Age of Empires Definitive Edition announced.

[Cyan]

Just for this the entire E3 2017 was worth it, and makes me want to cry --from happiness. I was hoping for this game -well, an Age of Empires game whatsoever- these days, and it appeared..., in the PC conference.

It's my favorite Age of Empires (which says a lot) and in my top 5 favorite game in history. I played AoE2 more for the online, but the first..is perfection. And now at a glorious 4k.

Despite playing Age of Empires 2 more online, the first AoE ... had something special ... That certain something so difficult to explain that AoE2 kinda lacked by comparison -yet AoE2 is one of the best games ever too-.

To me AoE1 was simply more evocative. The music, the whales, the art style, the civilisations, the fauna, the landscapes that made you feel you were in an ancient place full of mystery and things to explore.

It made you feel in an earth that was more free. I insist that it is quite difficult to explain.

I still have the AoE Gold Edition on its original disk and box, but come on, now it is going to be 4k ..

I still played and completed several of its campaigns 3 years ago. It was as fun as ever.

thanks @AlNets for the video link.

 

[swaaye]

That's cool. I wouldn't mind having a go at this. Original AOE was groundbreaking indeed.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm probably going to wait until it goes on sale (too many games in my library that I still haven't played), but I'm interested to see the improved pathfinding that the MS rep talked about at the PC conference.

Back in the day it was frustrating in AOE games to set your army to move in formation and then path finding got really wonky. The game was so good though, that you just shrugged and patted it on the head like you do when your child goes and does something inexplicably silly.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

That's cool. I wouldn't mind having a go at this. Original AOE was groundbreaking indeed.

the game was very addicting for anyone, and there was something special about it. I think it changed gaming, at least in the RTS genre, although maybe there was a precursor I don't know of, but Command & Conquer felt totally different and I think Warcraft or StarCraft came out later..

It had everything, from the music, the style, the graphics, the setting..

I'm probably going to wait until it goes on sale (too many games in my library that I still haven't played), but I'm interested to see the improved pathfinding that the MS rep talked about at the PC conference.

Back in the day it was frustrating in AOE games to set your army to move in formation and then path finding got really wonky. The game was so good though, that you just shrugged and patted it on the head like you do when your child goes and does something inexplicably silly.

Regards,
SB

haha,this game is day one for me, in fact it will probably come out when I have a more capable 4k graphics card (I am saving money for Vega, though the RX570 could do fine for this kind of game at 4k...not really sure). As for pathfinding, it was frustrating how units dispersed in the terrain but when I played it I was a total noob and it wasn't until AoE2 when I learnt that having a lot of villagers and a good army was the key. I was more like the typical defensive player who closes any possible entrance to your town center and placed lots of defensive towers.

Something that I loved about Age of Empires 1 is how good the campaigns actually are. The last time I re-completed them was 3 years ago, and I even enjoyed the tutorial campaign, so you get the idea. Some campaign's scenarios were more tricky than others but I could easily spend hours and hours playing without acknowledging it.

 

[swaaye]

the game was very addicting for anyone, and there was something special about it. I think it changed gaming, at least in the RTS genre, although maybe there was a precursor I don't know of, but Command & Conquer felt totally different and I think Warcraft or StarCraft came out later..

It had everything, from the music, the style, the graphics, the setting..

AOE is just a different kind of RTS. It was developed by veteran wargame / board game people who wanted to prove that an RTS could have more intricate gameplay than had been created up to that time (such as Dune 2 / C&C).

There were dozens of RTS games coming to market around that time. It was the hot new genre and every company wanted in. Most of them were not particularly memorable.
http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1997&pub=2&id=160 (look at the feature article of this issue of CGW)

 

[Cyan]

AOE is just a different kind of RTS. It was developed by veteran wargame / board game people who wanted to prove that an RTS could have more intricate gameplay than had been created up to that time (such as Dune 2 / C&C).

There were dozens of RTS games coming to market around that time. It was the hot new genre and every company wanted in. Most of them were not particularly memorable.
http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1997&pub=2&id=160 (look at the feature article of this issue of CGW)

lots of water passed under the bridge since then.
Wow..... I didn't remember so many RTS game at the time! I had Age of Empires and Total Annihilation, and those two survived the tests of time.

Some curious things about that magazine. I found two more RTSs -they appear to be RTSs- which are Deadlock Shrine Wars II and East Front. But neither of them sound familiar to me.

The Nintendo 3D Controller for the PC was also a surprise.

 

[Cyan]

Well, for the first time in my life I've signed up for a beta. The occasion required it. It's my favourite Age of Empires game and one of my fav games ever.

The developers of the new Age of Empires have opened the process to join the BETA of their new game Age of Empire Definitive Edition.

It's the lifelong Age of Empires, with enhanced gameplay, 4K graphics, zoom etc.
You can sign up for the beta here, an Xbox Live account is required to sign up - I suppose it could even work with a Hotmail account.

https://www.ageofempires.com/age-insider-information/

I have registered and am the happiest person in the world.

 

[zed]

Nice one, I have 'age of mythology extended edition' on my PC,
WRT zoom, is this, zoom out as well (i.e. so I can see the whole map) cause that will be great if so I will buy, most games only let you zoom in which is totally worthless

Though the above list of best RTS's is pretty lame I dont see 'Warlords Battlecry III' unless it came out after the list was made

 

[Silent_Buddha]

lots of water passed under the bridge since then.
Wow..... I didn't remember so many RTS game at the time! I had Age of Empires and Total Annihilation, and those two survived the tests of time.

