People leaving!

[rambo098]

ensemble studios soon need to come up with a new aoe or aom to keep communitys like our alive. it´s pritty sad to read all those "GoodBye aoe3", "retiring from aoe3", "Tired of aoe3" topics. Whats making these topics even worse is that, the guys leaving is some of the strongest community members.



OuT

ps: who´s next?

[Soccerman771]

Agreed. It sucks. The bad thing IMO is that I've been on ESO the past 3 nights and few clan guys have been on, but I'll squeeze a game in whenever I can.

The 'difficult' part on TAD is that there are more and more treaty games in the browser and fewer and fewer rush games (esp. at the lt level). But oh well, I'm not going anywhere any time soon. I'm still learning too much and having too much fun online.

However, I do think a patch is needed.

[joe4holly]

Its a new thing tradeing cards evryone want them but they die out .

[Palehorse]

School just started.

[Nighthawk22]

they should make an age of mpires expansion similar to the "Age of Empires 3: Napoleanic Era" Mod. I tried it once and the civs were way fun.

Americans, Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, etc..

Then i realized u couldnt do ESO Online so i had to unisntall it

[luukje]

1. the game is getting a bit "old". Players are leaving because they are moving on to other games. The exansions were really giving us incredible new content, after the first months ypu discover it's just more of the same old stuff
2. Balancing the game has been an issue all along. Time and time again one of these civs has been OP. Off course, with 14 civs and trying to keep them all a bit different, balancing is a huge problem.
3. The online community has been divided by the extensions and different modes of play. Es should have made more of an effort to keep us united and not have vanilla, TWC, TAD , death match, Treaty king of the hill games.
4. the last patch was probably a giant step in how to achieve balance. Unfortenately it has put the focus on "general RTS skills" - micro units and macro economy - and not anymore on strategic/tactical decisionmaking and game knowledge. Why, because the expert considered "one shot" strats such as FF shipment spam, CM FI, BB rush as lame.
Maybe in theory they were correct, but they have balanced this game for experts. And have taking away some/ a lot of the fun.

All games go the same way. You play one of 5/6 civs who either belong to the OP (India, Japan) or strong tier (Germany, aztec, russia, brits, iro). 90% of the players goes for an military + economy age 2 strat. If you dont, you loose.

Games are decided by winning the first big battle and the game is over after 6 minutes. If not games are decided by having the best civ for this style of play (the unstopable JApan and India).

To be honest, it has become a bit boring. No new exciting strats or BO to master. No death or glory tactics. Just play and fight from the moment you reach colonial.

Smart players realise quickly that to improve, you have to practise and practise your skills and put in a lot of time. In an old game. And a lot of players feel this isnt worth the effort. And I cant blame them.

A sad story but I hope we can keep this clan alive until the next episode of AOE/AOM comes along.

[LaZy]

[quote=""luukje""]
3. The online community has been divided by the extensions and different modes of play. Es should have made more of an effort to keep us united and not have vanilla, TWC, TAD , death match, Treaty king of the hill games.[/quote]

At first i was like WOW. Luukje hit the nail on the head regarding community. But then one of my few working synapses sparked and I remmembered that on the Zone ( Jeeez I miss it more and more) "rooms" where divided into more or less the same categories. I think mayB the fact that u cant c whats being typed in the begginer and xpt chats whilst ur in ur own game room doesnt help the comunity.

[quote=""luukje""]
A sad story but I hope we can keep this clan alive until the next episode of AOE/AOM comes along.[/quote]

This clan has walked with its head up high through much harder times. Our hierarchy is intact and solid. We are still under the same tyrany we have grown 2 luv, and remain very far away from any possible mutiny. Id know cos Id b the 1st 1 2 get it going We are still able 2 recruit a rather large Nº of people on a monthly basis. A lot of good and mature aquisitions have been made recently. The clan is still growing, but not outgrowing itself. Every clan has its own natural dynamic flow of members. Not only that but most seasons are also cyclical, in the sense that there are times of the year when more people join the game, and times of the year that people look for other games. We are simply going through one of those times where people are looking for new games 2 play. Its far from becoming a cataclismic era of general exodus. This clan is still fullfilling (wow 4 L´s in 1 word) its prime objective: being a fun, active community that plays the most awesome RTS game ever created. Yes, I am also sad that some very strong and acctive members have decided 2 leave us 2 pursue other conquests but, such is live. They have done us proud whilst having been here and have done us well by leaving instead of becoming inactive!
This clan will still be strong in years to come. We, the members, are half the reason for this fact. The other half is due to the game still being very rich in gameplay and complexity. Luukje named many important problems that need 2 be adrressed, but the truth of the matter remains: this is still the Nº 1 played RTS game atm. The industry isnt working on any other games similar 2 this 1, and the people that have recently left us didnt stay in the RTS world, but decided 2 hit MMORPGs.

sicco 4 good

[Blackadderthe4th]

[quote=""luukje""]

To be honest, it has become a bit boring. No new exciting strats or BO to master. No death or glory tactics. Just play and fight from the moment you reach colonial.

