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Age of Empires Online is scandalous!!!
MyPreciousss
Member Posts: 427
Let's compare the venerable and excellent Age of Empires 2 (Age of Kings+The Conquerors Expansion) to Age of Empires Online launching in 08/2011. So I cherished AOE2 (so successful that it was ported to PS2 and Nintendo which is a extraordinary for a PC RTS game) and I was glad to hear about AOEO.
BUT honestly, after reading about their paying plan and screenshots of internal item store, I won't touch this, it's an ugly money grab.
For instance you had *18* nations (13 without the expansion) in AOK, you have *2* in AOEO, the other civilizations you'll have to buy. You have to pay to develop decently your capital city. If you don't pay you will be stuck with a sub-par city and useless loot after 7 quests and have to throw it out because you must pay for additional stores. You must pay to enhance your equipment. You must pay to build workshops. You must pay to unlock your counselors and special units. You must pay to access rare items. You must pay to access your complete civilization technological tree, etc, etc, etc.
You'll need to pay 102 euros for 6 months of contents, if you don't, you are disadvantaged or are playing a half-game. The Greek civlilization for instance costs 24 euros, a mission costs 12 euros, ONE decoration type (trees, fountains) costs 6 euros. Do they really intend to unlock 18 civilizations slowly and have you pay for each one of them? It's ridiculously MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE ORIGINAL SIMILAR AGE OF KINGS THAT HAD 18 CIVILIZATIONS. It's MORE EXPENSIVE than full AAA MMO's. Just calculate by yourself!
"Online" really? This "Online" tag is so convenient nowadays. Age of Empires was single-player + ONLINE multiplayer since 1999, you could play FREELY with 8 other players all day long on fast and stable servers with co-op, duels, teams; because not so long ago, you see, playing online a retail box game was FREE, you hadn't to pay anything on top of your COMPLETE retail box.
Graphics weren't childish in AOK, now they are, a silly mix of anime and general cartoony direction of flash/facebook games. Are we all 5 years old or what? This RTS is about war, can we please have "realistic" isometric graphics like in good old days before casual noobs invaded our servers, did stupid things and chatted to have 10 minutes fun before logging off? Seriously replace the weapons of those toons by spades or guitars, no one would notice.
On a side not, I remember bitterly the day Ensemble Studios were closed by Microsoft, to be replaced now by another studio but this is another story, at least Ensemble had no say in this horrible use of the IP they so well served and honoured.
TO SUM IT UP, AGE OF EMPIRES ONLINE IS ASKING YOU TO PAY FOR THINGS THAT WERE FOREVER FREE IN THE COMPLETE VERSION OF THE GAME IN 2001 AND IS TRYING TO LOOK LIKE A SORT OF F2P MMORTS WHICH IT ISN'T AND THAT SHOULD IN THE EYES OF THE GREEDY PEOPLE IN CHARGE JUSTIFY THE ASTRONOMICAL SUMS THEY ARE ASKING YOU TO PLAY A COMPLETE GAME.
Comments
Agreed
RULE OF AQUISITION N:10 - GREED IS ETHERNAL
I'm sure will soon see Zoo/Roller Coaster Tycoon online as well.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
solution: don't play it
i tried it works
Absolutely this. Players voting with their wallet is far more powerful than people understand. It bankrupted companies like Monte Crisco (Cities XL charged for multiplayer), Flagship Studios, and Realtime Worlds. It forced Champions Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online to go free to play, and its knocked almost all self-proclaimed WoW-killers out of the water.
Don't like it? Don't play it. Or play it and run up the costs of their bandwidth and server maintenance. If enough people vote with their wallets, the company will be forced to change tactics or go bankrupt, and if they do go under...welll you probably were better off not putting your money in the hands of such an amateur group anyway.
What you seem to be missing completely is the fact that one Civ in this game is customizable to the point where it is comparable to 4 or 5 civilizations in AoE2. And that's ignoring the "campaign" and completely unique visuals.
Age of Empires offline > Age of Empires Online.
Always.
Hey guys, I'm the Community Manager on this title.
I'd love to chime in and explain a few things here.
Regarding there only being 2 free civs. We're launching with 2 civs, they both have a free to play component and they also have a premium/paid component. These are not the ONLY civs we'll have. We've announced 2 more coming out later this year, the Celts and the Persians. We'll be adding civs to this game for YEARS to come.
Having to pay 102 euros for 6 months of content. This is an option. If you buy the Season Pass bundle, you'll pay once, and receive EVERYTHING we release during that 6 months. This includes all civs we release, all booster packs, and all vanity packs. If you're a player who wants EVERYTHING, this package offers substantial savings. This is not a forced purchase. We're allowing users to purchase only what they want. If a user really only likes Horde Mode style games, they can spend $10 (or their regions pricing) and that can be their ONLY purchase in Age of Empires Online. When you make a single purchase of a Civ, you unlock everything for that civ. The entire tech tree, the advisers, larger warehouses, rare and epic gear, etc. We're not nickle and diming our users.
