Has this game already been abandoned?

[SpoonOfDoom]

Honestly, I don't really care about the money I spent for this, I actually like the game.
The problem is there is so little support and communication from the devs that I'm starting to question whether it makes sense to put any more time into this game. I play competitive multiplayer, got here from competitive AOE2.
Now we're 4 months into the release and what we've got is:
1. huge balance problems (e.g. playing vs Mongols makes no sense, just quit). That's only one example.
2. 4 months and still no ranked in mp, lol.
3. Popular pro players like Hera (only one of many) abandoning the game for the reasons I mentioned.
4. dwindling player base
5. silence, disinterest and overt neglect of this game by the developers.

I'm sad I have to write this. What do you guys think? Anyone has any insider infos?

[Anibal]

the only information there is is the route map that they released this year, and I think that the players will continue to drop at least until the ranked ones come out, the map editor or the dlc that they are surely also preparing (surely japan, spain or the viking kingdoms)

[MaGicBush]

They have been very slow to update and communicate for this game for some reason. I am guessing once it was released they shrank the developer team down significantly to focus on CoH3.

[Siphon2012]

Has anyone heard anything about "Anthem." After so many players left and so many orders refund, they put a skeleton crew on it. I have a feeling they will do the same with this game.

This game did not have all the simple functions of AOE 2 or AOE 3. They left out so much that could have helped this game. This game was surely rushed out and not even close to being finished.

I bought this game too soon. I paid for the $60.00. I should have looked at the negative reviews on it before buying. Then I would not have wasted my money it. Sorry, but that is just how I feel. They can put out a road map and make promises of doing things, but it does not mean they will follow the road map or keep those promises.

[Rua]

This game honestly was better than anyone expected to be, but it really feels like it was abandoned from start, i played like 200 hours the first month an then stop

I think their plan is to release expensive DLCs, instead of working constantly on patches and updates to keep people playing, its a shame because the game die too fast, they needed a much bigger company in care of a game like this, constant fixes and updates is what keeps games alive, this game feels like starcraft2 in state of life support minimal fixes and its only a few months old

[Snickerbockers]

I'm a bit worried that they're so open with their roadmaps for AoE2DE and AoE3DE DLC but we know nothing about AoE4's DLC. Makes me worried that they're not working on it.

Also there's still a lot of bugs and missing features. This game desperately needs custom random maps to make up for how pathetically small the map selection is.

I don't mean to ♥♥♥♥♥ too much, I actually love this game and have had lots of fun with it, I'm just a little upset because it feels like it isn't ready for release yet and I'm worried it'll kill this game's community, plenty of games die because the devs don't provide enough content on release and they don't effectively communicate their plans with the playerbase.

[Rance-sama]

It feels like they just took a well known IP and gave it to a trash studio to try and build up Gamepass.
I don't think they care as much about the long term viability of this game as they do about funnelling consoooomers onto their ADHD subscription platform and continuing to buy up studios to dominate the video game market

[Heart of Storm]

Ah gamers, Devs don't drip feed micro-patches every week and you all cry the game is dead.

They've released a roadmap, they were doing interviews with gaming press only last month to talk about their plans for the game, stop claiming the sky is falling because they haven't dropped a patch in the last 5 minutes

[Siphon2012]

Origineel geplaatst door Heart of Storm:

Ah gamers, Devs don't drip feed micro-patches every week and you all cry the game is dead.

They've released a roadmap, they were doing interviews with gaming press only last month to talk about their plans for the game, stop claiming the sky is falling because they haven't dropped a patch in the last 5 minutes

Yeah, Anthem had a roadmap as well. Look how well it turned out for the game and players that bought that game.

[Rance-sama]

Origineel geplaatst door Heart of Storm:

Ah gamers, Devs don't drip feed micro-patches every week and you all cry the game is dead.

They've released a roadmap, they were doing interviews with gaming press only last month to talk about their plans for the game, stop claiming the sky is falling because they haven't dropped a patch in the last 5 minutes

It's a new world out there and these corporate strategists are shady AF. When you have a situation like Microsoft where they are just buying up dev studios left and right and trying to corner as much of the market as possible then you can bet they will allocate resources to wherever they think they will see maximum returns.

Subscription services that give access to large libraries are not conducive to long term commitment on games, keeping the hype train going is. So you release a game that is essentially early access in all but name with a bunch of promises, switch to a skeleton team to maintain it and deliver them over time in a bare-bones manner, and based off of the games success you allocate more or less resources to it's maintenance.

[Anibal]

Origineel geplaatst door housersc:

Origineel geplaatst door Heart of Storm:

Ah gamers, Devs don't drip feed micro-patches every week and you all cry the game is dead.

They've released a roadmap, they were doing interviews with gaming press only last month to talk about their plans for the game, stop claiming the sky is falling because they haven't dropped a patch in the last 5 minutes

Yeah, Anthem had a roadmap as well. Look how well it turned out for the game and players that bought that game.

It is true that many times the studios abandon the games, but on the other hand the developer is a relic, they practically base their business model in the last 5 or 8 years on updating the age of empires and putting dlcs, but the new subscription model It only leaves two possible paths for its future, or the dlcs are sold more cheaply to those who have the game pass or they become a developer that makes many mediocre games. At the moment and how they are handling age of empire 3 and 2 they will remain, it does not seem that they will change their policies.

