AoM has been getting a LOT of attention here this week. Is everyone here secretly an RTS junkie? I realize this is trolling to an extent, but I’d like to hear more negative things about AoM, so I can reassure myself that it is, in fact, a game - and not everyone wants to marry it.
Call me crazy.
(note: i own AoK, didn’t play it much, did however enjoy WC3 and RA2. My main passions are still half-life mods and a sprinkling of DAoC)
I’ve said plenty of negative things about it. Maybe I need to adjust my steely frown.
Still, it’s much better than AoK or AoE. Definitely the best in the series.
don’t take this the wrong way wumpus, but when you say you don’t like a game, that only makes me curious to play it and see whether i agree with you. While I respect your opinions, in no way do they deter me from playing the game in question :P
while i am occasionally guilty of “please someone tell me what to think” behavior in these circumstances, generally i just try and cajole the most interesting commentary out of all the people around here who i know play the game. i wanna hear something bad about AoM from Tom, and maybe even Dave Long, who seems quite taken with AoM. Perhaps even Xemu could talk about some things that he “wishes he could have done better” with AoM.
Trying to add another dimension to the AoM debate I guess - try to avoid jumping down my throat if I’ve missed some nay-saying in other, cooler threads.
I bought it because I am an Age-bot and have no control over my free will. I didn’t really want to buy it, but then there I was at EB, buying it. The 3D graphics are pretty (I especially like the way the sunlight flashes over the water) but I confess I wish its zoom feature was more like Empire Earth’s, i.e. tilting up as it zooms in so you can see the horizon and grab some nice “vista” screenshots.
I don’t like it better than AoK so far, but then I am still familiarizing myself with the game mechanics etc. I miss the intuitive nature of “infantry + cavalry + archers + siege” but I suppose I’ll figure out how the Myth units work. I miss the trebuchet. :cry:
With the 3 unique-civ thing, it seems a bit like Age meets Starcraft. As far as I can tell, Greeks are sorta like Marines (i.e. your basic vanilla civ), Egyptians are like Protoss (weird and effervescent with lots of glowing pylons), and Norse are like Zerg (rush-centric, mobile and, er, violent).
Okay, that’s probably a pointless analogy but I had to try… :?
Just visit Usenet, you’ll hear all the negative things you ever wanted to hear.
I bought it, but only so I could continue to say “games are the only things MS develops well” with a straight face. (Which isn’t entirely true, of course. Excel is pretty impressive.)
/jeep/
…RTS junkie? Not really. I think the Age series is the only one I really like.
And Ed Fries, the Microsoft games guy, was one of the chief developers of Excel!
“Just visit Usenet, you’ll hear all the negative things you ever wanted to hear.”
Thats works with any subject. Gaming releated or not.
No. Goddamned clickfest production games. I’m going to found an anti-RTS group called There Are Confounded Theatres In Computer Strategy. To join, you have to prove you preordered a turn-based tactical game or come up with a better name for the group’s acronym.
What I like about real time strategy games is that you have to think on your feet. Rather than the chess-like “now I shall ponder my next move for (x) minutes” setup of turn based games. Some of the immediacy of the game is lost when there’s no pressure to make decisions under fire.
Of course, you can have hybrids such as timed moves where you have to move in 60 seconds or whatever, but if you’ve accepted that, why not just go the rest of the way and make it real time?
That said, I could see myself playing a timed move game, if the moves were fast enough.
“He’s right, you know.”
Here’s a gem from way back in '93 I saw with your Google search. Just about sums it all up.
I think the immortal Sokwoo Lee summed up Usenet quite nicely:
“You are all big mouse.”
There’s a big big difference between a real-time game and a turn-based one even if you’re doing timed turns of two minutes or so. The former always feels a bit frantic while the latter always feels more in control.
A couple of my favorite multiplayer experiences have been turn-based – Mission Force Cyberstorm and Sanctum, a virtual collectible card game.
FWIW, I am not a huge RTS fan. I, too, have AoK, but tired of it rather quickly and never really tried MP as it had been out a year or two and I would have simply been slaughtered online.
I have only played the demo and AoM still shares a lot with it’s predecessors, but the features they have added are what differentiate it for me and I like most of them:
-The mythological units and heroes
-The branching paths for God worship as you advance through the ages
-THE NEVER DEPLETING FARMS
There are other things I cannot put my finger on (the feel, the atmosphere, subjective things like that) which make it more fun for me.
I do not remember if you said you have tried the ‘trial’ version, but you should. Play through the introductory campaign and several single player skirmishes and maybe it will change your mind, too.
While I am on the subject, why the hell can Microsoft not call it a ‘Demo’ like every other software company on the planet? “Triiiiiaaaal” version, are they soooo special they had to come up with their own word.
Actually, having just been through this debate when we realized we had labelled all the screens “demo” and had to change it…
It’s because people who aren’t gamers have no idea what a “demo” is. Either they think “demolition”, or are just baffled, or think it is something non-interactive (a “demonstration”).
Not that Trial Version is a fantastically clear turn of phrase either, but that is the theory…
Wow, thanks for the response. I see the reasoning, but when ‘demo’ is used 99.999999% of the time, I would think even non-gamers would figure it out, eventually, with a click on a link and reading of the first sentence or two of the details about said demo.
Who are these ‘non-gamers’ of which you speak? I have never seen nor heard of such a person. 
Now for the mature question: Who exactly are you targeting with the use of the phrase ‘trial version’? Where are they going to stumble on AoM and need the differentiation between the confusing use of ‘demo’ as opposed to ‘trial’? I am actually curious. :)
If you want to hear the negative side from people who really love the game, then just read a handful of posts on our AoM forums, where hundreds of fanboys are complaining how vital aspects are missing.
What a pile of shit!!! The villagers won’t auto-hunt the walrus!!! Don’t buy this game!!!
I have found that visiting forums dedicated to specific games, whether that be fan-based or the developer’s, is a complete waste of time. There is too much slobbering over or acid spewing at the game and not many level-headed critiques. The tech sections are the only exception.
I notice that guy has a post count of 6,086 - hmmm …