[/quote]

Try playing some more team games Luukje, I can recall two recent 3v3 in clan games where we used a ff falc spam and a gren rush to defeat teams of much higher PR then us. They were most definitely death or glory strats. I've been getting bored of the whole colonial warfare/boom that happens in every game and so am trying out some more suicidal/stupid strats when I'm bored. Hence my anti Sioux pike rush.

[I__CHAOS__I]

finally some more room on my friendlist for the new guys

[Sporting_Lisbon]

I completely agree with luukje. This is the worst patch I ever played, even 1.03 with iros was better since you could exclude iros and have some fun. This flood of 6 civs which all have boring playing styles is plain crap.

I'm looking forward to come back actively on 1v1s as soon as next patch comes back.

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

I agree with many of luukje's complaints. Truth be told, I only started playing ANY RTS games in the summer of 2007, so the whole genre is still rather fresh to me. Perhaps that makes me more tolerant of the problems associated with this patch. Before the patch, FF used to be such a wonderful, fun strat. Now almost no one FF's, with an odd Ottoman exception or two. But now most Ottos simply go jan/abus and whip you. I have to compliment Tatl for his superior higher-age strats; they are novel and true to the imaginative spirit that makes a great player.

On the question whether the game is ending, I can't really tell if that many people are leaving. Again, I haven't been around long enough to really notice a huge difference. Certainly there are fewer people on at particular times in the day than others, but at peak times I rarely see a number under 3500. Did more people used to be on? I just don't know. And looking at things historically, AOE2 was an extremely durable game that lasted roughly from 1999 until 2006 (when Game Zone pulled it). That is a 7-year run. AOE3 is only in year 3 (started 11/2005). If history is our guide, we still have a few more good years. What's more, I think AOE3 has much richer and intricate features than its predecessor.

As far as the clan goes, I have no intention of ever leaving. This clan makes the game not just bearable, but exciting. True, I have a loyalist heart, but in all honesty I really look forward to reading posts everyday and gaming with my mates most nights. It is the best antidote in the world to the lonely, lamer-filled world of QS, which could rightly turn someone off from AOE 3 altogether. Playing clan games has been a revelation for me: Something always weirded me out about rated, so when I started playing unrated team matches here, it felt like a dream come true. That has also given me the confidence I needed to ratchet up my game.

So now matter what happens, I will be here, unfair patches do what they may (I will still be German, nerf or no nerf )

[LaZy]

Yay, we get 2 raid Kaisers settler wagons. I also play Germans in most of my games. Civ just rox. Pity u neva saw the truly OP Germans in Vanilla; neither did u c the broken Germans 1 patch l8er Civ seems strong yet balanced imho.

sicco

Chaos ROFL bro.....i also need that friends list space.

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

[quote=""LaZy""]Yay, we get 2 raid Kaisers settler wagons. I also play Germans in most of my games. Civ just rox. Pity u neva saw the truly OP Germans in Vanilla; neither did u c the broken Germans 1 patch l8er Civ seems strong yet balanced imho.

sicco

Chaos ROFL bro.....i also need that friends list space.[/quote]

I think I saw the broken Germans when I started in TWC. Nobody--I mean nobody--played 'em (less than 4% at one point).

And I invite you to raid my great-coat equipped, pioneer-boosted SWs with 600 HP each :twisted: (I know, I know... 10 ARs can still pwn em pretty easy).

[Sporting_Lisbon]

I did enjoy old school german merc FF. Prepatch you could still do it (not as OP as before) but now they killed it altogether and replaced the good ol' german FF with some boring xbow spam with uhlans.

[Soccerman771]

[quote=""Sporting_Lisbon""]I did enjoy old school german merc FF. Prepatch you could still do it (not as OP as before) but now they killed it altogether and replaced the good ol' german FF with some boring xbow spam with uhlans.[/quote]

Just curious, how could they "fix" it so FF is balanced and a decent option but not make every game an FF war?

Pre-patch there were 3 civs where FF was OP (Iro, China, Dutch), while there were a couple of civs where if you FF'd because you had to in order to survive.