AoE III demo

[Wynn]

For you RTS fans.
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/648/648824p1.html

[DarkViruz]

I'd hug you if you weren't so tiny.

[Stix]

Hum. Will try it out. But I don't expect a drastic change from the previous titles.

[DarkViruz]

Well the two missions were fun...but i noticed a lot of glitches in the demo...i mean nothing huge...but they make the game look very shoddy....

[DarkViruz]

ok i just did a 4 hour skirmish...i have to say the bugs I thought were bug are actually game features, some whcih suck

(ie select a bunch of units the go only as fast as your slowest unit....which is not always ideal)

But I have to say I can totally see myself playing people online a month from now.

[Stix]

It's too much like the last game, but it has better graphics, explorers, trade routes and this home city thing. Certain mechanics and a lack of things like being able to break formation make its gameplay slightly clumsy and annoying. The only enthusiastic advocation I could make is for the resource gathering system and how it interacts with trade and your home city. Everything else, however, is stale.

[Monster]

I thought it was a very poor choice to not include a tutorial in the demo, instead throwing you late into the second act, where I got my ass handed to me. I then played skirmish mode and again got wasted. Why would they not let you choose difficulty in a demo? They give you this game, do not tell you how to play, then kick your ass. Great way to convince people to buy your game. I haven't played an Age of Empires game in years... I think the last one I played was that crappy one based on Star Wars where they had droids picking berries.

[DarkViruz]

really? I mean, I guess while a tutorial could have been helpful, i didn't mind getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere and getting my ass handed to me until I learned the game. I'm kinda glad I got my ass handed to me for a while until I learned it, they make RTS's way too easy these days.

[Stix]

I thought it was a very poor choice to not include a tutorial in the demo, instead throwing you late into the second act, where I got my ass handed to me. I then played skirmish mode and again got wasted. Why would they not let you choose difficulty in a demo? They give you this game, do not tell you how to play, then kick your ass. Great way to convince people to buy your game. I haven't played an Age of Empires game in years... I think the last one I played was that crappy one based on Star Wars where they had droids picking berries.

I agree about the tutorial thing. At first, I was disconcerted because the concepts of home cities and their version of trade routes were new to me. So I had to learn those before I could really get the hang of the game. From what I can tell, however, the home city feature in the demo isn't fully turned on. There were no advancements in the buildings there, like they explain in the game features section of the web site. Unless the deck building and shipments was what they were talking about--and I hope not, since that would make the realization of the concept half-assed, if you ask me.

But I have to point out that you can select a level difficulty.

[Monster]

You can? It looked grayed out to me.

[DarkViruz]

thos bastards also limited the demo to only lvl 9, i tried to get enough xp for lvl 10 uupgrades and then it bugs out and gives me a nice 12423890428323487534897538947 to go to lvl 10. assholes :/

[Monster]

Maybe the balance is just way off.