[leg]

After providing mentally ill manchildren who like things like 'space marines war hammer crap' and 'asstartees' (whatever/whoever that is, really), Relic failed to make a bigtime balanced RTS of their own in Dawn of War 3.

In a show of extreme stupidity, Microsoft then 'hired them' a few years later (what? why? who knows why really) to do what has been hailed as yet another 'soulless cash grab' where a brand was purchased and made into something utterly bad, in name of making sales; rather than 'pay homage' in their own attempt, deception was used where you were actually tricked like 'guys, this is AoE', yet the original AoE devs are disbanded, and stopped years after AoE3; you were duped. If you really thought 'wow I played aoe2, now it's aoe4', made any sort of comparisons, you are part of the problem, or rather, you were tricked anyway.

Now I see this aimless 'late' talk almost weeks later (after AoE2 from 1999 player counts already exceeded the AoE4 player counts in 2022 weeks ago), not critiquing about the bad gameplay, and asking 'what happened', but the reality is they 'still made sales', basically getting people to buy something that was irredeemably bad and could not even be defended in the slightest. You are really waiting for a little 'patch' that might add a 'map' or 'tweak a few stats', whatever crap after months? You got duped. You might even be 'part of the problem' if that's really what you thought. This is the product you paid for, it's not changing. What can you do now, shoot the messenger (someone like me) for pointing at facts? You probably get like 2000 players or less in this bad game, if it hasn't dropped more.

The only truth I've seen skimming through here is yes, it's relic, the sjws they paid to steal the brand; same thing happened to many other brands in recent years.. they think if they cover up a turd in 'ferrari' logo, then people will at least say 'it's good, what a new model, it only has some weird problems where it runs worse than a basic car' and till the end, they still have some of you people who 'never realized' and 'are still wondering' why it's a turd and not the thing you paid for; not that ferrari's are useful or for smart people but you should get the point with buying for brandnames.

"oh why is there like 1000 players of aoe4?" because it was bad. It had nothing good on it. It should not have even been called aoe. It tarnished the name and legacy of something made great by other people. That is like expecting a group of SJW actors who want to pretend to be cool to 'operate well' if you call them a 'seal team'; some people might only see 'seal team' and think, wow they probably know alot, until they perform terribly. aoe4 is the same thing.

You should have refunded and 'never' paid them.. even if someone like me did not pay for it, it's a drop in the bucket for the thousands who did; what happened to the peak 30,000 players? I guess each and every one died or disappeared, but that's still mostly all 60$-70$ each person they just stole from your braindead self or even some little kids.

Thanks, they could not have done the scam without you people. Maybe if it made enough $, they'll do it again soon, that's the 1% and really now microsoft you are supporting there anyway, not the wider populace. These people who probably literally uninstalled within a week, many of them left 'positive' reviews, what a joke. Scam successful then.

[Rance-sama]

Origineel geplaatst door leg:

...

:despair:

[MrHero23]

Yea, i dont think that's it.

I think that, in a show of extreme stupidity, microsoft contracted out an outside studio to make AoE4, probably since it would be faster than making their own from scratch. Back during the whiteboard stages of the game they wanted a different audience form AoE 2 or 3 to get a wide range of players when DE would launch for the old games.

There is a reason you dont hear about ford designing a car, then sending it to Lamborgini to be tested, edited, certified, and manufactured. Then after the first batch, they send it BACK to ford to make the rest of them, while having to transfer legal patents, documents, tools, experience, etc to ford. It will take you forever to finally get the car to dealership. Its easier to send lambo designers to ford facility to colab with them in a design.
It just makes sense..........

Why microsoft contract game out to relic, knowing they where gambling that they could finish the game (learn how to AoE, its community, style, gameplay, etc. from scratch) before working on their next big company of heroes is beyond me. It leaves the game in a state of "come back in a year and things will happen.

Perhaps they did it knowing strategy games are slim picking and the community will play and come back eventually. Hell look at new world and bless unleashed? Thats what a community hungry for content will pay for. They might thing AoE is the same given how well AoE2 DE (a 20 year old game) sold.

[Pengbumstot]

I disagree with the timeline most people here seem to go by: I gobbled up all the news and played all alpha/beta/"stresstest" versions of the game. For me, they didn't stop listening to the community, because they never started listening in the first place. The same problems were stated and worst case scenarios predicted by community feedback over and over. They ignored it when the first screenshots were released and never stopped ignoring it since.
All they do PR-wise is making up stuff and throwing tiny bones as they go (some posts here and there, a bit of streaming and youtube content, a laughably vague roadmap). Honestly feels like some group of university students got the game as a semester project to supervise and learn from.

The only surprising thing for me once the game released, was how unbelievably boring the campaigns turned out. It is so bland and sad that I wish there was more wokeness involved in that department, so they could've created some wacky alternative history where I conquer the world with a black jeanne d'arc dual wielding trebuchets from horseback x]


They made their money. Any further development we saw so far was just random patching by some skeleton team (poor zero empires has to test those balancing brain farts).

You will see real progress (if any) once new money can be made. I guess they will try to drop DLC at some point, and there are also the editor/modding tools they advertised from the beginning and therefore have to implement in some form at some point.

We will see if there is any audience left to sell that crap to by then.

[Siphon2012]

@ Pengbumstot - Most likely there will not be an audience left, unless the prices are cheap, which I doubt they will have the dlcs listed at a cheaper price.