The online portion: The capitol city is persistent. When you're not online playing, friends can still visit your city and buy from your stores, as well as your city is still producing goods. We aren't charging for online play.
The art style: By changing the art style we were able to lower the requirements needed to run the game. Which means, more people can play it!
It's a free download and free to play. You don't have to buy a civ right off the bat to check the game out. I'd highly suggest you at least try the game before deciding you hate it. Instead of the past where you'd have to pay full retail price for a game, only to find out you dislike it (we've all had that happen), we're letting you check the game out for free. And if you chose to upgrade to a Premium Civ at any point in time, you don't have to start your city over. If you chose not to, you're not out any money.
Its good you came in and added your bit to this post. These days in most online free to play models players tend to be very restricted on content but I am interested to definately see how this one plays out. The lure of the store will draw me in if I really enjoy the game.
As for the artstyle I am a little disapointed on that but can't really comment until I actually play the game but will make mention of tough competition with End Of Nations coming out soon. That game allows a large amount of players and the graphics still very impressive.
I am not sure people who played through and enjoyed aoe games will stay on for long in this new title.
To tell you the truth microsoft game isin't very good at this and they really just want to get this released as fast as thei can before The Sims Online takes over facebook like city ville did.
That's my honest opinion, I doubt the game is ready at all it looks like a beta test and it's released tomorow.
I will try it but won't buy anything.
https://i.imgur.com/Dc8dU3M.png
Thank you for that, i was on the fence but now i am going to play.
well said
If someone is talking in general chat in a language you dont understand, chances are they're not talking to you. So chill out and stop bitching about it!
I'm interested in the title, and may pick up the boxed game, but I have to say, the marketing has been very poor. I don't have a problem with F2P, but it needs to be very carefully managed, and quite frankly, it hasn't. LoL has (more or less) broken open the F2P model, but they have figured out some critical aspects to it - make sure literally the entire game is open to free players (even if it requires considerable grinding), and only charge for items that are either cosmetic or that reduce the grind. Also, don't put big price tags on anything (Riot uses "Riot Points", which I find to be gimmicky, but they are also careful to avoid package deals with big price tags - in both cases, reducing sticker shock).
The problem with AoEO so far is that it's clear that the full game isn't available without paying for at least some content, and it's not clear how much content players need to pay for to be competitive. That, and the "subscription", which isn't really (it's actually a package deal) makes players think that they need to pay $100+ just to be competitive, and it runs out after 6 months (not the case, but that's how it's being marketed). Hence the negative reactions.
There may be a good game underneath the marketing mess, but MS really needs to revamp the marketing, and fast, or players are going to hear scare stories about massive costs just to be competitive, and will run the other direction.
Hello, first of all I won't supect you of any biased opinion even if it's your first post in mmorpg, even if you are working for Microsoft editing the game, and we know Microsoft isn't about money
Joke aside, you didn't invalidate any of my points :
Of course I never said people forced you to buy anything, but you said you were launching a F2P game... I'd rather use a better terminology: the rump of a game with limited functionalities, maybe a limited trial.
I just checked it, 6 months of complete contents costs 100 euros, meaning 1 year of a complete content which would mean at least 4 civilizations at max 8 (my deductions) would cost 200 euros.
IF YOU WANT 8 CIVILIZATIONS AND THE NORMAL THINGS LIKE MAPS AND MISSIONS THAT ARE NORMALLY INCLUDED IN ANY RTS GAME YOU MUST PAY 200 EUROS IN AGE OF EMPIRES ONLINE AND YOU'LL MISS ADDITIONAL CONTENT AFTER ONE YEAR IF YOU DON'T REPAY AGAIN.
To sum it up MY ROUGH CALCULATION TELLS ME THAT TO HAVE BASICALLY THE SAME ORIGINAL AOK IN AOEO YOU SHOULD SPEND 300 EUROS + AND YOU'LL ACHIEVE THIS TRICK BY STRETCHING MODULES FOR YEARS.
So don't start me with your savings, seriously overcharging individual modules then giving a still expensive 6 month pack with 4 civilizations and daring to tell me I can save compared to all individual modules... Seriously?
Would you like to pay more to have less? Welcome to F2P Age of Empires Online 8-P
About style and requirement to run the game, it's a matter of taste actually but the realistic graphics from 1999 could well be acceptable for nowadays PC so your "low performance" argumentation is nonsense. You have chosen a childish style, it has nothing to do with PC requirements.
Nothing to add about the capital city WHICH IS THE ONLY REAL ONLINE INNOVATION COMPARED TO AOK 1999. Although technically speaking leaving your capital city unattended and invulnerable can't be considered as REAL TIME strategy.
And to your last argument, that we should try it anyway because it won't cost anything, I say NO. RTS players who loved this great IP shouldn't play it even for free and populate your servers so that milk cows are left with themselves with less people to play with.
