MS announces Age of Empires Online and Microsoft Flight (Gamescom)

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theNoid

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Looks like Microsoft hired ex Ensemble (Robot Studios) and ACES employees to do both games :)

Trailers for both games here ....http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/community/pages/gamescom.aspx

Age of Empires : Online

"Exciting news from GamesCom! The best-selling real-time strategy series of all time continues with Age of Empires Online! Join friends and friendly rivals from around the world as you create a living, growing online empire. Centered around your unique online capital city, embark on quests, play with or against friends, and immerse yourself in epic tales, quirky characters, adventure, history and strategy. Age of Empires Online will offer free-to-play experiences via Games for Windows - LIVE. Visit the Age of Empires Online site or read the full press release to get more details."
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Logon screen ...

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Interesting... now please update the graphics. AOE3 was amazing, especially for the little GPU power it needed to run at max.
Better yet, reuse AOE3 resources, so if you bought the game, then you can up the graphics settings a smidgen.

EDIT: signed up for the beta of "project S" dunno if I am allowed to say that, lol.
 
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On the one hand, I'm thrilled that Microsoft is reentering PC game publishing. It really annoyed me that they killed ACES, Ensemble, FASA, and turned several PC/360 games into 360 exclusives, all while turning their publishing and marketing efforts 1000% towards the 360. Microsoft spends obscene amounts of money at E3, and there hasn't been a single PC or PC game in their area or presentations for years now. So this is good.

On the other hand, I can't help but look at this new AOE and think "Microsoft Farmville". Flight better not end up like HAWX or something like that. It would be nuts if this happened and the sim folk who have been dying for a new "real" Flight Simulator don't even buy it.

It all looks super casual to me, which from a financial standpoint makes sense given how much money games like Farmville make. MS clearly wants a piece of that. On the other hand, it seems to underestimate how much the more "hardcore" games can make, given that they can run on a wide range of hardware (ie - Valve and Blizzard games).

In any case, hopefully it leads to Microsoft publishing more games in the future. Even if its freebie casual stuff at the moment, its better than nothing.
 
I'm actually interested in the art style, the game looks almost painted (like the trees). I'm not interested in every game having the same bland gray/black dominated "photo realistic" art style.

In my opinion art style/direction is much more important then technical implementations in the visual quality of a game.
 
jeremyshaw said:
That is not AOE's art style, at all. But higher res textures would be nice, a-la AOE3.
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I wasn't referring to Aoe3 specifically, it was more of a generalized comment to the fact that it seems most of the time if a game doesn't strive for photo-realism then the graphics are automatically bad without any consideration to art direction/design.
 
theNoid said:
I think you're confusing Farmville with Storybook artstyle. In interviews they clearly stated the game will play similar to AoE2
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I was talking more about the persistent world that I believe friends can visit, the free-for-customer model, etc etc. The art style is something I have no problem with. One of my favorite looking games is Team Fortress 2, I loved the look of Evil Genius, and if Battlefield Heroes wasn't such a shitty game I'd totally play it because its another game with a cool illustrated look.

Stylized or well executed/tasteful art direction trumps high tech engines with boring "photorealism" or crap artists at the wheel any day, you won't hear me say otherwise.
 
I would say that Flight looks interesting... but really all we know about it is that it exists, and that 30 seconds of a biplane flying over the ocean with a girl telling us her dream was to fly. I hope the graphics look that good in game, but the whole "Flight" Concept is a little iffy.

I mean seriously, the speculation is its going to be more of a game than sim, but how do you make a game out of General Aviation? The best example i can think of is Pilotwings. They are risking a major flop right now because no serious simmer would buy it, and all the casual gamers will think its just a update to FSX.
 
I truly hope AoE Online nothing short of AoE2 with a facelift. I like the style, but I'm a bit worried by those screenshots... if it is "like AoE2," where are the fields/farms? Everyone knows you build farms around your townhall, at least until you tech and build a granary.
 
Serpico said:
I was talking more about the persistent world that I believe friends can visit, the free-for-customer model, etc etc. The art style is something I have no problem with. One of my favorite looking games is Team Fortress 2, I loved the look of Evil Genius, and if Battlefield Heroes wasn't such a shitty game I'd totally play it because its another game with a cool illustrated look.

Stylized or well executed/tasteful art direction trumps high tech engines with boring "photorealism" or crap artists at the wheel any day, you won't hear me say otherwise.
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Good point, I didn't think about the persistent world playing into Farmville. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
 
The cartoon style works really well for TF2 and I think it's a good way to get a good looking game without requiring high-end hardware.

I hope this plays like AOE2 or Age of Mythology. I couldn't get into AOE 3 for some reason.
 
I love the new art style but I normally HATE the free to play (aka nickle and dime) business model. I'm cautiously interested.
 
These phrases make me concerned about what direction they are taking the game:

"embark on quests, ... , and immerse yourself in epic tales, quirky characters, ..."

