4 all u Star Wars fans

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

[quote=""deadhanddan""]LOL that would be awesome kaiser , as long as you dont do any Jar Jar Binks related taunts[/quote]

Bah, that movie ruined the whole franchise. I only do Empire-related impressions, as well as Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness, not Ewan MacGregor).

Here's a Vader favorite from Episode IV:

(Turns to fighter pilots in Death Star): "Several fighters have broken off from the main group. Come with me." (Turns away with cape flowing).

[Aaryn_GenD]

ooh damn, what do i read there? a mmorpg?? as if there isn't already one from teh star wars and TONS of other damn mmorpgs

i don't hate mmorpgs, but they are the least what we need on games :-)

[RascalJones]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]ooh damn, what do i read there? a mmorpg?? as if there isn't already one from teh star wars and TONS of other damn mmorpgs

i don't hate mmorpgs, but they are the least what we need on games :-)[/quote]

They may not be what "we need", but they are what companies need. Massive player bases that pay $15/month to play.

[LaZy]

[quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]ooh damn, what do i read there? a mmorpg?? as if there isn't already one from teh star wars and TONS of other damn mmorpgs ...[/quote]

There is no other Star Wars mmorpg atm. SWG, aka, Star Wars Galaxies, which I played for over a year very intensively, died the day they made a combat upgrade on the game. Two weeks l8er WoW showed up. Any1 that played both SWG (pre CU) and WoW will end up voting 4 SWG anyday of the week. Atm SWG has very few servers running, most of which are desolate planets decorated by ghost towns.

With regards 2 payment: Ive stated this b4, one day ALL games played through the internet will be paid 4 via subscriptions. Look at Comadevils argument for Robot EnterLagMent´s lousy patch work. MONEY. If u want a game that is continously "worked" upon, be it glitches, bugs, balance etc u need staff 2 take care of it and this involves payment. I have no problem paying for service. Its bad service thats always bugged me and RE is no exception.

There is a remarkable analogy between SWG and AoE3. Although a pure RTS and a mmorpg are very diferent from another they do share one common feature. The online community. Developers and maintanance staff need 2 listen 2 what the players percieve and want! With regards 2 SWG there is already a emulator version of the game pre CU. ie dedicated programming individuals have spent countless hours for no money 2 bring about an emulated version of the game pre-patch 13! In AoE3, as we all know, we have the AgeSanc team, that again, have brought about changes that they demanded for the well being of the community. The only diference here being that patch 13 literally killed the most popular and profitable game ever created (pre WoW) whilst the fan patch merely divided the community.

Hopefully this new game will be smart about this phenomena. Design a game for the players, and let them then decide where 2 make improvements. Aloysius stated on AgeSanc "...some of the changes in the fan patch really go outside what our designers intended for the game, so those wouldn't make it in anyways..". This type of thinking is game killing thinking. DO NOT bite the hands that feed u. Silly mofo

out

[deadhanddan]

while customer support for games is often more or less laughable , there are some games that developers will continuously work on and support for free charge. a good example of this would be battle.net and diablo 1 - 2 games. released in 99 and its expansion Lord of Destruction in 2001 diablo 2 had continuous patching and work for online play all the way into 2006 and is still playable for online even today. a great online game is always measured by the level of support it receives from its publisher/maker , in the case of the AoE franchise this support was always borderline but for blizzard it has always been paramount. while Ensemble and Blizzard made great games - only Blizzard has had the gumption to focus on one game at a time with the opinions and preferences of it's online community at the heart of most of their decision making while Ensemble had microsoft on their back and other games/projects always in development instead of focusing on their current releases and supporting them

[Comadevil]

