Alexastor
AoEO Seraph
(id: Kastor)
posted 10-16-12 05:00 PM
CT (US)
1059 / 1201
That's the image you have, but it's not true.
MartiNZ
Squire
posted 10-16-12 08:21 PM
CT (US)
1060 / 1201
Re focus on online play - tbh I don't know that it actually does make sense. I think it did make sense say 2004-2008. Since then even WoW has been more so massively single player than MMO. Even playing with IRL friends tends to dissolve into everyone doing their own thing.
The online community thing had its time but I think many people would now prefer more like what we had with AoK; it is just that the market seems to expect all the extras to keep people p(l)aying these days. And personally, I found the online community we had in AoK days to be far more convincing than what we see in AoEO. Perhaps it really is just that I was far more prepared to do the same thing over and over again back then, but I don't think that is the case.
Then of course there is the SC2 approach, whereby you completely remove any sense of community at all ... but I'm pretty sure that's not the answer either. The gaming zone as it was, is still the best multiplayer experience I've seen, and it did that with AoK as it was then.
Alexastor
AoEO Seraph
(id: Kastor)
posted 10-17-12 06:13 AM
CT (US)
1062 / 1201
I prefer AoE1's graphics as well.
A new Age game (if there ever is to come one) has to focus on Online play. But it doesn't necessarily have to be MMO-like as seen in AoEO. In fact, many MMO aspects like quest rewards break the game: Those things make you play certain quests because they yield the best rewards, not because you like them. The game forces you to play something you don't like to play, making the overall game un-fun.
But always-online, co-op missions, PvP? Don't have a problem with that.
Grubnessul
Squire
posted 10-17-12 11:38 AM
CT (US)
1063 / 1201
Being always online is fine, the silly quests of AoEO are not. I never got to the point of multiplayer, but the quest rewards I got in the mean time were quite horrible. Giving all my axemen a +5% upgrade which cannot be seen by the opponent, nor used except by doing some quest seems horrible game design to me. We need a new RTS of the scale of AoE2, don't think any RTS at all was released since StarCraft2.
MartiNZ
Squire
posted 10-18-12 08:22 PM
CT (US)
1065 / 1201
Gotta say I never really felt there was much wrong with AoK's graphics. I do think that at least unit graphics in AoE1 were better, the detail on the legion and centurion especially, compared to the fuzziness of the champion, for example. But I certainly never minded the textures.
I never really liked the graphics of AoE3, I found that the 3d made it really hard to tell units apart, and I thought they could have done better textures and such while requiring much less CPU power, which was one thing that I think really disadvantaged AoE3 in its ability to grow a community. By comparison, I always really liked WarCraft 3's graphics and textures - the units were all very easy to tell apart, and the style meant that it still looks really good now .. as well as having pretty good gameplay.
Litude
Squire
posted 10-19-12 12:22 PM
CT (US)
1066 / 1201
@Taichi San: Could you tell us more about this soundtrack with some never before heard aoe1 songs?
ES_MattP
VIP
posted 10-24-12 10:31 AM
CT (US)
1072 / 1201
@Taichi San: I don't think any of the Beta CDs I have are unknown.
To my knowledge, the CGW AoE1 Demo is the only time a demo build was officially released that differed from the game demo(s) that Microsoft had up for download.
You see, at the time, ES and Age of Empires was pretty much a complete unknown, and to get the prominent/first billing on the CD and the magazine we had to come up with "something exclusive" for the magazine. It also needed 8 weeks or so of lead time for printing the CDs, so the version we put together had a unique 5 scenario campaign, and the code was not final.
By the time Age of Kings was ready, the situation has changed. ES and the Age of Empires 'brand' had gone from unknown to very well known and sought after, so it was the magazines coming to us and taking whatever demo we had instead of us chasing them.