Age of Empires Online

[Tom Chick]

Complaints about no siege units till xx level just don't matter to the vast majority of people that played through SC2 single player and haven't stepped online or have an interest in playing multiplayer (which iirc is what most copies did).

That's a strange comparison, because Starcraft II didn't lock anything behind grinding. It had a story mode that gradually unfolded units over the course of a campaign -- every RTS does this -- but it also had multiplayer and skirmishes available from the get-go.

Imagine if Starcraft II forced players not just to play through the single-player mode, but it forced them to play each missions ten times. That's the rough equivalent of how much time you spend on unlocking in Age Online. What's more, imagine that Starcraft II sacrificed any sense of unit balance in order to support this grinding model, as well as brought into play a weird real-world time limit to certain powers in order to encourage regularly logging into your town a la Farmville. Now you've got a much better analogy. :)

Kevin, as for RTSs with a sense of persistence, Age Online isn't unique. The genre has already done that and it's done it very well. The Warlords Battlecry series, Age of Empires III, and League of Legends, for example.

-Tom

[Wolff]

Imagine if Starcraft II forced players not just to play through the single-player mode, but it forced them to play each missions ten times. That's the rough equivalent of how much time you spend on unlocking in Age Online. What's more, imagine that Starcraft II sacrificed any sense of unit balance in order to support this grinding model, as well as brought into play a weird real-world time limit to certain powers in order to sustain regularly logging into your town a la Farmville. Now you've got a much better analogy.

:)-Tom

I think you may have played a different build than me Tom. I've unlocked Age III and almost Age IV as the Egyptains without repeating a single mission or even running a single mission with the Blue Circely Arrow on it. There have always been new story missions and challenges for me to partake in. Sure defending the Pyramids was a bit repetitive, but it got harder each time, a big enough increase in difficulty that my strategy needed to completely change for the final challenge. I also got some sweet purple tools for my workers :D.

So far I've had at least 3 story archs probably more. Helping one general dominate the Nile, helping another general expel a competing CiV, and helping the Prince.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has felt they had to grind except Tom?

*edit - misread your post :(
I haven't found AoEO locking out of units in campaign substantially worse than SC2 not allowing me to make battle cruisers or tanks early on. This isn't a standard RTS and while locking out units may be annoying for folks that just want to get in and skirmish, it just isn't for the target audience the game is gunning for. I never understand why people would fire this up for competitive RTS instead of SC2, my guess is the competition is much weaker here :D.

[Tom Chick]

Just because missions have different names doesn't mean they aren't repetitive. I'm referring to the number of times you had to do that same things over and over and over again, with the same limited number of units. It's a colossal time sink that in no way serves the gameplay. It exists only to draw out the experience. Age Online a game composed almost entirely of filler, repetition, and numbers that scooch up tenths of a percent at a time.

But, hey, you're right that most of the missions have unique flavor text. Sometimes you're helping a general, other times you're helping a Cretin fisherman. Just like sometimes in an MMO you're gathering bear hindquarters and other times you're gathering boar hindquarters. They aren't the same at all!

-Tom

[KevinC]

Kevin, as for RTSs with a sense of persistence, Age Online isn't unique. The genre has already done that and it's done it very well. The Warlords Battlecry series, Age of Empires III, and League of Legends, for example.

Yes, I loved the Warlords Battlecry games! Age of Empires III for whatever reason just failed to grab me, I could never get into it. LoL I don't really consider a RTS, but you make a point.

I still really like the concept of AOEO, though, I just think they went about it in a silly way. I hope (perhaps naively) that with their business model they'll be able to continue to develop the game - and hopefully in a direct I want to see them take it in.

[Wolff]

That's like complainging that its not worth playing any SC2 matches cause they are all the same. People always making SCVs, Probes, & Drones followed by Zealot, Marine, etc. Hell in just about every campaign mission my first 10 keystrokes are identical.

My missions all played out differently (as different as can be expected) because sometimes I was crossing a river other times I was assaulting a fortified position, other times I was escorting siege units from an AI partner.

I'm not trying to come across as super fanboy of AoEO, though rereading my posts it sure sounds like it.

[KevinC]

That's like complainging that its not worth playing any SC2 matches cause they are all the same. People always making SCVs, Probes, & Drones followed by Zealot, Marine, etc. Hell in just about every campaign mission my first 10 keystrokes are identical.

I don't play campaigns, so I'm referring to skirmish here, but I'd say the difference is that while people always make SCVs, Marines, etc, they have access to all the tactical options every game.

