to two hands. And they were paid to redo the whole thing in a number of months.
So they started from the ground up, from the backend, rewriting the networking. But as they rewrote the networking part, they only had very basic hooks to communicate between players, just enough for games to get launched. Then, as they made some progress rewriting the backend, they added more interaction between players in the MP interface.
That's why the UI is so stripped down and basic, because form followed function and new forms were only added after the backend function for that was completed and stable enough.
It also looks more soulless because this time they don't have big teams of art designers who paint textures by hand and scan them, like they did with AOE3. They probably have one or two employees who are supposed to quickly put something together for the next patch.

Ensemble had 3 years on their hands to procrastinate and "work" on AOE3 and they would have spent even more unless Microsoft didn't tell them to hurry up and ship that game already.

[gibson]

Show hidden quotes

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

I dont really see the problem with that honestly.

It would be fucking cringe, for one thing

Cringe.

[fightinfrenchman]

Show hidden quotes

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

I dont really see the problem with that honestly.

It would be fucking cringe, for one thing

Cringe.

I know you are, but what am I?

[gibson]

It looks schematic and that's probably because the number of people working on this can be mapped to two hands. And they were paid to redo the whole thing in a number of months.
So they started from the ground up, from the backend, rewriting the networking. But as they rewrote the networking part, they only had very basic hooks to communicate between players, just enough for games to get launched. Then, as they made some progress rewriting the backend, they added more interaction between players in the MP interface.
That's why the UI is so stripped down and basic, because form followed function and new forms were only added after the backend function for that was completed and stable enough.
It also looks more soulless because this time they don't have big teams of art designers who paint textures by hand and scan them, like they did with AOE3. They probably have one or two employees who are supposed to quickly put something together for the next patch.

tldr: Ensemble had 3 years on their hands to procrastinate and "work" on AOE3 and they would have spent even more unless Microsoft didn't tell them to hurry up and ship that game already.

And they couldn't even fully rely on steam like a game such as CSGO does, since the game is on the microsoft store as well. Probably why a lot of steam integration is half assed as well.

[Dolan]

Also you have to realise that all the Age games that aren't AOE4 are in legacy support mode, meaning Microsoft just does its job funding some small teams to keep them running for as long as they committed they would.
But the bigger bucks and the bigger teams are on AOE4, coz that's where they're hoping to make a mark with the public, streams, hype, YT content etc.
The job they did isn't groundbreaking but I think they're focusing on making it functional at least.
Not enough workforce to manually craft a nice artistic interface and have to keep changing it as they add new functions with each patch.
They should vary the textures a bit more tho, these look boring tbh ngl

[JKProwler]

The left screen shot is so much better than current DE.

Not sure if anyone feels the same, but I feel very isolated in DE...and I don't have too many friends on steam (not planning to either cause idc if players I don't care about outside of aoe3 are playing other games)

And I want to have a friend / chat functionality that feels integrated in the game and not tabbing out

[Plutonic]

Seems like we need more divine Interjection

[gibson]

Show hidden quotes

Steam does at least half of what you talk about is missing, for some reason the boomers who play this game just don't know how to use it or act like its some egregious insult they have to press shift+tab.

What an odd take. Not everyone I friend in the game I would add on steam. imagine adding on steam everyone you friended on ESO.

I dont really see the problem with that honestly.

It would be fucking cringe, for one thing

Cringe.

I know you are, but what am I?

Cinrge+L+ratioed

[Squamiger]

aoe3 de interface is miles better than aoe4 imo

[Kaiserklein]

I know the friend list especially, as well as a few other issues, are what mostly killed the social aspect on DE. But I think not having ranked lobbies also did a lot of harm. Being forced to qs if you wanna play rated means no chatting in lobbies, which is big for team games especially. Also even if you played unrated, you'd kinda have someone obsing half your 1v1s or so, and that person would be able to chat with you both in the lobby and in game.

And while in the lobby you'd get PM'd by like 3 dudes (who didn't need you to add them as a friend btw), while now no one sends PMs anymore because it's hard to know if someone is online / the friend list and chats just feel less accessible.

Now I'm just stuck for 7:30 watching QS, unable to click another tab as it resets the queue lol. You can PM on discord or steam sure, but in the actual game it's just crap.

[LazarosVas]

Lets be real, while these changes would be a step in the right direction they are not the reason AOE3DE ia not as popular as it should be.

[Kaiserklein]

They're part of the reason why it's not as popular for players coming from legacy. It feels like it's just a worse game in that regard.
For new players it's different though

[princeofkabul]

aoe3 de interface is miles better than aoe4 imo

literally any interface is better than aoe 3 de

[yoqpasa]

You need to spam on the official forums.

[gibson]

The aoe4 interface is much much better than the de interface lol

[Dolan]

They're both bad, but the AOE4 one is more consistent because it's a finished game, not a work-in-progress like DE is.
They should have hired me, I'd slap a UI on that game everyone would drop AOE4 and buy AOE3 DE like hotcakes.
(Just kiddin, nobody buys a game just for the UI, but it would help retain more players)

[look]

ESO = best interface ever I see in my life.. simples and worked
only bad reason is about max friends list.,