Age of Empires Online - Page 9

On April 19 2011 18:12 Pax wrote:
I'm in the beta too. A lot of people complain as if this were one of those silly little marketing gimmicks some publishers like to call "betas". This is a full fledged beta, and everything is subject to change.

That being said, I personally enjoyed it for a little while, but the simplification of the controls wore on me. Maybe I've been spoiled by Starcraft 2's fluid and precise unit movements, but the absence of important unit control buttons like stop and hold fire are very frustrating.

On April 20 2011 07:02 frumpylumps wrote:
sad that ensemble has decided to use the AoE name for this boring crap.

"and all shall fall by the grace of the people" - anon

On April 20 2011 08:44 AndyJay wrote:
Curse invite only works if you have a paid curse account.

Still pumped about this game, I'm ignoring all the naysayers 'till I put some time into it myself. Funnily enough I really like the art style, which a lot of people seem to hate.

I am worried about how seriously they'll support competitive pvp, how 'grinding' and player level will influence pvp and the effect of the micro transaction model of the game.

On April 20 2011 08:44 AndyJay wrote:
Curse invite only works if you have a paid curse account.

Still pumped about this game, I'm ignoring all the naysayers 'till I put some time into it myself. Funnily enough I really like the art style, which a lot of people seem to hate.

I am worried about how seriously they'll support competitive pvp, how 'grinding' and player level will influence pvp and the effect of the micro transaction model of the game.

On April 20 2011 13:25 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
"z" instead of "a" for attack-move, dunno why they made it like that though lol

On April 20 2011 13:12 AndyJay wrote:
Got the chance to play it during lunch break, got to level 5. First impressions are really good, looks very crisp and clean in animations and graphics. Plays like AoK, 4 resources and drop off points, unit queues/garrison/walls etc. There is an A-move button but not sure what the hotkey is. Everything seems to be hotkeyed but only some things tooltips show up what the hotkey is so it's a bit confusing.

Control groups work fine, there is auto formations and queued waypoints. It really is very close to AoK mechanic wise, with the notable exceptions hold fire and patrol. One annoying thing is you don't get specific unit information (that I could see) for hit points/dmg/armor although all upgrades through items/research is very specific which is good to see (eg. +13.5% attack vs infantry).

Basically all the 'persistant crap' which encompasses benefits gained from singleplayer seems to be just a way of specialising your 'civ'. For example, it's as if you're playing AoK but instead of choosing one of 14 races you custom build your own race with it's own features/drawbacks. This is done on a unit or unit type level of equipping items (which are unlocked through completing sinlgeplayer missions), an example being equipping boots of +2 armour to your archers, and also through a tech tree. The tech tree looks like a AoK tech tree with separate tabs for military/economy/utility and as you progress through the singleplayer you get more points to unlock more of the trees.

If it only takes 10-15 hours to unlock the full breadth of your tech tree and get a good set of items I can see this game working competitively, in a fashion similar to WoW pvp. That is, pvp is always available from the early stages but is going to be unbalanced, until everyone puts in enough time. Once you put in enough time and reach the 'cap', everyone has the same options and the playing field becomes level.

Of course WoW competitive pvp is a bit of a joke because instead of 10-15 hours to hit cap it's more like 200-300 (extremely repetitive) hours. The levelling in this however seems to be more of a different way of doing a normal single player campaign so it shouldn't fall into the same trap.

I still have no idea how the micro-transaction system works or how matchmaking is handled, but I'm going to put some serious time into this game over the easter break to see how far I get. Pretty sure Portal 2 won't get looked at till I've put a lot of time into this game... so yeah, I'm really enjoying it.

On April 20 2011 14:06 typedef struct wrote:
Played a few hours tonight, grinded up to Level 6 (which you need to PvP). Really not innovative at all. They grabbed a bunch of shit from other genres and thew it against the wall to see what would stick, basically. AOK gameplay, AOE3 home city cards, WoW talent trees + items, Evony style "capital city" + item shop.

Really repeating all the mistakes Bruce Shelly said AOE3 made. I haven't written it off completely, but I'm not optimistic.