As the Egyptians, I was getting awfully sick of building nothing but axemen and slingers (why build spearmen? I never saw cavalry in the first 10 levels) with the occasional priest to back them up, not that it was ever necessary to do so.

Now at least I can finally build elephants, but the missions are still way too tame and easy so far. Every mission right now is just a tech up to Age 3 for elephants and wtfpwn everything on the map. My only other option is to spam axemen (again, no reason to build cavalry and spearmen when I rarely see the unit they counter) and slowly grind through the map.

I'm hoping that changes further in, but already it's taken too long to get there!

[Tom Chick]

That's like complainging that its not worth playing any SC2 matches cause they are all the same. People always making SCVs, Probes, & Drones followed by Zealot, Marine, etc.

And if you were playing Age Online, that's all you'd be able to do. Fortunately, Starcraft II -- like every other RTS -- then lets you move on to choices such as whether to go roaches or hydralisks, whether to boom or rush, whether to emphasize tech or quantity, and so forth. Those decisions don't show up in Age Online until you've done a metric tone of grinding, and even then, they dribble out oh-so-slowly.

As I said, it's like having to play 20 chess matches with nothing but pawns before getting to play with a single bishop, at which point you have to play another 20 matches before getting one of your knights. If you're not a chess player, you might be, like, "Hey, cool! And they told me chess was hard!" But to my mind, it's an absolutely horrible way to present a strategy game.

-Tom

[Tom Chick]

Age of Empires III for whatever reason just failed to grab me, I could never get into it.

Age III didn't really come into its own until the War Chiefs expansion, and especially Big Huge Games' Asian Dynasties expansion. It's a really great RTS now, partly for how well the persistence and unlocking system works, partly for how much flexibility it has in almost every area (maps, victory conditions, factions, interface), and partly for how good it looks. I highly recommend it.

-Tom

[KevinC]

Age III didn't really come into its own until the War Chiefs expansion, and especially Big Huge Games' Asian Dynasties expansion. It's a really great RTS now, partly for how well the persistence and unlocking system works, partly for how much flexibility it has in almost every area (maps, victory conditions, factions, interface), and partly for how good it looks. I highly recommend it.

I own all the expansions and have them on DVD (How quaint, right?) around here somewhere. I'll take your word on it and give it another go!

[Lorini]

See and I think Age III looks so muddy. It's difficult to see units because the contrast is so bad. I've been more than pleased with the clear, cartoony style graphics of AOEOL. Reminds me of AOE II, which graphics I highly preferred. I even bought AOE III from GFWL hoping to re-capture the magic but the graphics were a real turn off.

[Jon Rowe]

I can't stop playing this. The AoE bug is back.


I CAN MAKE TIREMES!

[Pogue Mahone]

Anyone want to do a co-op mission? Do we have to be on the same server? I'm on Abydos.

[Spect]

I went into this thinking I would just play the "demo" for 10 levels or so, then move on to something else. I ended up buying the Egyptian civ at level 10 and look forward to playing lots more. Grind or no, the game is very fun to me, and I really like the art style.

[Jon Rowe]

All of my hundreds of hours of playing AOE2 are flooding back to me, and I am riding an RTS nostalgia high right now. Going to pick up the greek civ soon.

We should pick a server for Qt3 people.
(Alexandria)

[Jab]

I think several of us are on marathon already. I did hear that you can switch servers pretty easily.

[Stimpack88]

They made AOE:O easy because it is an MMO that is why the game is a cakewalk, MMO's tend to cater to non-gamers and the unskilled (the vast majority of humanity) hence why the game is dumbed down.

Besides the graphics there's very little good about AOE:O it's a strange beast of RPG and rts, plus the rpg mechanics dropped in to drag out the game and make it a grind fest because MMO's by their nature need a way to keep people playing the game.

[Harkonis]

I think several of us are on marathon already. I did hear that you can switch servers pretty easily.

Yep, there are already a dozen or so on Marathon.

[Harkonis]

They made AOE:O easy because it is an MMO that is why the game is a cakewalk, MMO's tend to cater to non-gamers and the unskilled (the vast majority of humanity) hence why the game is dumbed down.

Besides the graphics there's very little good about AOE:O it's a strange beast of RPG and rts, plus the rpg mechanics dropped in to drag out the game and make it a grind fest because MMO's by their nature need a way to keep people playing the game.

you obviously know nothing at all about the world of MMO's other than what WoW showed you on a trial.

Darkfall wants to talk to you about cakewalk, non-gamers and unskilled people. ignorance on the internet, color me amazed.

