Current Situation on Aoe4 and Aoe2

[Progeusz]

Glad the situation is finally solved. Too bad we had long months of drama, almost all pro players and some community members completely abandoning aoe2 for several weeks or months, often while making lots of audacious statements* only to come back in shame after their falsely beloved new title failed to meet any expectations... and bunch of shills/trolls on aoezone who kept attacking anyone who dared to not be hyped for aoe4.
*Nili saying he doesn't want to watch a match between players of BacT's level, Jordan saying he has no intention of preparing for Memb's tournament, all GL boys tricking their audiences by claiming aoe4 has so much potential and is sure to be a big hit and people should try the game out instead of complaining etc. etc. it didn't take long for them to do a 180 and start shitting on aoe4 at every occasion, despite praising it to heaven few weeks earlier (looking at you, DauT)
Well, most people are willing to forgive, me included. However it should also be remembered. All the shallow praises for new product, all the unjustified calls to turn blind eye to game's plethora of problems, all the shade thrown at true fans who saw through aoe4 since the start and knew it has no chance of competing with aoe2 in either game quality or fanbase retention...

Let's hope the future will be bright and we won't have to deal with such trainwreck again. Things are looking good. A lot of pro players active, a lot of upcoming talents (praise T90 for giving them opportunity to shine in TTL!). Bunch of tournaments and some are even properly announced more than a month beforehand! Experiments with format (DWL bringing 9 vill start to "mainstream consciousness" is so good), lots of variety. AoE 2 is well.

 

[plinkus]

How have viewer numbers for recent tournaments (Warlords, T90's League, etc.) been?

When is next AOE4 tournament to see if there is any growth? How many tournaments will AoE 4 get if they get low viewers again??

 

[LeoMontero]

How have viewer numbers for recent tournaments (Warlords, T90's League, etc.) been?

When is next AOE4 tournament to see if there is any growth? How many tournaments will AoE 4 get if they get low viewers again??

dont know the anwer to the first question.

for the second and third questions, here is my answer, no one cares about age 4. as simple as that. forget about it. the only and real game is age2

 

[_Donatello_]

Pesti/EGC posted a long drama thread on reddit last weekend, I have not read it, but from other forum in short:

He is hosting golden leauge with strange rules, this made beastyque make a long video ranting about these rules and this was "the straw that broke the camels back" according to pesti. He will cut down on founding AoE4 to a few tournament a year instead of all year round and is looking for other projects.

So yea looks like AoE4 scene is dying if nobody else keep the tournament scene running

Link to reddit thread

 

[ninja14]

Pesti/EGC posted a long drama thread on reddit last weekend, I have not read it, but from other forum in short:

He is hosting golden leauge with strange rules, this made beastyque make a long video ranting about these rules and this was "the straw that broke the camels back" according to pesti. He will cut down on founding AoE4 to a few tournament a year instead of all year round and is looking for other projects.

So yea looks like AoE4 scene is dying if nobody else keep the tournament scene running

Link to reddit thread

For the sake of understanding this first hand, I watched the whole video from Beasty. He was constructively critical and explained his thoughts in as clear manner as possible. Didn't go on a rant at all.

Compared to that this reaction from EGCTV (Patsi) is massively overblown and rants full of his own frustrations which stem from the fact his business is not doing as well as he would have expected. I totally dislike this idea of entitlement from Patsi.

Beasty video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnVUqMrzRo

 

[ninja14]

The main issue here is that player number have been declining/not going up and twitch viewership is down in the dumps. This is just a reflection of aoe4 as a game and not necessarily on players and TOs

 

[Halleju]

For the sake of understanding this first hand, I watched the whole video from Beasty. He was constructively critical and explained his thoughts in as clear manner as possible. Didn't go on a rant at all.

Compared to that this reaction from EGCTV (Patsi) is massively overblown and rants full of his own frustrations which stem from the fact his business is not doing as well as he would have expected. I totally dislike this idea of entitlement from Patsi.

Beasty video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnVUqMrzRo

Well remembering how he reacted here in the forum and threatened to cut funds for Aoe2 because of criticism, I'm not surprised at all. This guy thinks he can throw some money around and get only praises in return.
Every community does better without such entitled personalities, as we see in Aoe2.

 

[Springoftheking]

Seems to me that the audience and tournament organizers of AoE 4 want more entertaining games by gimmicky tournament rules, but pro players don't like these rules because they ruin competitiveness

Overall problem is that AoE 4 isn't enough entertaining game for realize proper e-sport scene.

There are of course tournaments in AoE 2 with gimmicky civ rules and maps, but players don't despise them and the bigger tournaments are considered being competitive.

 

[Progeusz]

Well remembering how he reacted here in the forum and threatened to cut funds for Aoe2 because of criticism, I'm not surprised at all. This guy thinks he can throw some money around and get only praises in return.
Every community does better without such entitled personalities, as we see in Aoe2.