[quote=""deadhanddan""]while customer support for games is often more or less laughable , there are some games that developers will continuously work on and support for free charge. a good example of this would be battle.net and diablo 1 - 2 games. released in 99 and its expansion Lord of Destruction in 2001 diablo 2 had continuous patching and work for online play all the way into 2006 and is still playable for online even today.
[/quote]
Here u are wrong. Diablo 2 got a surprising patch in 2008 (with copy protection removal) and the last patch before that patch was in 2005.
But you also have to admit that Diablo is quite better to balance than an rts game like AOE3 or Starcraft/Warcraft 3. Diablos single and multiplayer games are (almost) the same.
U just have to make sure that one profession doesn't get really out of line since they don't counter each other. U don't have to balance them really to equality imo. They just simply play together.
Starcraft and Warcraft 3 had the advantage imo that Blizzard made a good design decision by having only a few races though they are really unique.
In AOE u have 14(!) civs (though they aren't really unique)+the card system, what makes it much harder to balance imo
Starcraft is more or less balanced and Warcraft3 has also the same discussion about balance as AOE3 though AOE is because of OP civs still more unbalanced

[quote=""deadhanddan""]
a great online game is always measured by the level of support it receives from its publisher/maker , in the case of the AoE franchise this support was always borderline
[/quote]
This was the case till AOE3. The problem with AOE3 imo was they were inexperienced with balancing and underestimated imo opinion how difficult the balance job will be with such game(14 civs,card decks).
And in the end they really tried to improve (getting Wack0 and ES8 in) but then suddenly MS closed ES. If this wouldn't have happened we would have had a better balance now for sure.
And: 1.01 was created with top players of the community and still we had OP civs. They also didn't see maybe that great OPness of Japan and India

[quote=""deadhanddan""]
but for blizzard it has always been paramount. while Ensemble and Blizzard made great games - only Blizzard has had the gumption to focus on one game at a time with the opinions and preferences of it's online community at the heart of most of their decision making while Ensemble had microsoft on their back and other games/projects always in development instead of focusing on their current releases and supporting them[/quote]
Here u are also wrong. ES made only one game at one time like Blizzard, though they really began to really support their games only with AOE3.
If they had always the online community at heart during development of the game is another question, more for salesingle perhaps. That led then the path to some design decisions causing imbalances which we still have now.

But on the other side the single players were the ones who brought the money. Online playing is only done by a small percentage of customers.
That's for sure also the same with Blizzard (except WOW of course).

[deadhanddan]

didn't know blizzard made further patches after 2005-2006, that's when i stopped playing d2 , but diablo single player was vastly different from multiplayer, have to factor in that in multiplayer u had more then one character in a room (auras-minions-team skill sets-hostile mode) + difficulty levels increase + items and drops were enhanced + mods and hacks could be done (before the fix patches ) , while in single player you had none of those factors to consider. my whole point of my post was to clarify the difference in levels of support and collective opinions from the community ( which blizzard is significantly better at ) blizzard didn't have a giant monkey on their back ( unlike ensemble ) dictating courses of action and blizzard spent considerable more time and effort into improving their games over the course of the years. i know an rts is more complex to fix and patch unlike an rpg but this is what happens when a game such as AoE is rushed with insufficient testing and sporadic - inadequate support. bottom line is Blizzard's primary thought of its fanbase > Ensemble's secondary considerations towards its own fanbase

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

You know, it never really occurs to me that not many people play games online compared to how many people buy the game itself. AOE 3, for instance, has sold millions of copies, but on a "good ESO day," you're lucky to see 5000 players online. Given that, I can see why companies have a hard time allocating resources to patch games that only a handful of original purchasers care about. Lazy is right that it's all about money. Companies think exactly the same way. Sure, they might upset an elite cadre of online gamers when they don't vigorously patch games 4 years after their release. But that doesn't cost them much; and from MS and ES' perspective, AOE 3 has already been a massive success. Alienating some hardcore guys who have made a career (or at least a hobby) studying the game doesn't really count as a "business risk." I really don't think they care about hurting our feelings, since we constitute a tiny minority; and we spent just as much on the game as the faceless sod who got it for Christmas and never opened the package. From the company's perspective, we are the same as everyone else who laid out cash for the game.

Still, isn't it funny that we never consider the millions of people who have bought this game and never gone online? We think it's madness; yet they are in the majority...the overwhelming majority. It's always interesting to see how our own perspective influences the way we judge things.

Personally, I would not have a problem spending $8.95 a month for a perfectly lag-free--and continuously supported--AOE 3 experience.