[Jajusha]

On my second co-op only mission (level 24), and what a blast!

First mission we where lucky enough to have a bottleneck as the only entrance to our bases, so, while one focused on the walls, i built some towers and Tox (greek archers - anti infantry), and we holded the AI until elephants + greek phylanx won the game.

But now, the second map...oh...the second map no bottleneck, lots of open land, and elite Hypas are storming everywhere! These co-op enforced missions are quite harder then your regular mission.

[Stimpack88]

you obviously know nothing at all about the world of MMO's other than what WoW showed you on a trial.

LOL most mmo's are garbage games all around. It rarely matters what MMO you pick there is usually the same kind of garbage gameplay taken from other MMO's. The fact you mention darkfall in the same breath as WoW which has infinitely bigger playerbase is just more proof of how MMO games attracts the worst kind of gamers. I'm talking about general trends of industry trend setters here.

Games over the last 10 years have tended to be:
-Automated
-Dumbed down
-Simplified
-Padded with bad game design ideas to extend playtime if an MMO to extract $

All in an attempt to reach the mass market. Your comment does nothing when talking about trends in the industry. Almost all MMO's are lesser games then their single player counterparts on the whole because of the nature of server based games.

[DeepT]

And are you saying this is just a fact of how they are, or more or less that is the way it should be? Why can't MMOs be a lot more then they are? Why do they have to feature such derivative game-play?

[Harkonis]

LOL most mmo's are garbage games all around. It rarely matters what MMO you pick there is usually the same kind of garbage gameplay taken from other MMO's. The fact you mention darkfall in the same breath as WoW which has infinitely bigger playerbase is just more proof of how MMO games attracts the worst kind of gamers. I'm talking about general trends of industry trend setters here.

Games over the last 10 years have tended to be:
-Automated
-Dumbed down
-Simplified
-Padded with bad game design ideas to extend playtime if an MMO to extract $

All in an attempt to reach the mass market. Your comment does nothing when talking about trends in the industry. Almost all MMO's are lesser games then their single player counterparts on the whole because of the nature of server based games.

we could do this with any genre.

generalization dude makes generalizations I suppose.

[Wolff]

News flash. Gaming companies exist to make money - if they get more sales by catering to the average they are going to - raging elitism won't save you.

[Jon Rowe]

They made AOE:O easy because it is an MMO that is why the game is a cakewalk, MMO's tend to cater to non-gamers and the unskilled (the vast majority of humanity) hence why the game is dumbed down.

The Gammas, or Epsilons.

[Sir Digby]

The Gammas, or Epsilons.

Oh, a Huxley reference, you made my day, Sir.

[Stimpack88]

we could do this with any genre.

generalization dude makes generalizations I suppose.

Not quite all you have to do is compare an MMO to any single player game before the advent of MMO's to see the huge differences in game design where they purposely have to break the game and add boring timesinks instead of content because they want that monthly fee so bad. There are too many sheep that take it up the rear because they are clueless and/or young. SO game design has regressed because of human turn over, experienced gamers get old, new gamers are born, and hence the cycle of gaming stagnation.

The fact that most people are so dumb they would spend $15 a month on a game for years on end for what is a glorified chat interface with a graphical front end with minimal amount of game is proof that most human beings aren't very bright.

[JM]

lol sheeple am i rite

[Telefrog]

The fact that most people are so dumb they would spend $15 a month on a game for years on end for what is a glorified chat interface with a graphical front end with minimal amount of game is proof that most human beings aren't very bright.

Whew! Thank goodness you're here to enlighten everyone!

[Stimpack88]

News flash. Gaming companies exist to make money - if they get more sales by catering to the average they are going to - raging elitism won't save you.

No shit but this doesn't mean the industry isn't filled with douchebags and hacks that are ruining fun games in order to sell as many copies to mentally ill retarded children that comprise much of the gaming community who would buy anything because their lives are so vacuous they fill it with any game. Anyone can see all the bad game design in MMO's once they emerged and it's not difficult to see the trends. It's not raging elitism, it's called demographic transition.

One gaming generation has the memories of past games, the newer generation doesn't. So bad games of mediocre design which might have been just ok in the past for the experienced gamer frustrate them. They watch the market for mediocre games expand because fresh young gamer blood with no memory of the past is there to fill the rank and file because shiny graphics is enough to get them to plop down their money. While companies can profit this doesn't mean their games aren't mediocre piles of crap.

[Stimpack88]

Whew! Thank goodness you're here to enlighten everyone!

You must be a WoW player, am I right? :P