End of an era - ESO2 closing down

[aaryngend]

Age of Empires III: Complete Collection - Multiplayer Services Ending October 30


From today, Age of Empires III (2007) will no longer be available for purchase. After many years of support, we will be retiring the title from sale. Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
will continue to be supported.

In addition, on October 30, 2024 at 10am PT multiplayer services for the game will cease to run. This is due to the technology no longer being supported.

If you own the game, you will still be able to play campaign and skirmish content. Online multiplayer is the only area of the game that will no longer be available.

Players can experience Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition on Steam and Windows Store, as well as 4 DLC additions which expand the civilizations and campaigns on offer. A free trial of the game is available on Steam for players who’d like to try the game before purchasing too!

A big thank you to all of the Age of Empires III players around the world.

Link to the announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 1103076467

Farewell sweet prince! 19 years of ESO2 (that's what the ESO service of aoe3 was called, ESO was AoM)

[harcha]

Voobly goes stonks?

[MCJim]

Very sad to read this news. I've been online on ESO a lot. Roughly from 2011 - 2020. Made many great friends and memories there.

The online interface of DE comes nowhere close to ESO. It's a big loss, even though it's not used a lot anymore since the release of DE.

R.I.P. ESO
2005-2024

[tabben]

This is due to the technology no longer being supported.

Not that it matters much but I wonder what suddenly changed in 2k24 to make them no longer be able to run the servers Feels more likely it's just due to low player numbers and wanting to push players to DE for a couple quick bucks.

[aaryngend]

This is due to the technology no longer being supported.

Not that it matters much but I wonder what suddenly changed in 2k24 to make them no longer be able to run the servers Feels more likely it's just due to low player numbers and wanting to push players to DE for a couple quick bucks.

It's probably too much effort to maintain a legacy codebase for the few folks that are left. Restarting the servers every now and then is minimal effort but there seem to be more things they'd need to implement to combat the few bad actors that regularly disrupt the service. People could create as many new accounts as they wanted with self-generated keys, maybe that also put a lot of strain on their systems and servers?

They halted development of aoe2:HD as soon as aoe2:DE was released, surprising it took so long for aoe3.

[harcha]

This is due to the technology no longer being supported.

Not that it matters much but I wonder what suddenly changed in 2k24 to make them no longer be able to run the servers Feels more likely it's just due to low player numbers and wanting to push players to DE for a couple quick bucks.

In addition, on October 30, 2024 at 10am PT multiplayer services for the game will cease to run. This is due to the technology no longer being supported.

They make it sound like it's an external factor, a force majeure.
When what it actually means it "This is due to the technology no longer being supported by us. Because we don't want to support it anymore. It's not worth it financially."

[MCJim]

Still more than 1000 players used the server in the past 24 hours.
https://www.agecommunity.com/_server_status_/

[iNcog]

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

[iNcog]

definitely sad/nostalgia vibes though

[fightinfrenchman]

I don't want to sound too hyperbolic but this is the worst thing that's ever happened in history

[dicktator_]

Surprised it took so long but also kinda sad, my best Aoe3 related memories happened through ESO. Despite its flaws (FTJ, lag, and invite spam) its interface and design were amazing.

Not sure why they have to take the game off of steam though. Gameranger and Voobly will still exist.

[Hazza54321]

so sad man , so many great memories of this game , wouldve made sense removing de

[iNcog]

Surprised it took so long but also kinda sad, my best Aoe3 related memories happened through ESO. Despite its flaws (FTJ, lag, and invite spam) its interface and design were amazing.

Not sure why they have to take the game off of steam though. Gameranger and Voobly will still exist.

cash grab

more realistically I notice DE is cheaper than the original game so maybe due to licensing they can't lower the price or something?

[MCJim]

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

Making your own ESO? Explain!

[iNcog]

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

Making your own ESO? Explain!

Someone, somewhere once said that you could rewrite/host a third party server that would be able to track rated games and such. essentially make a voobly clone but the clone emulates ESO or something. apparently it could be hosted on esoc aws servers or something. that's all I know and I'm just parroting what I once read somewhere

[musketeer925]

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

Making your own ESO? Explain!