That said, balancing a game with 14 civs and hundreds of cards ain't easy... think about how much time we have spent pondering the issues... WITHOUT PAY!

[Comadevil]

[quote=""deadhanddan""]didn't know blizzard made further patches after 2005-2006, that's when i stopped playing d2 , but diablo single player was vastly different from multiplayer, have to factor in that in multiplayer u had more then one character in a room (auras-minions-team skill sets-hostile mode) + difficulty levels increase + items and drops were enhanced + mods and hacks could be done (before the fix patches ) , while in single player you had none of those factors to consider.
[/quote]
Won't argue with you on that, i didn't play so much in-depth D2 online. Was just too boring for me

[quote=""deadhanddan""]
my whole point of my post was to clarify the difference in levels of support and collective opinions from the community ( which blizzard is significantly better at ) blizzard didn't have a giant monkey on their back ( unlike ensemble ) dictating courses of action
[/quote]
Well it would be interesting to know how much MS dictated course at ES. We really don't know about it.
Blizzard has also a monkey on its back already: Vivendi

[quote=""deadhanddan""]
and blizzard spent considerable more time and effort into improving their games over the course of the years. i know an rts is more complex to fix and patch unlike an rpg but this is what happens when a game such as AoE is rushed with insufficient testing and sporadic - inadequate support. bottom line is Blizzard's primary thought of its fanbase > Ensemble's secondary considerations towards its own fanbase[/quote]
What is the fanbase? Online players? Single Players? Or even treaty players?
We take it here for granted that the right thing to do is trimming the game to rush supremacy multiplayer balance.

The problem of AOE3 is and was that it really wasn't well designed for multiplayer. U can see it at missing features like Observer etc.
Only with the success of WOW MS/ES began to realize what can be achieved if u are known for good online platform & support. But that was too late i guess

That is the only advantage of Blizzard. They were the first with a online gaming plattform and who patched their games through years and which was imo also the foundation of the success of WOW.
They don't do the patching for their fanbase (whatever this is), they do it because the return of investment is bigger than their investment. Satisfying the fanbase is only a secondary nice effect.

ES did a poor job on balancing multiplayer, but this is also due to inexperience in balancing, different modes of games (Sup,treaty, dm) which had to be considered at least one or the other way, 14 civs+card system. And balancing this is quite difficult. Even ES8 failed with that at 1.01.
On the other hand people got their treaty mode (even if sup players disliked that).

Just all this whining about balance is getting on my nerves.If u want to have balance, get the fan patch. Be grateful that RE fixed or reduced other serious problems now.
People esp. at AS tend to forget this.

Well i think this is getting OT

[Aaryn_GenD]

[quote=""LaZy""][quote=""Aaryn_GenD""]ooh damn, what do i read there? a mmorpg?? as if there isn't already one from teh star wars and TONS of other damn mmorpgs ...[/quote]

There is no other Star Wars mmorpg atm. SWG, aka, Star Wars Galaxies, which I played for over a year very intensively, died the day they made a combat upgrade on the game. Two weeks l8er WoW showed up. Any1 that played both SWG (pre CU) and WoW will end up voting 4 SWG anyday of the week. Atm SWG has very few servers running, most of which are desolate planets decorated by ghost towns.[/quote]

i know lazy, i said that there is one star wars mmorpg aka Star Wars Galaxies, i didn't know the game died(as i never played it)
but my point still stands, we have tons of MMORPGs right now and i doubt anybody can disagree with that?
don't you think the gaming industry nowadays is too profitcrazy and only releases guaranteed money-incoming MMORPGs?

[quote=""Comadevil""][quote=""deadhanddan""]while customer support for games is often more or less laughable , there are some games that developers will continuously work on and support for free charge. a good example of this would be battle.net and diablo 1 - 2 games. released in 99 and its expansion Lord of Destruction in 2001 diablo 2 had continuous patching and work for online play all the way into 2006 and is still playable for online even today.
[/quote]
Here u are wrong. Diablo 2 got a surprising patch in 2008 (with copy protection removal) and the last patch before that patch was in 2005.[/quote]

both of you are wrong, there is a new patch for Diablo 2 coming out in a few weeks, and know what? they made the auction that evey player of the community can make suggestions on what to change and bilzzard wants to have the input from the whole community, now that's awesome!