Some curious things about that magazine. I found two more RTSs -they appear to be RTSs- which are Deadlock Shrine Wars II and East Front. But neither of them sound familiar to me.

The Nintendo 3D Controller for the PC was also a surprise.

Holy hell, I played almost all of those. Many of them were utterly forgettable, but some stand out.

Here's the thing though, many of those aren't RTS games as most think of them.

Mech Commander for example is a squad based tactical RTS. You command a small squad of Battlemechs. There's no base building. Resource management happens outside of missions, etc.

Myth: The Fallen Lords was a tactical RTS. Again no base building. The physics in this game were amazing. Keep in mind this came out in 1997. And it had full on 3 dimensional real time physics. Not canned. But real time. Absolutely amazing. And the story! The best thing was that it was inspired by Glen Cook's "The Black Company" series of books, and you can tell immediately once you get into the game. So GOOOOOD!!! BUNGIE MAKE ANOTHER MYTH GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could go on and on. So many good games in that list. But so many bad ones as well.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

Holy hell, I played almost all of those. Many of them were utterly forgettable, but some stand out.

Here's the thing though, many of those aren't RTS games as most think of them.

Mech Commander for example is a squad based tactical RTS. You command a small squad of Battlemechs. There's no base building. Resource management happens outside of missions, etc.

Myth: The Fallen Lords was a tactical RTS. Again no base building. The physics in this game were amazing. Keep in mind this came out in 1997. And it had full on 3 dimensional real time physics. Not canned. But real time. Absolutely amazing. And the story! The best thing was that it was inspired by Glen Cook's "The Black Company" series of books, and you can tell immediately once you get into the game. So GOOOOOD!!! BUNGIE MAKE ANOTHER MYTH GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could go on and on. So many good games in that list. But so many bad ones as well.

Regards,
SB

Myth is featured in that number, yes. I was surprised with the 3D terrain and polygons /talking from memory/ but most of all by the fact that it said it was made by Bungie. I wanted to comment on that along with some other facts which sounded surprising, like the existence of Nintendo's 3D controller for PC. I was then a big fan of the Sidewinder controller -iirc-, which is also featured in the magazine, for flight simulators, but found it expensive and never got it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/875482634096222208

 

[Cyan]

 

[Deleted member 13524]

At the last ~30 seconds of the video, I really get the feeling they'll be announcing an Age of Empires 4 at Gamescom.

 

[Cyan]

At the last ~30 seconds of the video, I really get the feeling they'll be announcing an Age of Empires 4 at Gamescom.

then I missed that. That's good news if he is implying a new game is coming out and will be announced at Gamescom. I have the original -had the original back in the day, lost it, then purchased the Gold Edtiion-, AoEII, AoM (original and the HD edition) and Age of Empires III (this is no longer available, because I got the game on the Gamestop online store, the old Impulse, but it is gone forever) and would buy AoE IV day one. My most played game on steam is AoE 2 HD (32 hours).

Dunno if Bill Gates is actually behind this, but he replied to someone asking for a new Age of Empires and he said he'd have a new AoE.

Bill Gates takes credit for a classic Microsoft game coming back, and we're not sure if it's a joke
http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-jokes-about-new-age-of-empires-from-microsoft-2017-6

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FIAmA%252Fcomments%252F49jkhn%252Fim_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates%252Fd0s9j8s

on a different note..(perdon que entendo o portugues ben pero escribo algo mal en él e misturo con galego). Convencede ahí en Portugal a Cristiano Ronaldo para que volte ó equipo, non sei...non o vexo noutro equipo, ten que quedar aqui

 

[Cyan]

some impressive work there. The massive number of units in big battles cast a lot more shadows now. The shallow water doesn't look very real though, if that is a river. But of course the water overall looks much better than the original. It is going to be nice to see how they depict the whales.

I feel like playing the game again.​

 

[Cyan]

this guy sounds very much like me

 

[Cyan]

The new AoE Definitive Edition gameplay has been created based on the playability of a mod / patch made by users.

http://upatch-hd.weebly.com/features.html

The UPATCH HD of Age of Empires was their basis, from there they started to tweak the balance which they want to have in the Definitive Edition to 4k. So I am going to download it. Problem..my original AoE Gold Edition CD is useless for me because I don't have a single computer at home with a disc drive.

This guy explains some details about this patch and other things AoE Definitive Edition related.

 

[Cyan]

The original version of Age of Empires Gold Edition is still inside a box in my room, in CD format. However, none of my computers have a optical disk drive nowadays. So here I found the AoE Gold Edition. Totally legal and clean - professional AoE players use this version.

http://pico-games.com/downloads.php?download_id=32

As I said regarding the future Age of Empires Definitive Edition, it is based -at least to start working on it- in this patch of the original game that allows for HD resolutions and brings a lot of bug fixes, and so on. I tried it and it is excellent. I am currently practicing the campaigns again to play the new version when it comes out.

http://upatch-hd.weebly.com/features.html

Kudos to the creators of this patch.

 

[Cyan]

interesting video from someone close to the development team

 

[Cyan]

Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10 version 14393.0 or higher required
• Architecture: X64 required
• Processor: 1.8 Ghz+ Dual Core or greater i3, i5, or i7, or AMD equivalent
• Graphics: Intel HD 4000 or Greater (16 or more Execution Units), AMD or nVidia GPU scoring 500 or more on Passmark G3D Mark
• Memory: 4GB
• Storage: 8-10GB

 

[Cyan]

Interview with one of the engineers of the game.

https://www.ageofempires.com/news/meet-team-matt-pritchard-director-engineering/