
Microsoft Announces Age of Empires IV - AliCollins
https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2017/08/22/microsoft-announces-age-of-empires-iv/
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aerovistae
I'm one of the biggest AoE2 fans out there-- it's my favorite game of all time
and I've played _thousands_ of games of it. I also loved the original AoE and
the related Age of Mythology.

In spite of that, I feel this is nothing to be excited about.

Age of Empires 1 & 2 were special because they were designed by a special team
at a company called Ensemble Studios, which was bought by Microsoft and sadly
shut down in 2009. None of that team remain with Microsoft.

AoE4 is being developed by Relic, a company with no track record to speak of.*
It has _nothing_ in common with the game many of us know and love other than
the title. It is _extremely_ unlikely to have the depth, nuance,
replayability, and well-thought out design that made the original franchise a
hit.

In place of those things, it's likely to have shockingly poor multiplayer
integration through the Windows store as Microsoft inevitably rejects Steam
integration, and god knows what other modern problems like microtransactions.

Frankly I feel there's very little to be hyped about here.

And god do I ever hope I'm wrong.

*They made some decent games 15 years ago. How many of those designers and developers are still with the company now? How many will be working on AoE4? And were their best games good enough that they're still so beloved that they merit re-releases, new expansions, and definitive editions 20 years later? I don't think so...

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lackbeard
Not sure how you can say Relic has no track record... Homeworld, Dawn of War,
and Company of Heroes were all very successful games.

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aaron-lebo
Not to mention Homeworld is one of the greatest games of all time...

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aerovistae
As I said in another comment, does that matter? Homeworld is from 1999. How
many people who worked at Relic in 1999 are going to be working on AoE4? My
guess is zero.

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aaron-lebo
Was just saying Homeworld is really great, and that manual.

I agree with you.

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mattmanser
Relic just recently screwed up DoW3, CoH2 has become micro-transaction hell
even in multi-player against bots, so I wouldn't expect much.

I've always played these RTSes with friends against bots, and Relic have
basically been at war with our play-style for a decade. First they said the
RTS was dead, then dispatched with base-building and then added in terrain
heights that are impossible to discern from a top-down view. Now they have
made the DoW series into some sort of bad DotA/RTS hybrid, removing cover and
morale, that's got terrible reviews.

Prepare for your fond memories of AoE to be trampled over.

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CWuestefeld
FYI - I'm having a lot of trouble getting any information at all from this
comment, because so much of it is tied up in abbreviations that I don't
understand.

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SeanDav
DoW3: Dawn of War 3

CoH2: Company of Heroes 2

bots: Robots / Automated game play

RTS: Real Time Strategy

DotA: Good explanation provided at:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota_2)

... and just in case anyone is confused by your abbreviation:

FYI: For Your Information

:P

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tapia
I suppose there won't be any Linux version?...

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melling
Why would there be? There’s not a sufficient market for it. Hoping for the day
when everyone magically supports Linux hasn’t worked for 20 years. Maybe it’s
time for a different plan?

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roryisok
maybe they'll build it in electron

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tapia
That seems like the standard approach to linux ports these days :P

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davemp
AoEII definitive edition aka seriously we're going to stop making you pay for
the same game over and over again.

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thawkins
Gladly do it

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pastelsky
As a long time fan of the AoE who thought that the series was dead, this news
is rejuvenating. I've found the chess-like gameplay of turn based strategy
games to be frustrating, and there are hardly any new games being made in the
RTS genre anymore.

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SteveNuts
As a life-long fan of this series I have extremely high hopes and expectations
for this game. I really hope they deliver.

I remember some of my first "hacking" was running chat bots in the MSN gaming
zone lobby for AoEII.

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tpeo
> _running chat bots in the MSN gaming zone lobby for AoEII_

But why?

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SteveNuts
I was young and thought it was cool. I was probably 10 or 11 at the time.

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baalimago
If i remember correctly, age of empires III wasn't very great at all. Have my
hopes up for this though!

O CANADA O CANADA O CANADA O CANADA

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thawkins
Im so excited about this new version, now if they could also do the same for
xwing and crimson skies.

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ForRealsies
As long as they don't turn it into a MOBA.

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TomMarius
What do you mean by turning it into a MOBA? I would really appreciate a
launcher/matchmaking interface similar to League of Legends - granted the game
itself remains a RTS just like AoE2.

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lackbeard
MOBA is a bad genre label used to distinguish games like Dota and League of
Legends from RTSs like Starcraft. It's a concept that is completely orthogonal
from providing a matchmaking service with your game.

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TomMarius
I know (I used to play LoL after all, so I'm familiar with the genre), but
I've seen people misusing the term very often. I wasn't sure because I'm not
entirely sure how would they turn a game like AoE into a MOBA - it wouldn't be
an update of the original game, it would be a whole new concept published
under the same name.

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michaelspivey
Can't wait for this! Waited a long time.