[quote=""Kaiser_von_Nubenl""]
you know, it never really occurs to me that not many people play games online compared to how many people buy the game itself. AOE 3, for instance, has sold millions of copies, but on a "good ESO day," you're lucky to see 5000 players online. Given that, I can see why companies have a hard time allocating resources to patch games that only a handful of original purchasers care about. Lazy is right that it's all about money. Companies think exactly the same way. Sure, they might upset an elite cadre of online gamers when they don't vigorously patch games 4 years after their release. But that doesn't cost them much; and from MS and ES' perspective, AOE 3 has already been a massive success. Alienating some hardcore guys who have made a career (or at least a hobby) studying the game doesn't really count as a "business risk." I really don't think they care about hurting our feelings, since we constitute a tiny minority; and we spent just as much on the game as the faceless sod who got it for Christmas and never opened the package. From the company's perspective, we are the same as everyone else who laid out cash for the game.

Still, isn't it funny that we never consider the millions of people who have bought this game and never gone online? We think it's madness; yet they are in the majority...the overwhelming majority. It's always interesting to see how our own perspective influences the way we judge things.[/quote]

Completely agree Kaiser

[quote=""Comadevil""]Just all this whining about balance is getting on my nerves.If u want to have balance, get the fan patch. Be grateful that RE fixed or reduced other serious problems now.
People esp. at AS tend to forget this. [/quote]

i'm glad you mention this Coma, the people at agesanc never ever mentioned the bug fixes of oos issues and doubledeck, and why?? because they are not effected by this, people at higher rank don't do this stuff and don't get bothered by it either
this is pretty egoistical of them, i saw only 1 or 2 posts about that from german players concerning these great bug fixes

sorry for quoting this much guys, i couldn't hold off
you all did wonderful posts

[RascalJones]

What are the chances that all the patches for Diablo 2 are geared toward building excitement for Diablo 3?

Blizzard's got some big things coming out with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3....plus all the CA$H they bring in from WoW. They've got a real nice business model over there.

[LaZy]

Not 2 mention that Blizzard is 1 of the very few companies that only bring a game out 2 the public when it is, and i quote "ready", not earlier, not later.

With regards 2 the "money making machines". MMORPGs are not all success stories. Many are and quite a few arent. It is still a very recent concept and a phenomenan which will only grow since DSL is still far from reaching every home word wide and the technology for lag free games is still being tweaked.

The reason why most MMO´s are success stories is simple. It is what the "people" want. Its simple economics 1 on 1. Demand is very high for it. The great great majority of players currently "living" WoW are dying 2 leave the game. The only thing stopping them is an replacement. As soon as something remotely close comes out it will become a success. The question is only for how long. This is where Blizzard truly excels in, bcos they are able 2 keep a very dull, truly brainless game addictive and constantly "mutating" through succesive patch work. Patch work, which I might add, is usually sided 2wards what goes on in the respective forums. Something that ES and especially RE have never understood. SOE (Sony Entertainment Online) learnt that lesson the hard way.

With regards 2 Rascals shout out: I so can not w8 4 D3 2 come out. Me and literally MILLIONs of others. That doesnt mean Ill leave AoE3 though, simply bcos it is still very much the BEST online RTS out there. As u can c its all about the option. If nothing else shows up we stick with what makes us happy, no matter how much we ***** and whine about it.

out

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Funny thing about ES is that they actually followed the forums ideas, but they followed AGECOMMUNITY, not agesanctuary. That's why in some patches of vanilla they boosted spain when they were already overpowered, etc.

[dragonshinobi]

[quote=""LaZy""] Not 2 mention that Blizzard is 1 of the very few companies that only bring a game out 2 the public when it is, and i quote "ready", not earlier, not later.

[/quote]

agree

it annoys me that SC 2 will not come out soon however i would not want SC 2 to come out half done and then have patches that are sloppily made be realeased just to keep it afloat

[LaZy]

Dragonshinobi I find it devious and rude that u have manualy added the N30 tag onto ur registered nick since u r NO longer a N30 clan member.

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