First Impressions from a Veteran RTS Player

I've played this now for a couple of days, and as a long-time RTS player (WC2, WC3, SC1, SC2, AOE2, DoW1, etc.), I thought some feedback may be helpful.

Overall:  It's a straightforward accumulate-resources-and-build-army RTS, but with a persistent aspect.  The persistent aspect is effectively a "talent tree" that enhances your units in-game; a bit like the technology upgrades you buy in the SC2 campaign.  Overall, it has a feel that is similar to the SC2 campaign.

Gameplay:  As mentioned, it's very straightforward in style, and there is not quite as much flexibility in strategy as there would be for, say, WC3, nor is there the ultra-tight timing of SC2.  Micro aspects are not as important as steady macro.  And given that it's built on a long line of successful RTSs, it tends to be quite balanced; it does not suffer from glaring balance problems the way that, say, DoW1 did.

Technical:  Well . . . it's an MS product.  It works well when it works well, but when it doesn't, it's an incredible pain.  Everything has been perfectly smooth for me except for getting it downloaded, which took an well over an hour of trying everything in the book, and which only succeeded when I shut down Mcafee.  Performance is very good, however.

Style:  This has been a very divisive topic, but I like the style, while realizing it's not for everyone.  The super-ultra-realistic-blood-and-guts-and-explosions-all-over-the-place style works well for FPS, but I frankly think it's a poor approach for other types of games, especially RTSs, where you need to keep track of everything that is going on on the screen.  It's not a coincidence that, after years of trying for the most realistic look possible, major developers have been leaning toward a more stylized approach - SC2, LoL, Torchlight 2, etc.  It's just easier to play.  MS has taken that a big step further with a very stylized look, but the beaty of it is, you can see perfectly well everything that is going on.

Persistent World:  The persistent world is limited to your capital city, which doubles as both your vanity display case and your upgrade center.  I have to say, I do like having a persistent aspect, and this is one area where it wins points over SC2, in my view.  SC2 has a persistent aspect to the campaign, but it's for the campaign only, while the persistent benefits are universal in AoEO.  That will generate some debate, but I find it to be more satisfying to be making permanent progress.

Side question:  if your capital city is where you show off all the stuff you've acquired, how do you get your capital city to hang out in front of the auction house to show off all your l33t epicz?  MS really should have thought about this in advance . . .

Crafting:  Likewise, there is a crafting component to the persistent game which is a bit enjoyable.  Nothing fancy, more Farmville than anything else, but still a nice change of pace.

Quests:  That is to say, missions, or scenarios.  They are passable but far from innovative; not nearly as interesting and challenging as the SC2 missions (which are even more challenging when attempting to get the relevant Achievements).  This is one area where my expectations are higher than they would have been a few years ago, and where AoEO falls a bit short.

Customization:  Other than building the capitol city, none that I can tell.  Again, I've been spoiled by WC3 and SC2, with their incredibly flexible editors that allow for tremendous amounts of user-created content.  None of that here, as far as I can tell.

Business Model:  As with style, a very contentious topic.  The major point is that the two available campaigns are both entirely free to play, although some of the best upgrades for units will not be available.  But it's much more accessible than box games, where there's a minimum you have to put down to even play the game.  Unlocking the full potential of the civilizations costs per civilization; it's not quite paying for power, as the items in questions are found or earned in-game, rather than purchased, but it's that you can't make full use of them unless you pay.  There are also vanity items and additional campaigns available for purchase.

For myself, I don't mind the business model, though I am sure others will.  I can try out the civilizations free and play their campaigns, and if I really like them, I can pay for them.  Hard to argue with that.  I also like being able to pay for additional campaigns; too many RTSs these days ship with one extremely lightweight campaign, and that's all, folks.  MS has a strong incentive to release more campaigns (and to make them more innovative, see Quests, above), which is a good thing in my view.

Cost:  Again, a contentious issue.  But look at comparable games:  SC2 may be only $60; but there are two more expansions coming down the pike that will be $60/ea.  Then there's League of Legends; there are plenty of F2P players who haven't dropped a dime on it, but it's not at all unusual to see players having put $200++ into Champions and Skins.  AoEO is currently $40 for two civilizations and three campaigns; that's just not that expensive.

The big mistake they made was advertising the "Season 1 Pass", which was a marketing fiasco, as in general it's a huge mistake to market a computer game at anything even close to $100, even if it has a set of components that players will willingly pay just as much for individually.  The average WoW player pays at least that much, if not twice that amount, in a given year on subscriptions/expansions/vanity items/etc., but the issue is, Blizzard is very careful to make sure that no individual payment is over $60 or so.  The problem with the marketing for AoEO isn't the cost, which isn't out of line, it's the sticker shock.

Bottom line:  players these days will pay quite a bit for a game they enjoy; and at the same time, players are willing to pay on a piecemeal basis, just as long as they don't see the total.  Hence why Blizzard released SC2 in three stages . . .

As a Sequel:  I played AoE2 some, but not enough to consider myself an informed commentator on how this fares as a sequel.  I want to say this, however:  I think MS went the only direction they could.  Game companies that do endless iterations of a tried-and-true model have been facing declining sales, and for simple reasons:  those who have tried the game before but did not care for it are not going to try a new version, those who liked the old version are not guaranteed to like the new version (and are virtually guaranteed to gripe over this or that change), and those who did not even try the previous version will wonder why they should bother in the first place.

The only sequels that really work are those that are radical changes on the previous model (e.g., WC3) or those that are remakes of wildly popular titles whose appeal has been declining due to dated technology (e.g., SC2).  Conservative remakes of run-of-the-mill tried-and-true models tend to face a declining audience (case in point:  Heroes of Might and Magic).  Radically remaking AoE on a new model was really the best way for MS to go, even if they alienated previous players.

Final Thoughts:  It's not an MMORTS, so the wait for the first successful MMORTS continues.  But I enjoyed it, and it's free, and it's got some interesting ideas that could breathe some new life into the RTS genre, so no reason not to try it out.  It won't be my srs bznss RTS, which will continue to be SC2, but I likely will continue to play AoEO as a lightweight diversion.