I don't recall too many quests, quirky characters, or epic tales in AOE, AOE2, or AOE3 (but I didn't play much AOE3, so maybe I missed that part).
 
powersurge said:
I love the new art style but I normally HATE the free to play (aka nickle and dime) business model. I'm cautiously interested.
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Don't like paying for horse armor? :D

I didn't see mention of microtransactions, or were you just speculating on it's possibility?
 
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BladeVenom said:
Don't like paying for horse armor? :D

I didn't see mention of microtransactions, or were you just speculating on it's possibility?
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From what I read on the site there is no explicit mention of microtransactions, but that is the dominant business model for these types of games.
 
I'm a huge AoE fan, but I think they are doing this to bring it to the masses, not for RTS fans. I'll probably give it a go when it goes live, if I'm not still playing SC2. Our Starcraft LANs were always so-so, but our AoE LANs were close to full week events, I just don't see that with this.
 
Looks like this has potential. I've been in need of an AoE fix for awhile as I've had so many fond memories of the series.
 
Rombus said:
I would say that Flight looks interesting... but really all we know about it is that it exists, and that 30 seconds of a biplane flying over the ocean with a girl telling us her dream was to fly. I hope the graphics look that good in game, but the whole "Flight" Concept is a little iffy.

I mean seriously, the speculation is its going to be more of a game than sim, but how do you make a game out of General Aviation? The best example i can think of is Pilotwings. They are risking a major flop right now because no serious simmer would buy it, and all the casual gamers will think its just a update to FSX.
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I have to agree here. I wouldn't buy it if it was a game and not a sim. And a lot of people don't like flying games or don't want a flight sim... I love FSX, myself... Glad to see they are bring the ACES team back
 
Spewn said:
Honestly, that game is a tragedy. So promising, so engaging, so visually magnificent, so terrible to actually play.
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No kidding, it was so close to being something actually great. Needed another year of tweak time.
 
Hop-Scotch said:
I'm a huge AoE fan, but I think they are doing this to bring it to the masses, not for RTS fans. I'll probably give it a go when it goes live, if I'm not still playing SC2. Our Starcraft LANs were always so-so, but our AoE LANs were close to full week events, I just don't see that with this.
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It would be nice then if more AoE2 loyal fans saturated this beta to steer it away from becoming another casual browser-esque strategy games that litter facebook. I know I'm going to be screaming at the top of my lungs!
 
SPARTAN VI said:
It would be nice then if more AoE2 loyal fans saturated this beta to steer it away from becoming another casual browser-esque strategy games that litter facebook. I know I'm going to be screaming at the top of my lungs!
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Agreed, however I don't want AoEO to be just like the old ones. I would like some of the more modern features that a persistent world can offer. I like the idea of building items that take awhile, closing the game and coming back the next day to see them complete. That type of persistent play is what Farmville so addictive.

Now, in no way shape or form do I want AoEO to be like Farmville lol.. I'm just saying, adding that addictive element into an already addictive universe is something I look forward to. An ever growing empire is very attractive to me.

I'll do my part to as a beta tester to make sure the game remains a RTS at its core, but I do look forward to modern features being layered in.
 
More info on AoE:O, particularly the "freemium" part:

Age of Empires Online may be a freemium title, but Microsoft Game Studios General Manager Dave Luehmann tells us "it's not a nickel and dimey microtransaction thing." During an interview at Gamescom today, the executive expressed that the studio doesn't want it to feel like some other freemium titles where "what you don't want to do in the game is what you pay for," or "that you pay to skip the parts you don't like." Luehmann explained, "I don't like to pay for things I don't like to do, that seems kind of backwards. So how about we produce things that people actually want?"

Robot Entertainment Designer Jerome K. Jones, who is working on the game chimed in, "So it would be like paying for an expansion pack. ... You won't buy one thing at a time. You might buy an entire civ or another region with a bunch of quests in it."
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Full article: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/19/age-of-empires-online-freemium-model-not-looking-to-nickel-and/
 
Oh shit, invites for AoEO went out today. I got in the closed beta :)
 
Game looks "interesting". Kinda cartoony, but I signed up for the Beta.
 
theNoid said:
Agreed, however I don't want AoEO to be just like the old ones. I would like some of the more modern features that a persistent world can offer. I like the idea of building items that take awhile, closing the game and coming back the next day to see them complete. That type of persistent play is what Farmville so addictive.
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This would be a bad idea because it is stupid.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
This would be a bad idea because it is stupid.
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That subjective, but let it be known I dont want AoEO to be Farmville lol. Its just, I like the idea of long builds for some items and those builds completing even while I'm not in the game. I think more game genres need to evolve with technology and I do not want my RTSs to be the same as they were in 1995. I am open to some change, and will keep an open mind about how AoEO will be.

Actually not for long, I'm leaving the office in 20 minutes and will go download the beta. :)
 
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