Aftermath takes issue with Tournament Rule Enforcement (-$300) | MembTV's BOA3

[Progeusz]

aoe2 having 2.5-3x players and only getting 65% of prizepool is huge disparity in my view

Again, aoe2 had much smaller playerbase than aoe4 when large chunk of aoe4 prize pool money was decided. And you keep ignoring the fact aoe4 is a new product so different approach is perfectly natural and trying to apply same standards to both titles is outright wrong thing to do.
It's not even a matter of subjectiveness, you just keep presenting data in deceitful manner. I'm not "justifying" stuff to myself, I'm explaining to you why things are the way they are. You are behaving as if you have never encountered new product being released and marketed.

 

[akku]

Again, aoe2 had much smaller playerbase than aoe4 when large chunk of aoe4 prize pool money was decided. And you keep ignoring the fact aoe4 is a new product so different approach is perfectly natural and trying to apply same standards to both titles is outright wrong thing to do.
It's not even a matter of subjectiveness, you just keep presenting data in deceitful manner. I'm not "justifying" stuff to myself, I'm explaining to you why things are the way they are. You are behaving as if you have never encountered new product being released and marketed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Aoe4 have a much higher player base only for like 2 months, immediately since release? That's isn't too much time really.
You think RedBull was decided when aoe4 had much higher player base? Don't think so

I can buy NAC4 and Goldenleague been planned initially, but RedBull being decided then? Nah. don't think so.

 

[akku]

If you remain hungry for a lot of days then your appetite adjusts accordingl and even 1/3 of your normal diet will make you feel full.

Since aoe4 release, aoe2 prize pools and consequently viewership have become significantly lower than what it used to be in 2020-21. Now we call 10k events as S-tier and are happy if a final of S-tier event reaches 15k. It seems people have resigned to this new reality.

aoe4 League : 125k
aoe2 League (platinum) : 17.5k

Even the aoe4 redbull qualifier is having 45k+ prize pool while none of aoe2 tournament has had anywhere close to that

You have a point about prizepools. Though according to T90, he could've had more, but he wants the T90 league to be a recurring event that runs the whole year, so he is spreading it throughout the year. If there are four 25K T90 league tourneys throughout the year, then that is 100K

As for the viewership, to be fair, the hit to viewership is mainly due to Viper and T90, two largest aoe2 streamers in pro scene, leaving for facebook. Rather than aoe4 by itself alone.

The ~15K peak viewership for finals is basically just for the less popular S tier tournaments. The real test is if the branded S tier tourneys with clout, such as HC, KoTD, NAC, BOA and RBW take a hit to the viewership as well.
If BOA3 suggests anything, aoe2 pro scene is hopefully still fine and recovering.

IIRC, BOA had average viewership above 15K, and peak viewership of 20K+. And that was on twitch alone. Adding facebook and youtube probably got that peak of 30K+. This is impressive, all things considered (like recovery from the whole downtime from aoe4, viper/t90 in facebook etc).

 

[Tendo]

I can buy NAC4 and Goldenleague been planned initially, but RedBull being decided then? Nah. don't think so.

It was mentioned several times that planning RBW Legacy started pretty much right after RBW5 (f.e in masmorras K&P youtube-interviews).
And that was obv. before even the release of aoe4.
I think it was also mentioned somewhere that it was planned as AoE4-only at the beginning (which would only make sense since back then noone knew how aoe2/4 would look like 1 year later).

 

[dodageka]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Aoe4 have a much higher player base only for like 2 months, immediately since release? That's isn't too much time really.
You think RedBull was decided when aoe4 had much higher player base? Don't think so

I can buy NAC4 and Goldenleague been planned initially, but RedBull being decided then? Nah. don't think so.

I think you underestimate the lead time these tournaments have. For RBW and N4C it was decided to be AoE4 way before the release of AoE4 when everybody still had big expectations.

Also, for me the relevant comparison is not between AoE2 and AoE4 but rather between AoE2 in 2021 and 2022, and so far 2022 doesn’t look to bad in comparison given that most likely there will be more tournaments announced before the end of the year

 

[longinator]

I think you underestimate the lead time these tournaments have. For RBW and N4C it was decided to be AoE4 way before the release of AoE4 when everybody still had big expectations.

