Relic working on Age of Empires 4

They need a new engine badly. Using the Same Engine for COH1 + COH2 + COH3 + Dawn of War 2/3 and AOE 4 is stretching it.

Only so much you can do with 1 CPU core and 3 gigs of Ram.

based

You are late to the party friend. I called this out years ago: here citing the same proof as you since i am a genius.

but i agree aoe4 sucks little balls with potential to not suck at all

True, but some fans and/or devs still live in denial after the failure of AoE4. This is using Relic's/Sega's own success criteria such as player retention.

Based on previous Relic interviews they want to improve player retention with future games.
This is a big deal regarding the success criteria of AoE4 and CoH3.

Remember, this was one of the primary reasons Relic/Sega gave up on DoW3. This is using their own words.

When asked about what measurements Relic was looking at regarding Dawn of War III's success, Boudreau stated "Retention and sentiment were the two biggest measures we were watching most closely."

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2018-08-02-why-dawn-of-war-iii-failed-according-to-relic

Relic AoE4 expectations vs reality;

True, but some fans and/or devs still live in denial after the failure of AoE4. This is using Relic's/Sega's own success criteria such as player retention.

was AoE 4 really a failure?

was AoE 4 really a failure?

In short, yes. Let me explain (and bear in mind I was up until the late 2010s when I got accepted into a phd program the bestest most cuckiest aoe fanboy ever)

• Be Microsoft.
  
• Decide to reinvigorate AOE franchise because you (rightfully) think there is a lot of money in there.
  
• Contrac Lelic a known powerhouse on RTS to handle it.
  
• Make the best marketing campaign ever: remaster every one of your games (you are literally microsoft, you have the money to even make aoe 5 through 20 and be profitable).
  
• Get the fans excited.
  
• Play it safe, return to Medieval era for max nostalgia gains.
  
• Release the game
  
• Pocket a couple of million dollars as first month sales.
  
• Watch the game slowly get behind AOE2 and AOE3DE.
  
• ???
  
• Fail.
  
  

was AoE 4 really a failure?

Financially speaking and from a Sega investor point of view? Yes, AoE4 is failing on steam but perhabs less on Xbox Game Pass.
The retail price alone is not enough to make an acceptable return on investment (ROI) from AoE4.
That's why Sega wants higher player retention from Relic games such as DoW/CoH/AoE.
High retention equals more potential profit post-launch from DLC and microtransactions.

CoH2 = average reception (initial launch) but good retention partly due to the game having no real competition except games such as Iron Harvest.
DoW3 = poor reception, low retention
AoE4 = good reception, low retention

High retention leads to more consumer engagement and gaming hype. This create a money-making cycle like this;


Sure, MS has a lot of money. But why invest more money into AoE4 when they will soon control the future of Starcraft? For MS the primary good reason to invest more into AoE4 would be because of Xbox Game Pass.

At the CoH2 launch, Relic had 110 devs and a smaller team working on DoW3
At the CoH3 launch, Relic will be over 300 devs.

For CoH3 to keep such a large studio profitable, seems like mission impossible.
2+2= 4?

From game launch to now, to help track the success and failures of AoE4 this megathread is good;
Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2
https://www.aoezone.net/threads/current-situation-on-aoe4-and-aoe2.178560/

Mostly pro-players/streamers, tournament organizers and old-school fans post there.
They closely track AoE tournament views in comparison to SC2.

On this forum, the general consensus seems to be that AoE4 failed not because the game doesn’t have potential but ended up being let down by Relic/MS.

Tournament money is keeping AoE4 on life-support;
https://www.aoezone.net/threads/current-situation-on-aoe4-and-aoe2.178560/post-782356

May 20, 2022
TopperHarley said:
just saw that Aoe4 currently has 1.6 k viewers on twitch on a Friday evening. While even one of their biggest streamers (beastyq) is streaming..

Imagine the top streamers of Aoe4 moving to Facebook (which happened with Aoe2). Would we have ~200 viewers on a Friday evening for Aoe4?

Its just a fact that this game is on life support by huge tournament money (and it make sense to do so from a Microsoft perspective i guess) but let's not forget that i would be so ded otherwise..

Yep, gotta think about it from Microsoft’s perspective. They want casual aoe fans to believe aoe4 is still a highly hyped game with a lot of potential. They do so by giving it the larger prize pool and the final series. This will convince people who watch the tourney for aoe1 and 2 that they need to buy aoe4 because it’s the “latest and greatest”.

https://www.aoezone.net/threads/current-situation-on-aoe4-and-aoe2.178560/post-783341
Today at 5:30 PM
LowEloNobody said:
Viewership =/= Game Sales.

The main income from AoE2 is going to be DLC's / expansions
The main income from AoE4 is new game sales, and then future expansions/DLCs

There just aren't many people purchasing AoE2 compared to AoE4, and you have to sell a lot of DLCs to match 1 new game sale

Common misconception from AoE4 Reddit fanboys, haters are not destroying this game.
Those fans need to redirect the attacks to MS and Relic which is 100% responsible for this failure.

From game launch to now, to help track the success and failures of AoE4 this megathread is good;
Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2
https://www.aoezone.net/threads/current-situation-on-aoe4-and-aoe2.178560/

Mostly pro-players/streamers, tournament organizers and old-school fans post there.
They closely track AoE tournament views in comparison to SC2.

On this forum, the general consensus seems to be that AoE4 failed not because the game doesn’t have potential but ended up being let down by Relic/MS.

Tournament money is keeping AoE4 on life-support;
https://www.aoezone.net/threads/current-situation-on-aoe4-and-aoe2.178560/post-782356



Common misconception from AoE4 Reddit fanboys, haters are not destroying this game.
Those fans need to redirect the attacks to MS and Relic which is 100% responsible for this failure.

Aoezone still exists?

wow...

I managed to read a couple pages from the aoezone thread the poster above me quoted.

Turns out there was a 125k tourney for AOE2... it was a financial loss ofc but it got me thinking:

did COH tourneys ever reach such numbers?

I managed to read a couple pages from the aoezone thread the poster above me quoted.

Turns out there was a 125k tourney for AOE2... it was a financial loss ofc but it got me thinking:

did COH tourneys ever reach such numbers?

middle ages and Fantasy are more popular scenarios for the majority