Yup, it's hard to take his words at face value considering how aggressive, manipulative, deceitful and self-entitled that guy can be.

For posterity, from "Elite Gaming Channel presents: The Golden League":

Spoiler: EGCTV posts about community

Thanks for all of those offering their support, it's really appreciated.

That said, some of the level of entitlement from some (hopefully a minority) of y'all on this forum is just seriously out of this world. Like another level of delusion.

The 'competition' between AOE II and AOE IV is something that only exists over here. You will never come on an AOE IV stream and see people celebrating bad numbers for an AOE II event, or low viewing figures on Twitch. And what's incredibly sad is that it completely contradicts the reputation of AOE communities. Actively urging failure is just so un-AOE. I mean whatever, a lot of you hate IV, and that's fine, you don't have to like anything. It's also fine to just like AOE II so much that you instinctively hate everything you see as a threat. But when you choose to channel that into actively trying to drag AOE IV down instead of pulling AOE II up, it's just a little pathetic.

But most of all, the sheer level of entitlement regarding tournaments over here is like an illness. The fact that many of you apparently believe this is all just AOE2 getting shafted. As if you're actually waking up and believing there's some kind of divine right to repeated $100k AOE II tournaments. It doesn't cross some of your minds that MAYBE the reason we're getting some contribution for AOE IV events is that we're bringing sponsors, cash and production ourselves. If we were bringing the same proposition for an AOE II event, then this would likely be a $125k AOE II tournament. It's borderline comedy when some of these comments read as if sponsorship is like a birthday present, rather than a commercial arrangement. Why do you think Wololo happened? They weren't a gift! They happened because someone brought a commercial arrangement!

None of this is a dig at AOE II or it's fans, I thought and still think that AOE II has a fantastic game and fantastic community. But a lot of you on this forum need to take a proper look at yourselves. The amount of legitimate bullying and toxicity on this forum is wild and a stain on the wider community.

Whatever, rant over I guess. For what it's worth, every AOE II TO and community figure I've interacted with is fantastic. I just hope some of the folk on this forum can be a little better.




There’s literally no point in engaging over here. If you can’t read the utter delusion in what you’re writing it’s just a hopeless task.

I literally explained why exactly AOE4 events are getting more funding. They’re getting more funding because I am bringing more funding. There you have it in literally one sentence. If I brought sponsors and money to AOE2 then this would be a $125k AOE2 event. If Red Bull decide to do another Wololo you’ll get another $100k+ AOE2 event. This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t a very complicated concept. I’m the biggest single investor in AOE e-sports and I’m telling you exactly what it takes to get bigger events.

I’ve contemplated doing an AOE2 event repeatedly and spoken to other TO’s about doing it. But I’m honestly just so put off by this toxicity that I increasingly want nothing to do with it.

So again, for those in the back:

AOE4 is getting this $125,000 event because I’m putting up a lump of cash to make it viable. AOE4 will continue getting big events because I’ll continue putting up lumps of cash to make major AOE4 events. If this event gets a CCV of 1,000 I’ll still do it because I want to and I can.

If you don’t like it then instead of crying about why Microsoft won’t shower you in money, go raise $50k, go to Nili, tell him you’d like to do a big event and you’re bringing cash to the table too. That’s your formula. That’s always been the formula. For everyone. For every game in the franchise.

Alternatively you can continue with incoherent rants at the only person currently pumping money into the AOE e-sports scene. Which appears to be going great.



I wanted to become the dominant TO in AOE4 because it was a fresh start and a level playing field where I could achieve that. AOE2 was a crowded scene. I didn't have the ecosystem in terms of community, casters etc to make it happen, whereas now there would likely be a more viable opportunity. I was always a huge AOE fan (3) and wanted to do something special in the scene. AOE4 game me an opportunity to do something special in a game that I love.

He's just a manchild with too much money who mostly cares about being the biggest fish in the pond, everything else secondary to that self-important goal, and gets uppity whenever someone doesn't conform to all his demands. That's a well established fact. Whether he grew beyond that in past year, i can't be sure of. Will have to watch Beastyqt's video in full (it's a long one...) to see if EGCTV's response was valid this time, and not hilariously overblown like they used to be in regards to first Golden League, aoe2 and aoe4 communities etc.

 

[Giuseppe551]

Disagree with some of what you guys are saying. EGC's complaint here seems to not necessarily be the criticism itself but rather the timing of the criticism, which apparently was 3 days before the tournament started when the settings were known well in advance, and the fact that Beasty didn't just talk to him first. Beasty is as big in aoe4 as Hera or Viper in aoe2, bigger maybe since the scene is so small. So imagine one of them posted a 45 min video crapping on the next tournament's settings right before it started? The organizer would have the right to be mad.