I remember Nili saying on stream that he could decide between AoE2/AoE4 for his event. After seeing the numbers for GENESIS (mid November) he decided to go with AoE4. Unfortunately, I dont have a clip to confirm that.

For RBW:L, Will (the business lead for AoE) tweeted this mid May:
https://twitter.com/williammccahill/status/1527149135203184640

Shout out to @Nili_AoE, @eSportsTapir, and everyone else who have been quietly working behind the scenes to put RBW: Legacy together for the last 6 months. Looking forward to seeing you all in Heidelberg

So for the MS side, planning started ~ mid December. Maybe the Red Bull side did more planning in advance but that cant be too much.

 

[dodageka]

I remember Nili saying on stream that he could decide between AoE2/AoE4 for his event. After seeing the numbers for GENESIS (mid November) he decided to go with AoE4. Unfortunately, I dont have a clip to confirm that.

Yes you’re right, I mixed the dates up in my head. He started planning the tournament way before the launch of AoE4 but only decided after the launch on AoE4

 

[akku]

It was mentioned several times that planning RBW Legacy started pretty much right after RBW5 (f.e in masmorras K&P youtube-interviews).
And that was obv. before even the release of aoe4.
I think it was also mentioned somewhere that it was planned as AoE4-only at the beginning (which would only make sense since back then noone knew how aoe2/4 would look like 1 year later).

I think you underestimate the lead time these tournaments have. For RBW and N4C it was decided to be AoE4 way before the release of AoE4 when everybody still had big expectations.

Also, for me the relevant comparison is not between AoE2 and AoE4 but rather between AoE2 in 2021 and 2022, and so far 2022 doesn’t look to bad in comparison given that most likely there will be more tournaments announced before the end of the year

Like longinator has mentioned, by the time the planning for RB even just started, the numbers were already in a steep downward decline.
The process lasted 6 months, so there was always time to change things as needed. I even think they did, since I believe addition of aoe1 was something that happened later into the planning.

Nili always could've decided to have NAC4 in aoe2 than in aoe4, he went with aoe4 anyway, he said so himself. But I suppose it is very well possible that he made the commitment to Microsoft before the numbers started declining, so there is that.

 

[Progeusz]

Like longinator has mentioned, by the time the planning for RB even just started, the numbers were already in a steep downward decline.

You're just manipulating here.

An Interview w/ Will McCahill, Business Lead for the AoE franchise | Kings & Plebeians: Episode #11

0:00 Intro1:51 Not only the Business Lead, but also a true AoE fan7:18 The birth of World's Edge, the studio responsible the AoE franchise15:03 Making Nili's...

www.youtube.com

They already knew they want new Red Bull right as previous one ended (before ae4 launched) but waited with more concrete planning until aoe4's release was done. Numbers back then weren't nearly as bad as they are now.

>Shout out to @Nili_AoE, @eSportsTapir, and everyone else who have been quietly working behind the scenes to put RBW: Legacy together for the last 6 months.
DOESN'T mean they didn't touch the project at all until mid December, contrary to what you're trying to imply. This just means that ~6 months prior to that tweet were spent working more intensively on it. You're nitpicking way too much on what is a very vague tweet. We also don't know when prizepools were decided and how much wiggle room they had at various stages of the process. Keep open mind, seriously.

the numbers were already in a steep downward decline

That doesn't mean the game should be abandoned. Decline is natural but numbers were still high and it was logical for Microsoft to think that numbers could either stabilize soon or even rebound. They didn't but nobody knows the future, hindsight is 20/10, games can be incredibly volatile with their popularity especially in current streaming times, and it's company's obligation to support new product. Giving up outright would have been wrong thing to do. Not to mention, even if specific tournament wasn't set in stone yet, it's quite likely Microsoft has already allocated funds to game's promotion which had to be spent somewhere. Remember how Nili said around aoe4's launch how he has dozens of sponsors considering aoe4 events while only a couple for aoe2. Difference in interest was huge.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

You're just manipulating here.

