Age of Empires Online

Gunner wrote:

Rob Zacny posted some fairly negative impressions over on GamePro today. The whole having to grind through hours of starter content before getting to the "real" game aspect sounds pretty lame. Have you guys been getting the same feeling?

Well, I think that would be the feeling for anybody who wants to get right into the PVP type stuff or higher age type stuff. In that case you might as well just play AoE2 or 3. I'm enjoying just fiddling with the stuff in my capital city and doing some of the quests. It really depends on what you are interested in doing.

Gunner wrote:

Rob Zacny posted some fairly negative impressions over on GamePro today. The whole having to grind through hours of starter content before getting to the "real" game aspect sounds pretty lame. Have you guys been getting the same feeling?

Thanks for posting! I LOVED Rob's review and entirely agree with him about, well, everthing. It seems to me F2P's are supposed to entice players to spend money, not, as Rob said, bore them into it. I adored this nugget:

At least I will have memories. Memories of exciting quests like, "Food Equals Workers" in which I learned that, yes, I can harvest food in order to construct workers, and "Wood Equals Buildings," where you learn that -- oh, I don't want to spoil it! Let's just say that those trees scattered around the maps aren't just for decoration!

That said, Egypt is different enough from Greece that it's somewhat entertaining (AoE2 with a dash of AoM thrown in), but I would love to have all the early training missions be optional because they are so dry, dreary, and boring!

I think there will be a "Pro" purchase option coming soon for PVPers (probably with the new civs) that will give you the premium content *and* start you at level 20. Not sure why they don't have that already, though.

What realm is everyone on? We should all move to one of them.

I got past that section ("Mow 'em down") on the first try tonight. I ended up taking out the primary enemies with that lovely Greek unit whose name I can't spell. You know, the one you can't make more of. Yeah. That one.

Anyway, I advanced a few more levels. Once I hit level 6, I was prompted with a co-op option, so it must unlock somewhere around there for everyone. I've also started collecting items that I can't use without a Premium civ. Finally, multiple quests have been unlocked, so it's starting to give me a few options of which ones to go after.

Long story short, I'm enjoying it to the point where I'm considering dropping $20 on the Greeks. I want to get a bit further, but the mechanics are holding together pretty well, so far as I'm concerned.

I'm on the "Athens" server, by the way.

I want to like this but every time I play I feel like I am forcing myself to play. It is just real polished AoE, nothing real new here that intrigues me. My guess is this experiment will get crushed by the impending onslaught starting next week with HR.

Zacny's remarks have confirmed many of my worst fears. I'll still take a look-see in a few weeks, but it appears to me that MS and GPG have taken everything bad about F2P as visualized by Western gamers and made those fears a reality. What they mean to accomplish by such clumsy tomfoolery I don't know, but certainly most of what they've done defeats the fundamental concepts behind what makes F2P work.

cube wrote:

What realm is everyone on? We should all move to one of them.

I think there's a few of us on the marathon server. My vote goes to making that the GWJ server of choice.

I moved to the Marathon server, folks! That's where the Qt3 forumers are, and several of us already.

LarryC wrote:

Zacny's remarks have confirmed many of my worst fears. I'll still take a look-see in a few weeks, but it appears to me that MS and GPG have taken everything bad about F2P as visualized by Western gamers and made those fears a reality. What they mean to accomplish by such clumsy tomfoolery I don't know, but certainly most of what they've done defeats the fundamental concepts behind what makes F2P work.

The icing on the cake was being thrown off the server while in the middle of one of the interminable missions. There is a lot of good stuff here, but the inability to jump right into PvP or even fight a full skirmish battle against the AI just kills this for me. I will struggle on to Level 6 and see if I can co-op with some GWJ-ers, but I'm not looking foward to the grind and the slow, doling out of units and techs.

I feel badly wanting their revenue to dry up so that they'll change their ways, but then again I feel that way about WoW and Blizzard. Funny thing is that I've spent $100+ on League of Legends without blinking an eye, so they should simply copy RIOT's model.

EDIT: please anybody hit me up on the Marathon server if you need help, PvP, or to trade. Just because I'm souring on the game model doesn't mean I want fewer players Aging it up.

