Hi everyone,
I´m writing this post to talk and openly discuss Nili´s announcement of N4C.
For those who missed the announcement Nili confirmed a 100K AoE4 Tournament taking place in Berlin in the month of March. 8 top AoE4 players will partecipate and it will be hosted by Nili_AoE.
Let´s start with the name: N4C. It has been already explained why this choice, arguing that calling it NAC4 would be the wrong choice and N4C doesn´t have a real meaning. Problem is that N4C is really not unique compare to NAC4 , the similarities are just too many and even a kid can understand that N4C can be translate to -Nili "Age of empires 4" cup- for instance. The problem with this can already be seen , instead of a unique and new brand for AoE4 tournaments , here we are recalling a AoE2 tourney and making look like a replacement to it.
Second i want to address why i believe AoE4 has been favored to AoE2. AoE4 is well known to still be in a stage where it needs many patches before it gives a competitive and serious experience . We haven´t seen such high prize money in AoE2 for 20 years, beside RB wololo 4 last year. and now there are expectation to be hyped for a Tournament of only 8 people with 100K put into a game that clearly don´t deserve such high prizes yet. I can see how AoE4 can´t really stands by itself and the "managers" at high level are doing all what they can to promote a campaign of marketing and "pull the wool over everyone´s eyes" decisions to utterly make it look such a great game, where the reality is that it is an unfinished job, and many pros already acknowledged that. i wouldn´t wonder if Nili received pressure from MS for example in making such a decision , clearly they want to promote AoE4 above all , and i can criticise that at this stage the game doesn´t deserve 100K tournament yet.
Nili said last year NAC4 would've received 100k as well if not for Covid. Now that AoE4 is out i´m not that sure anymore , he justifies this by saying last year there were restrictions (And i agree it was not the moment to do such tourney) but then why isn´t he doing it in summer when the restrictions are more relaxed? Why not doing this year with only vaccinated players ? Why not organize in the same way as N4C but for AoE2? I think these are legitimate questions and i believe covid restriction are still in place in Germany but for AoE4 tournament they clearly can be managed , not the same effort could have been put for NAC4 ?
My last thought about all this situation: A Tournament so big, made it for only 8 people seems very much an elitarian and arbitrary promotion of a game that still has a lot to prove. The marketing of AoE4 is clearly completely detached from the quality of his gameplay and this is a path that can be seen across many... many... many other games where the promotion of the game completely obscure the quality of the game itself serving the only purpose to hype the potential player base and make them play instead of giving them a complete and quantitative experience.
Finally, i don´t know who is the most responsible for this decision, if Nili more or MS more or someone else. what i can say is that it´s really sad to see something like this happening and as they can for sure do something like this i also can freely discuss it.
Let me know what you think and feel free to constructive criticize me if you disagree
Thank you all
I´m writing this post to talk and openly discuss Nili´s announcement of N4C.
For those who missed the announcement Nili confirmed a 100K AoE4 Tournament taking place in Berlin in the month of March. 8 top AoE4 players will partecipate and it will be hosted by Nili_AoE.
Let´s start with the name: N4C. It has been already explained why this choice, arguing that calling it NAC4 would be the wrong choice and N4C doesn´t have a real meaning. Problem is that N4C is really not unique compare to NAC4 , the similarities are just too many and even a kid can understand that N4C can be translate to -Nili "Age of empires 4" cup- for instance. The problem with this can already be seen , instead of a unique and new brand for AoE4 tournaments , here we are recalling a AoE2 tourney and making look like a replacement to it.
Second i want to address why i believe AoE4 has been favored to AoE2. AoE4 is well known to still be in a stage where it needs many patches before it gives a competitive and serious experience . We haven´t seen such high prize money in AoE2 for 20 years, beside RB wololo 4 last year. and now there are expectation to be hyped for a Tournament of only 8 people with 100K put into a game that clearly don´t deserve such high prizes yet. I can see how AoE4 can´t really stands by itself and the "managers" at high level are doing all what they can to promote a campaign of marketing and "pull the wool over everyone´s eyes" decisions to utterly make it look such a great game, where the reality is that it is an unfinished job, and many pros already acknowledged that. i wouldn´t wonder if Nili received pressure from MS for example in making such a decision , clearly they want to promote AoE4 above all , and i can criticise that at this stage the game doesn´t deserve 100K tournament yet.
Nili said last year NAC4 would've received 100k as well if not for Covid. Now that AoE4 is out i´m not that sure anymore , he justifies this by saying last year there were restrictions (And i agree it was not the moment to do such tourney) but then why isn´t he doing it in summer when the restrictions are more relaxed? Why not doing this year with only vaccinated players ? Why not organize in the same way as N4C but for AoE2? I think these are legitimate questions and i believe covid restriction are still in place in Germany but for AoE4 tournament they clearly can be managed , not the same effort could have been put for NAC4 ?
My last thought about all this situation: A Tournament so big, made it for only 8 people seems very much an elitarian and arbitrary promotion of a game that still has a lot to prove. The marketing of AoE4 is clearly completely detached from the quality of his gameplay and this is a path that can be seen across many... many... many other games where the promotion of the game completely obscure the quality of the game itself serving the only purpose to hype the potential player base and make them play instead of giving them a complete and quantitative experience.
Finally, i don´t know who is the most responsible for this decision, if Nili more or MS more or someone else. what i can say is that it´s really sad to see something like this happening and as they can for sure do something like this i also can freely discuss it.
Let me know what you think and feel free to constructive criticize me if you disagree
Thank you all