BTW, I'm not specially furious about your game, you're just following the trend of many other "F2P" games. And I'm just stating the obvious in my post as nostalgia forced me to react. And the sad news is with this type of greedy projects, don't expect AOE4 anytime. And you know I could have subscribed or paid a lifetime unique sum to your game with reasonable price, but you're not at all heading that way.
well with my experience so far you won't even be able to play. i can't get my much worked after account to work, and it's asking me for a code like it's a sandbox game i installed using a cd.
who are they kidding F2P my @$$!
So it'll take you 9 years to catch up to AoE 2? Talk about value!
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hahahahah I just love how you can pay $99 to get access to the Celts and Persians now. These empires will be released in 3 month intervals obviously so your $99 isnt going to get you any new empires in the next 6 months yet this community manager makes it sound like its a great deal which will save you money! LOL
so basically $99 for 1/8 of the original game. Talk about value.
Spin away Mr Microsoft.
It's bad. Really bad. I mean... soooooo bad. It's like a bastardized AoE2, with the fun sucked out of it, and a ton of microtransactions on top. Plus the aesthetics are a MAJOR turn off.
Now, if this was just a flat fee of like $30 (for example), then I could see that being okay, with the occasional expansion of course. But this is just crap. Hell, you can pick up most of the Total War games, Civilation IV (or whichever you prefer), the early red alert games, or AoE2+expansions, for dirt cheap, and they'd offer far more fun than this, especially with mods.
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I prefer the plain old retail approach of buy the game in the box and you get the game. If I could pay $50 - $60 to get the full-blown Age of Empires Online experience, I'd probably pick it up. I don't like it as much as Starcraft 2, but it's a nice change of pace.
I considered just buying one premium civ pack -- something most buyers will likely do. I guess I just see myself getting bored with playing as one civilization. See, with Starcraft 2, for example, I have everything the game offers. I can play all campaigns, play ranked, unranked, co-op, play as all three races, mods, create maps, etc. True, it doesn't have the persistent capitol (which I admit is kind of a cool idea and a nice incentive for building up your personalized civ). The persistent capitol does give more of a motivation for gaining experience in the game. But it's not such a huge feature that I would pay a monthly fee or something to maintain it. Just give me the civs and let me play against other people.
The big problem I have with this arrangement is to do with the gameplay itself. In Starcraft (and pretty much any other RTS), I have the same tools available to me as my opponent. Whoever manages the tools more effectively will win. In AOE online, I may have better or worse tools depending upon how much money and time had previously been spent building up my own civ compared to my opponent's civ. Therein lies the problem. I don't get the same sense of satisfaction crushing a player with superior strategy knowing it could well be that he / she just doesn't have as advanced of a civ as I do. I don't get the same sense of fairness or knowing I just got out-played when I get crushed by someone who grinded through campaigns and bought a bunch of packs so they would have an advantage. All in all, it's less satisfying to win and more frustrating to lose.
Old time player of AOE and AOM, spent countless hours on those games. Was really looking forward to this but it does really seem like a big money grab when you calculate this over time, what you get and what you don't, and what a full game really should have. I would have prefered to pay as usual a box price and pay for additonal expansions over time in order to enjoy this game completely. Now as it stands I'm not even downloading it. Quite disapointed with the direction of the item shop.
The art style: By changing the art style we were able to lower the requirements needed to run the game. Which means, more people can play it!
No, you're talking about the graphics, not the style. Nobody cares that you tried to think of performance so that the most people could play. People do care that you made the style of the game look like it takes after a children's show. Bright colors everywhere, disproportional people, all of these have nothing to do with performance but everything to do with style and it makes things look "cartoony". The impression this makes with the title itself is more like "Age of Comic Characters".
I suggest as "Community Manager" you do some research before you talk.
Well however you will sweettalk this. Bottom point is AOE Online is multiple times more expensive than AoE 2 or AoE 3 or any other rts out there. So no thanks and good bye o/
Develop all civilizations you intend to , combine it put into box or digital download and I will consider paying 50 $ for ALL of it.
My last post here btw.
Very true point, but a thread like this giving a heads up to a few more people can't hurt either.
Coming from a AOE vet, (I still get togeather to this day once a month and do a LAN game with family and friends) 10 years after the game is released? thats replay value.
Anyways I have tried AOEO, and I will not be paying for it. which saddens me, because for years now I've been waiting for a new AOE, but this? no thanks.
I honestly can't get past the art style, I mean i'm not a stickler for graphics (duh i'm still playing AOE2) but this game...is baaaddd.
So honesty I hope it fails badly, and just maaayybbeee they'll work on a real Age of Empires.
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Now I have never played age of empires , but I cant imagine that all those years ago the graphics would be better, is aoe a good game? how does it differ from age of mythology which I like alot
I suggest you try it for free
.
Anyhoo, if I take the OP's reasons, one might suggest that ANY MMO game is a ripoff. Compared to a singleplayer game, that is.
That said, I'm still "freebeei'ng" AoEO, and I'm considering buying a civ pack (Egyptians probably). I like the game.
AoEO is nothing more than any other RTS except you have to always be online and don't have an offline campaign. Even SC2 had unit upgrade.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions