Support NeoGAF

[toxicgonzo]

I lost my connection to GFWL for a second and guess what? I lost everything in the game I was playing. It went back to the GFWL page to sign me back in.

*RAGE*
I hope that isn't common

 

[Leckan]

Do you have to install that POS Silverlight to install this? I installed the damn GFWL client and now it asks me to install Silverlight too.

Is there another way?

 

[Hari Seldon]

It says: The game has already been started.
But nothing more happens :'(

I noticed that it took like 2-3 minutes after I hit Play for the first time for it to actually do anything. I don't know wtf it is doing in the background but probably something extremely nefarious.

 

[Hari Seldon]

So after playing this yesterday and thinking about it on the way to work this morning, I have decided that I do not like this game. I will give it a little more time, but I am likely uninstalling it shortly.

The fact that you have to unlock units via these slowly gathered experience points means that the missions are too easy, because they are balanced for anything. If I'm going to put time into a single player RTS I want a finely tuned single player experience such as in CoH or SC2. The experience I am getting with this game is basically pumping out a shit ton of the same unit, upgrade them, and send my horde around the map. There is no strategy to this at all. And there are too few units for it to be interesting, and the units don't do anything interesting themselves.

What is "addicting" about this game is the unlockables, but so many games have this "trick" now that it is pretty transparent and any experienced gamer should be able to fend off this psychological hammer.

Also, as far as I can tell the co-op is only with 1 other person, which is pretty useless to me since I game with a group of friends, so this game is not useful to me to throw into our gaming rotation.

So after the initial mind control of the unlockables wore off over night (yesterday I said I liked the game), I have decided that this game is not very good.

 

[Bossman]

The early missions are easy but then they start to get much more difficult and require you to use more diverse armies.

 

[AusQB]

They sure don't waste any opportunity to lure you into purchasing a premium pack. One of the quests around level 5 gives you a blueprint for an Arena, which you can only build if you have a premium civilization. The blueprint cannot be sold, transferred or destroyed and the quest cannot be abandoned.

So unless you buy a premium pack, this blueprint will sit in your inventory forever, and you can only have a maximum of two warehouses with a free civilization.

 

[sTeLioSco]

one of the best f2p games...

its better than i expected

(gfwl sucks btw)

 

[FieryBalrog]

Yeah, it's sad that this game has the GFWL albatross around its neck.

 

[hEist]

no mac version?
rage.

 

[Zing]

So, does the "season pass" ensure that some content will be intentionally pushed back to a March release?

 

[Wings1]

I have problems with starting the game... I downloaded the exe file and installed it. After starting the game this screen pops up:

It says: The game has already been started.
But nothing more happens :'(

You just have to run the game as administrator. I had the same problem and that fixed it.

 

[Bossman]

Sweet, just found a recipe for an epic weapon crafting store but I don't have the resources to build it.

 

[cackhyena]

Yeah, it's sad that this game has the GFWL albatross around its neck.

I don't really play many games with GFWL. What's the complaints about? Nothing is hindering me while I play this.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I have problems with starting the game... I downloaded the exe file and installed it. After starting the game this screen pops up:

It says: The game has already been started.
But nothing more happens :'(

It says "the game has launched" in the English version.

It took about a minute to actually enter the game from there the first time.

I still haven't had any time to play yet, but I was immediately annoyed that the game started out in 1280x800 resolution and did not allow me to change any settings until I was actually in the game.

 

[VALIS]

So after playing this yesterday and thinking about it on the way to work this morning, I have decided that I do not like this game. I will give it a little more time, but I am likely uninstalling it shortly.

The fact that you have to unlock units via these slowly gathered experience points means that the missions are too easy, because they are balanced for anything. If I'm going to put time into a single player RTS I want a finely tuned single player experience such as in CoH or SC2. The experience I am getting with this game is basically pumping out a shit ton of the same unit, upgrade them, and send my horde around the map. There is no strategy to this at all. And there are too few units for it to be interesting, and the units don't do anything interesting themselves.

I think you gave up a little early. It does have a long, slow ramp up in difficulty, but at some point that ramp becomes a spiral staircase. Which is another problem, but a much more welcome one for AoE/RTS vets. The enemy AI, which also is pretty dumb early on, starts to get rather aggressive.

It happened for me around the start of level 6, doing quests for these recently unlocked advisers in my home city (I'm playing as Egypt). Not their first quests but their second. All of a sudden my spearmen and slingers were stone age chumps, and I needed mass numbers of them and good RTS strategy to get anywhere. Took an hour to complete.