Someone, somewhere once said that you could rewrite/host a third party server that would be able to track rated games and such. essentially make a voobly clone but the clone emulates ESO or something. apparently it could be hosted on esoc aws servers or something. that's all I know and I'm just parroting what I once read somewhere

I've certainly thought of this before, but it would take a significant amount of reverse-engineering to recreate the server. I tried in the past (pre-DE) to reverse-engineer and re-implement the server side of the login process, to no avail. It would only get harder with the service no longer available to see what the server's responses look like.

[CuCkO0]

Show hidden quotes

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

Making your own ESO? Explain!

Someone, somewhere once said that you could rewrite/host a third party server that would be able to track rated games and such. essentially make a voobly clone but the clone emulates ESO or something. apparently it could be hosted on esoc aws servers or something. that's all I know and I'm just parroting what I once read somewhere

I've certainly thought of this before, but it would take a significant amount of reverse-engineering to recreate the server. I tried in the past (pre-DE) to reverse-engineer and re-implement the server side of the login process, to no avail. It would only get harder with the service no longer available to see what the server's responses look like.

If it helps, I am willing to donate £3 and an orange to the cause

[iNcog]

Show hidden quotes

To be fair as long as voobly is still supported

plus it wouldn't be too hard (wouldn't be worth it either) to make your own ESO

Making your own ESO? Explain!

Someone, somewhere once said that you could rewrite/host a third party server that would be able to track rated games and such. essentially make a voobly clone but the clone emulates ESO or something. apparently it could be hosted on esoc aws servers or something. that's all I know and I'm just parroting what I once read somewhere

I've certainly thought of this before, but it would take a significant amount of reverse-engineering to recreate the server. I tried in the past (pre-DE) to reverse-engineer and re-implement the server side of the login process, to no avail. It would only get harder with the service no longer available to see what the server's responses look like.

yeah. it's probably no longer worth the effort. :( cool idea in general though. hope you've been well

[MCJim]

Would still be cool though if it worked out. Still can't just believe that we won't even see the ESO interface anymore.

[MCJim]

So I made a tribute to ESO:

https://youtu.be/bWg_jAZHKYg?si=XAcUPcZuyHcZBUbG

[howlingwolfpaw]

Wow what unexpected and sad news. I grew up playing all the age games and AOE 3 to me was and will always be special, and the perfection of RTS genre. It is a work of art and sad to see it not live on whilst the new game which is far different takes over. I designed a computer in 2008 just to get to specs to play aoe3 and from then on has been thousands of hours of entertainment with players..... So thank you to ESO for all the great work that really shaped a lot of my life, and to all the players that helped share it... Will I get to DE? we will see...

[MCJim]

Loads of sad comments to the announcement on Steam:

Legacy page: https://steamcommunity.com/app/105450/e ... 6278631762
DE page: https://steamcommunity.com/app/933110/e ... 4416099540

[howlingwolfpaw]

Interesting or not.... all but one commenter on this post joined up in 2015!? what happened that year? Anything special to note?

I also want to reflect on how through many years I am greatful to ESOC for basically keeping this game alive and thriving amongst the community. That was a special time when it was the fans that had control as I recall we never needed or asked for this game to change so much, and made for the best dialogues of commenting professional games and getting to see new patch developments by fans, though I know we could never all agree.... everything just had to be a little too OP. Which was fine by me.

So many went to do even the little things like coding we may not ever know, like that great spectator UI.... So thank you.

I urge any Microsoft ear to find a way to let the original version live on even as a game mode. Even from what I hear DE is better now, the original still has its charm and is the foundation for the franchise so for the love of the game should have them open for all to experience who want to see what the times were like.

[InsectPoison]

Interesting or not.... all but one commenter on this post joined up in 2015!? what happened that year? Anything special to note?

Its when ESOC was founded

[howlingwolfpaw]

Oh I thought it was around much longer before I joined! But that makes sense as to why I heard about it when I did and joined after playing for 7 years. It has grown to quite a place.