Natus:

Or DDO's model, or even just LevelUp's model in general. The core concept behind F2P is you give the entire game experience to whoever wants to sign up. No locked-away essentials. No gimped experiences. You're depending on the game's core experience to enchant the gamer enough that he wants to keep playing. You can't do that when you're locking away everything and gating everything to hell and back.

When you've got him good, that's when you sell him the extra content. The first hit should always be free. You get 'em paying once they're good and hooked.

I like it so far. Even grinding through the tutorial sections seems basically pretty fun to me. No difficulties with 'Mow 'em Down'.

I wish there were a different pricing model for us antisocial players who are never ever ever going to touch the PvP part of the game.

polq37 wrote:

I like it so far. Even grinding through the tutorial sections seems basically pretty fun to me.

Same here. I have no problem at all with the slow start, and in fact even appreciated it, as it helped me ease back into RTS'ing.

I wish there were a different pricing model for us antisocial players who are never ever ever going to touch the PvP part of the game.

Agreed, and I think I see why neither of us is bothered by the opening. We're not eager for PVP, or to jump into getting our ass beat by a hard mission. But yes, it would be nice if you could opt for a $10/civ charge with no pvp included.

I Just transferred to Marathon as well, friend me up for some co-op. I am not much for pvp just yet, i am way too slow.

Cobble75

I just started playing today, on Marathon, though I'm still learning the ropes. A friendly Goodjer created a "GWJ" chat channel -- join us!

merphle wrote:

I just started playing today, on Marathon, though I'm still learning the ropes. A friendly Goodjer created a "GWJ" chat channel -- join us!

I'll move over to Marathon. I have a new motherboard/proc coming today, so I'll be busy installing a ton of stuff. May not get much AoE done tonight, but definitely sometime this week.

Is it easy to add the chat channel? Is it permanent?

Also, as I don't have an Xbox and don't have a long friend's list, are those lists one and the same, or are they somehow separated? As in, if I start adding you folks to my Friends List in AoE, is that going to take up a slot on your Xboxen as well?

My buddy and I are considering going in and purchasing some content. We played some Co-op Saturday night and had a good time. I'd go Greek and he'd go Egyptian, likely.

I did notice something in the co-op I'm not a huge fan of. There are a few "Defend Your Town Center" missions that are designed for a single player, but the Party Leader gets the Town Center that has to be defended while the other person in the match gets put in a Town Center outside the walls, but nearby. Furthermore, the person charged with depending "The Important One" typically gets extra resources, some starting buildings, etc. while the person outside the walls is starting from scratch. In short, the second person ends up acting as a distraction for the AI to go attack, but they also get attacked first even though they probably won't be ready for it. I'm not sure how I'd solve this problem, but it's something to be aware of.

Furthermore, the co-op partner seems like they get a base XP rate of 2000 - 2500 XP. As in, the points aren't split between players. The Party Leader gets the full amount of XP for the win, but the co-op partner doesn't get the same amount. It's still a good chunk of XP, but it behooves you to be the Party Leader if you want to maximize your XP generation. Again, not sure if this is the way I'd prefer to have it done, but considering the nature of how they set up the maps, I guess it makes sense.

Food for thought!

Playing on Marathon here as well. Been enjoying what I've played so far though only up to level 7, really wanting age 3 to open up.

It was easy to join the channel, and it's permanent. Right click on the General chat tab and go to Options, then there's a "join channel" box at the bottom. You can also create a new dedicated tab, if you don't want it to intermingle with the regular General chat.

merphle wrote:

It was easy to join the channel, and it's permanent. Right click on the General chat tab and go to Options, then there's a "join channel" box at the bottom. You can also create a new dedicated tab, if you don't want it to intermingle with the regular General chat.

Thanks!

Just downloaded this last night, will check it out later when i get a chance.

For purchasing the premium content, do you get it for the lifetime of the game?

Look, I don't want to deter anyone who is having fun with this, but woof! Matchmaking still sucks! Just played a game, at Lvl 7, against a Lvl 16. It's just not even close. He had access to Age 3 and siege engines, not to mention innumerable techs and items, while I, of course, did not. Ugh!