This style of RTS meets MMO model, where they plan on having hundreds of hours of gameplay with so many unlockables and variables, is definitely going to have some quirks and balance issues. Whether or not they should have used this F2P model or done a traditional $50 game, it's too early to tell. I'm pretty crazy about it, though. My addiction isn't the unlockables, but the XP and overall progress.

 

[Aurora]

I'm excited in the sense that this will bring new life into AoE but I honestly much prefer the original graphics. This feels way too cartoony and removes from the atmosphere somewhat.

 

[DualShadow]

Do you have to install that POS Silverlight to install this? I installed the damn GFWL client and now it asks me to install Silverlight too.

Is there another way?

You don't need Silverlight.

 

[Coldsnap]

My god the chat is filled with terrible spam. It's worse than Wow barrens chat.

Anyone want to do some multiplayer I'm rank 4? Just sorta wana try it for the achievement tbh.

 

[The_Inquisitor]

Alright I am installing right now. Any advice other than build farms for food?

 

[VALIS]

Alright I am installing right now. Any advice other than build farms for food?

Are you an AoE/RTS vet? Like I said a few posts ago, the ramp up to a higher difficulty is long and slow, until all of a sudden around level 6 it shoots up quickly.

Depends on your play style, but I upgraded the tech path with the defense towers quickly (with still several more slots to go). But I'm an arrow tower fiend.

 

[GC|Simon]

You just have to run the game as administrator. I had the same problem and that fixed it.

Thanks, it's working now. Played the game for about an hour and it's cool so far. Feels like Age of Empires.

 

[Kweh]

What % of the achievements can you get with the free to play version?

 

[mikekennyb]

Enjoying the art style and AOE-ness... So far I'm having more fun with it than AOE III for what that is worth!

The humor in the dialogue with your advisers is good stuff too.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

What % of the achievements can you get with the free to play version?

330 points of gamerscore.

Those you can get with only free content:

hinxed! - 40G: Build the Sphinx in your Capital City.
Tomb Dweller - 40G: Build the Tomb in your Capital City.
Pyramid Power - 40G: Build the Large Pyramid, Large Step Pyramid, and Small Step Pyramid in your Capital City.
I HAS A HORSEY - 40G: Build the Trojan Horse in your Capital City.
Ssssssssssh! - 40G: Build the Library in your Capital City.
This. Is. Spartaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! - 40G: Build the Spartan Academy in your Capital City.
Hold Me - 10G: Complete any Co-op quest.
BFF -10G: Visit any player's capital city.
I'm Special - 30G: Complete any Elite quest.
Fear the Gear - 15G: Equip your first piece of gear.
Sphere of Influence - 25G: Complete a quest accepted from any other player's Ambassador.

 

[AEREC]

Im digging the game...I may eventually buy a Civilization but there is no way Ill be spending $99 on the season pass.

 

[Inferno313]

My dad used to enjoy AOE 2 back in the day. So we're both downloading this and are going to play together.

Do we have to play the same Civilzation to be able to co-op? Or can I be Greek and he be Egypt and still play together?

EDIT: Saw my question was answered on the last page. Sorry guys.

 

[ZZMitch]

Is it preferable to buy a premium civ right off the bat or can I level normally for a while with just a free civ?

 

[VALIS]

Do we have to play the same Civilzation to be able to co-op? Or can I be Greek and he be Egypt and still play together?

Yes, you can co-op as different civs. Probably preferred so you can use the best units of both.

Is it preferable to buy a premium civ right off the bat or can I level normally for a while with just a free civ?

You can level normally up until the max (level 40) for free, I think. As far as what you miss by not having at least one premium civ, rare items and gear, more inventory space, and you can't progress a tech tree line up to the final star level, but you can't do that without grinding the game for probably 30-40 hours anyway.

 

[I'm an expert]

I'm surprised this thread isn't more active. GAF usually loves f2p games. Dunno how I feel about this. I was a big AOE2 guy but this feels more like Sim City meets WoW. The chat is fun though since it's, again, pretty much like a WoW chat. I've yet to PVP so that will be my true test for the game since everything else to me is just the same old grinding I've done in 100 different games that decided to adopt rpg elements.

 

[falastini]

I'm really enjoying the game, more than I thought I would. I'm at level 10 right now, and even though I only have access to part of the tech tree, it really does feel like AoE. I'm even digging the Wind Waker style.