An Interview w/ Will McCahill, Business Lead for the AoE franchise | Kings & Plebeians: Episode #11

0:00 Intro1:51 Not only the Business Lead, but also a true AoE fan7:18 The birth of World's Edge, the studio responsible the AoE franchise15:03 Making Nili's...

www.youtube.com

They already knew they want new Red Bull right as previous one ended (before ae4 launched) but waited with more concrete planning until aoe4's release was done. Numbers back then weren't nearly as bad as they are now.

>Shout out to @Nili_AoE, @eSportsTapir, and everyone else who have been quietly working behind the scenes to put RBW: Legacy together for the last 6 months.
DOESN'T mean they didn't touch the project at all until mid December, contrary to what you're trying to imply. This just means that ~6 months prior to that tweet were spent working more intensively on it. You're nitpicking way too much on what is a very vague tweet. We also don't know when prizepools were decided and how much wiggle room they had at various stages of the process. Keep open mind, seriously.


That doesn't mean the game should be abandoned. Decline is natural but numbers were still high and it was logical for Microsoft to think that numbers could either stabilize soon or even rebound. They didn't but nobody knows the future, hindsight is 20/10, games can be incredibly volatile with their popularity especially in current streaming times, and it's company's obligation to support new product. Giving up outright would have been wrong thing to do. Not to mention, even if specific tournament wasn't set in stone yet, it's quite likely Microsoft has already allocated funds to game's promotion which had to be spent somewhere. Remember how Nili said around aoe4's launch how he has dozens of sponsors considering aoe4 events while only a couple for aoe2. Difference in interest was huge.

Not if they were being honest with themselves about the state of the game. But I don't think this obsession with playerbase matters because MS was always going to throw money at AoE4 for a while to prop it up.

 

[Progeusz]

what

 

[lecracheursagacite]

what

They could anticipate the playerbase count was going to drop as it did because the game was so bad.

 

[Progeusz]

They could anticipate the playerbase count was going to drop as it did because the game was so bad.

Ok, that makes more sense. I don't think i can agree though.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

Ok, that makes more sense. I don't think i can agree though.

What do you find disagreeable?

 

[Progeusz]

What do you find disagreeable?

1) it;s hard to anticipate playerbase count dropping accurately
2) regardless of whether you can do that or not, that's not a reason to drop support for the game
The whole reason why aoe4 tournaments are sponsored with so much money is to attract new players. Dropping the support would be counterproductive.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

1) it;s hard to anticipate playerbase count dropping accurately
2) regardless of whether you can do that or not, that's not a reason to drop support for the game
The whole reason why aoe4 tournaments are sponsored with so much money is to attract new players. Dropping the support would be counterproductive.

1) it's easy to get the relative order of magnitude part right
2) I don't disagree at all with this - it's unreasonable to expect them to not try to prop up the game at the start since doing that while getting things fixed is the only way they can recover the investment

 

[JohnCMelia]

Yeah, I think it matters for a lot of reasons.
1. MS sponsored the tourney prizepool (or at least some amount of it) and probably had some conditions for its use. I.e. (not Memb) but a tourney organizer could get 10k or MS money, and then "fine" players for rules, leaving the prize pool less than what MS agreed to
2. Tournament tier level is partly determined by prize pool. If you are on the borderline for S-tier ($10k, with less competitive settings etc.) then a large number of fines that don't go back into the prize pool could knock you out of your respective tier

If the penalties are going back into the overall prize pool, then I don't really see the problem tbh

Behind the scenes, we are being threatened, lied to, and admins are saying a lot of things that make you question why they are admins at all. For that matter, even the host...

I shouldn't have brought up this subject on stream, but I just don't have a filter when I'm angry, and that's something I've struggled with for a long time. The issue is that I can't share anything that is private on stream, and it's obviously terrible form to show only 30% of the information and leave out all the shady activities.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Behind the scenes, we are being threatened, lied to, and admins are saying a lot of things that make you question why they are admins at all. For that matter, even the host...

I shouldn't have brought up this subject on stream, but I just don't have a filter when I'm angry, and that's something I've struggled with for a long time. The issue is that I can't share anything that is private on stream, and it's obviously terrible form to show only 30% of the information and leave out all the shady activities.

Who is this

 

[MrIster24]

dave_hun

 

[damdres]

Will the money be used for an show match?... kappa