Since PvP (absent an AI one can skirmish against) is all I'm looking for, I can't say I'm going to grind until Lvl 20 with the hourly reminders that I haven't bought a premium civ. But I'll certainly check back to see how it improves.

mudbunny wrote:

For purchasing the premium content, do you get it for the lifetime of the game?

So far as I understand, it's lifetime. No subscription model for this game, unless you go with that "Season Pass" option, and even in that case, whatever you download during that 6 month period, you own forever. I don't know anyone that's purchased a Season Pass, though, so I can't say that for sure. It would be odd if that wasn't the case.

Jumped in. I've put off installing GFWL for so long but the fond memories of AOE from college finally won out. I joined Marathon as well and added the GWJ channel.

Natus wrote:

Look, I don't want to deter anyone who is having fun with this, but woof! Matchmaking still sucks! Just played a game, at Lvl 7, against a Lvl 16. It's just not even close. He had access to Age 3 and siege engines, not to mention innumerable techs and items, while I, of course, did not. Ugh!

Since PvP (absent an AI one can skirmish against) is all I'm looking for, I can't say I'm going to grind until Lvl 20 with the hourly reminders that I haven't bought a premium civ. But I'll certainly check back to see how it improves.

If all you're looking for is PvP, you may be surprised at how many people are still playing AoE2 on Hamachi

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:
Natus wrote:

Look, I don't want to deter anyone who is having fun with this, but woof! Matchmaking still sucks! Just played a game, at Lvl 7, against a Lvl 16. It's just not even close. He had access to Age 3 and siege engines, not to mention innumerable techs and items, while I, of course, did not. Ugh!

Since PvP (absent an AI one can skirmish against) is all I'm looking for, I can't say I'm going to grind until Lvl 20 with the hourly reminders that I haven't bought a premium civ. But I'll certainly check back to see how it improves.

If all you're looking for is PvP, you may be surprised at how many people are still playing AoE2 on Hamachi

Thanks, Fedora. I'm looking for both PvP and skirmish, which is why I play RTS's. And it's not like I need to compete with the best, not at all. Just someone within five levels of my city will do. But this game doesn't have skirmish and its PVP is horrid, as far as I've seen. I'll totally look into Hamachi, thank you!

Tom Chick's review is out. But what's more interesting is the contentious argument about the game in the Qt3 forums starting here, which is quite enlightening. I'm not a fan of Tom's in-forum persona, but I can't argue with any of his critiques. Sadly. But i'm glad people are still having fun with it.

I've been playing the heck out of it and I'm having a lot of fun but I haven't spent a dime on it yet. Maybe if the prices were a bit lower ($20 bucks per a premium civ? really?). I guess it doesn't matter since I really don't feel need to pay at the moment, just feeling things out.

Also, the unlocking of things is sort of annoying...

I've started playing on Marathon and have added the GWJ channel. I haven't played RTS games in quite some time so this game seems to be just my speed.

Deleted once I realized I was missing something obvious.

I was just playing a round where you had to defeat one of the Bandit leaders and then destroy the rest of the enemy. I had just taken down the opposing town center and was in the process of taking down the last barracks (that I knew of).

The game crashes out and tells me "server connection lost."

It doesn't remember how far into the quest I made it, so I have to re-do the whole thing.

This, I tell you, is bullsh*t. At the very least, it highlights the problems with games that apparently require an online connection at all times, especially a game like this that is broken up into separate, individual segments. They really need to institute some kind of auto save system if they're going to do stuff like this.

That said, I was having fun. Until their server failed. Grrrrrr...

Alright, I'm about to quit this game. I like the base game but this whole grinding mmo system is driving me nuts. I have no idea how I'm going to compete in PVP if I don't have everything.

Try to play 1v1 and 2v2 unranked match but it couldn't find a game for 30 minutes. Good thing I had it running in the background while I was working on some stuff. Is everybody playing PvE or I'm missing out because I'm not playing ranked matches? Anybody else having this much trouble?

I rather not pay for this game if I have to grind another 40 hours just to get all the necessary units.

Hopefully they fix this, I was looking through the forums and it seems like a lot of people hate the grindfest just to play pvp. I'm ready to put my money down but not for a grindfest.