The civ price point is too high at $20. Honestly, I wish they'd decouple the skirmish and ranked pvp modes from the individual civs. Sell those at $5 each, then sell civs at $10 a piece. That would be much more reasonable. Part of my enjoyment in AoE was trying out the different civs. Which is another issue I have with the game... you have to commit to one civ, since your leveling them up and such. The whole mmo/rts hybrid is a unique idea though, I'll give them that.

also fuck GFWL login and their store... I dont wanna buy shit with space bucks.

 

[user_nat]

Server seems to be down..

 

[Glasswork]

Server seems to be down..

Yeah, great timing since I just bought the premium civ
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 

[LuchaShaq]

Really digging the game have premium Greece on Athens. Problem is I have about 5 sec bursts of lost connection an hour, games like COD/LOL/WOW 95%+ of the time just have me lagged during that time no disconnect, in this game I disconnect and have to restart from scratch on the mission.

Server is up...but now my change of arrows to wasd to move camera only works on up and down wtf....

 

[derFeef]

I love the look of this game! Hopefully I can make some friends play it too, as I already enjoyed the beta a lot.

 

[BetterWorldz]

Yep, it's definitely down, and it's not a scheduled maintenance...

I really like the game even though the interface can be mind boggling at times, and I had no idea GFWL could be THIS bad.

It seems enough people are buying the civs for Microsoft not to lower the price unfortunately. If I have to commit to one civ I'll at least wait until I can try out the Celts and Persians before going premium. I guess I'll have some challenging pvp games until then...

edit: servers are up again

 

[Da1nonly J]

I download the game and install just fine. I start it up and I cant sign in to GFWL. I don't know what to do, guess its time to open up some ports or whatever. But why can't this work just as easy as my Xbox? It's hooked up the same way to the router and connects to XBL just fine.

Damn you GFWL!!!

 

[marcurius]

What I had to do when first signing in to the game, in order for it to not think my username / password was wrong, was log in through the GFW interface and then signing in to the game servers. Not sure if it will actually help since the game at first wanted to use my old Live mail address that I changed a couple of months back so I tried logging in a bunch of times before noticing that, but worth a try I guess.

 

[Chiaroscuro]

I download the game and install just fine. I start it up and I cant sign in to GFWL. I don't know what to do, guess its time to open up some ports or whatever. But why can't this work just as easy as my Xbox? It's hooked up the same way to the router and connects to XBL just fine.

Damn you GFWL!!!

Are you running the Windows Firewall? Just add the game to its exception list. Actually, if there is an error logging in GFWL, just switch tabs and you should see the firewall warning pop-up. Windows blocks everything by default.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I played the first six or so quest missions, and I think I quite like the game.

I'm not particularly interested in the Greeks or the Egyptians, and probably won't buy a premium civilization until the Celts arrive (any word on the date, by the way?).

The actual RTS gameplay is quite a bit of fun, and it rather reminds me of Warcraft II, which I like. I also like all of the customization options with tech trees and gear there appears to be.

As someone who has a decent amount of experience with RTS games, however, I don't look forward to replaying all of these mind-numbingly easy tutorial missions each time I try a new civilization, though.

 

[Emerson]

I was pretty confused about the structure of this game for a while but now that I've played a decent amount I like it a lot. I'll definitely buy a premium civ at some point, though I doubt I'll wait for any more to come out. Can't decide between Egypt and Greece.

 

[Scotch]

They sure don't waste any opportunity to lure you into purchasing a premium pack. One of the quests around level 5 gives you a blueprint for an Arena, which you can only build if you have a premium civilization. The blueprint cannot be sold, transferred or destroyed and the quest cannot be abandoned.

So unless you buy a premium pack, this blueprint will sit in your inventory forever, and you can only have a maximum of two warehouses with a free civilization.

Yeah this annoys me as well. I understand they want to make money, but at times this feels more like a demo than a F2P game.

I'm also not digging the MMO thing. I always feel they give you these filler missions that are boring as fuck, but that somehow they're worthwhile because you are filling up some XP bar. It just doesn't do anything for me, it's the same reason I hate all MMO's.

The game plays really well and I like the graphics, I just wish it was structured like a normal AOE game.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

My god the chat is filled with terrible spam. It's worse than Wow barrens chat.

Yes it is. I really hope the game don't have a limit to the ignore list because it's going to fill up fast if there is. Reading it tonight really made me miss the beta and early play period some of us got before launch. The chat was so much nicer and actually friendly then.

Yeah this annoys me as well. I understand they want to make money, but at times this feels more like a demo than a F2P game.

I'm also not digging the MMO thing. I always feel they give you these filler missions that are boring as fuck, but that somehow they're worthwhile because you are filling up some XP bar. It just doesn't do anything for me, it's the same reason I hate all MMO's.

The game plays really well and I like the graphics, I just wish it was structured like a normal AOE game.

Yea that quest is annoying as hell if you don't have a premium pack. Quests like that should give a warning.

 

[I'm an expert]

Level 6 now and I'm getting fed up with questing. If this was my first game like this I'm sure I'd enjoy it but after playing many games like this that slowly give you gear/abilities through quests and unlock bits and pieces of gameplay as you go along..it's just old. I want to PVP..er I mean play an RTS..you know..against people. The fact I have to quest to unlock stuff in the multiplayer component is so frustrating now that I'm at that point in the game. Still..the game has a charm.........ugh.

 

[elektrixx]

I have a question before I start playing this.

If I don't buy anything am I going to miss out on things like items and stuff or will premium stuff be waiting for me? I know nothing about the game so pardon me if this makes so sense.

 

[gillty]

I have a question before I start playing this.

If I don't buy anything am I going to miss out on things like items and stuff or will premium stuff be waiting for me? I know nothing about the game so pardon me if this makes so sense.

Without a premium civs you cannot equip/craft blue/epic gear enhancements for your units as well as create custom pvp matches.

 

[elektrixx]

Without a premium civs you cannot equip/craft blue/epic gear enhancements for your units as well as create custom pvp matches.

Okay. So I'm clear if I buy the cheapest thing possible?

 

[Victrix]

This is increasingly sounding like they're shackling the solid core of a game with beautiful art to a really wretched and poorly thought out service, pricing scheme, and unlock system.

 

[FieryBalrog]

I'm enjoying the game- got one of my friends to play it with me, and he's more hooked than I am now. I'm actually OK with the filler missions. The positive side is that I can turn my brain off, not stress out and just futz around with the lovely units and buildings. It feels very relaxed.

It's not giving me the adrenaline rush of perfect RTS management and multitasking kung-fu, but I'm OK with that, I'll just play Starcraft II if I want that.

I do however think the freemium model is very badly thought out. I bought a premium civ so I'm fine, but the sheer amount of random stuff that fucks you over if you are playing for free is mind-boggling. It's disheartening to see that Microsoft apparently thinks people need constant reminding every 3 minute of how much more they could have if they paid for premium.

Here's really what should have been done. One or two VERY CLEAR differences between free and paid. That's it. Instead, they have 3 dozen hidden random things that make the free version feel constantly gimped at EVERY turn for NO reason. Is there really any reason why free players can't build more than 2 warehouses? Or have much smaller build limits? Or can't spend Empire pts? And this is in addition to they can't use rare OR epic items, they can't unlock the full tech tree, and they can't use advisors. At every turn, you're constantly finding something else that is artificially gimped.

Not smart.

Also, this game should totally have shipped with skirmish, and Defense of Crete should have been free. The whole thing feels really miserly.

 

[inky]

I agree, this feels like just a demo with a "you should really buy this" reminder at every corner. Microsoft don't really grasp the idea behind F2P imo. First of all they don't even let you decide how much/if you like the game before they suggest you should buy something, you know, like the $50 pack or better yet the $115 one. Feels like the car salesman that wants you to 'go to his office to look at some papers' before you even got a look at the car.
Then, there is no "by feature" unlock system, it is everything or nothing and $20 per civ for samey quests? After you unlock 4 or 5 factions (you know, the regular for strategy games) you are already down $80~. I don't know YET if that value is there...
Even stuff like the cosmetics come in a pack, no handpicking + there's not much detail into what you get for what I've seen.

It is a fun game, and I had tons of fun during the beta, but then it wasn't very clear what was going to be locked away and what wasn't. For one, I imagined the store to be a lot more thorough, like: there's 50 kind of bushes, statues, flagpoles, character models, random shit for you to buy a la carte. There's also this bunch of packs, exp boosters, special missions, skins, etc. There doesn't seem to be much there other than, hey gives us lots of money NOW and you'll eventually get "everything". It feels very very limited unless you drop at least $20 for starters, which may be 'fine', but it is not a real'F2P' experience anymore then...

 

[mik]

Goddamn I love this game. That's all.