Also I love his settings. No stone walls? Off-meta civs? Faster start? Sign me up, I'd take that in aoe2 in a heartbeat. Maybe @Lord_patito can wololo him over to aoe2. Plus like he points out in that long thread, he literally hosted 5 straight months of pure vanilla competition last year (in the run up to RBW). The same settings every week. Mixing it up is not the worst thing in the world.

 

[Influenza]

Yup, it's hard to take his words at face value considering how aggressive, manipulative, deceitful and self-entitled that guy can be.

For posterity, from "Elite Gaming Channel presents: The Golden League":

Spoiler: EGCTV posts about community

Thanks for all of those offering their support, it's really appreciated.

That said, some of the level of entitlement from some (hopefully a minority) of y'all on this forum is just seriously out of this world. Like another level of delusion.

The 'competition' between AOE II and AOE IV is something that only exists over here. You will never come on an AOE IV stream and see people celebrating bad numbers for an AOE II event, or low viewing figures on Twitch. And what's incredibly sad is that it completely contradicts the reputation of AOE communities. Actively urging failure is just so un-AOE. I mean whatever, a lot of you hate IV, and that's fine, you don't have to like anything. It's also fine to just like AOE II so much that you instinctively hate everything you see as a threat. But when you choose to channel that into actively trying to drag AOE IV down instead of pulling AOE II up, it's just a little pathetic.

But most of all, the sheer level of entitlement regarding tournaments over here is like an illness. The fact that many of you apparently believe this is all just AOE2 getting shafted. As if you're actually waking up and believing there's some kind of divine right to repeated $100k AOE II tournaments. It doesn't cross some of your minds that MAYBE the reason we're getting some contribution for AOE IV events is that we're bringing sponsors, cash and production ourselves. If we were bringing the same proposition for an AOE II event, then this would likely be a $125k AOE II tournament. It's borderline comedy when some of these comments read as if sponsorship is like a birthday present, rather than a commercial arrangement. Why do you think Wololo happened? They weren't a gift! They happened because someone brought a commercial arrangement!

None of this is a dig at AOE II or it's fans, I thought and still think that AOE II has a fantastic game and fantastic community. But a lot of you on this forum need to take a proper look at yourselves. The amount of legitimate bullying and toxicity on this forum is wild and a stain on the wider community.

Whatever, rant over I guess. For what it's worth, every AOE II TO and community figure I've interacted with is fantastic. I just hope some of the folk on this forum can be a little better.




There’s literally no point in engaging over here. If you can’t read the utter delusion in what you’re writing it’s just a hopeless task.

I literally explained why exactly AOE4 events are getting more funding. They’re getting more funding because I am bringing more funding. There you have it in literally one sentence. If I brought sponsors and money to AOE2 then this would be a $125k AOE2 event. If Red Bull decide to do another Wololo you’ll get another $100k+ AOE2 event. This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t a very complicated concept. I’m the biggest single investor in AOE e-sports and I’m telling you exactly what it takes to get bigger events.

I’ve contemplated doing an AOE2 event repeatedly and spoken to other TO’s about doing it. But I’m honestly just so put off by this toxicity that I increasingly want nothing to do with it.

So again, for those in the back:

AOE4 is getting this $125,000 event because I’m putting up a lump of cash to make it viable. AOE4 will continue getting big events because I’ll continue putting up lumps of cash to make major AOE4 events. If this event gets a CCV of 1,000 I’ll still do it because I want to and I can.

If you don’t like it then instead of crying about why Microsoft won’t shower you in money, go raise $50k, go to Nili, tell him you’d like to do a big event and you’re bringing cash to the table too. That’s your formula. That’s always been the formula. For everyone. For every game in the franchise.

Alternatively you can continue with incoherent rants at the only person currently pumping money into the AOE e-sports scene. Which appears to be going great.



I wanted to become the dominant TO in AOE4 because it was a fresh start and a level playing field where I could achieve that. AOE2 was a crowded scene. I didn't have the ecosystem in terms of community, casters etc to make it happen, whereas now there would likely be a more viable opportunity. I was always a huge AOE fan (3) and wanted to do something special in the scene. AOE4 game me an opportunity to do something special in a game that I love.

He's just a manchild with too much money who mostly cares about being the biggest fish in the pond, everything else secondary to that self-important goal, and gets uppity whenever someone doesn't conform to all his demands. That's a well established fact. Whether he grew beyond that in past year, i can't be sure of. Will have to watch Beastyqt's video in full (it's a long one...) to see if EGCTV's response was valid this time, and not hilariously overblown like they used to be in regards to first Golden League, aoe2 and aoe4 communities etc.

funniest thing is he posted his aoe4 tournament on a forum with 99% aoe2-interested users and all it took to trigger him was a handful of people calling aoe4 boring or saying they would like an aoe2 tournament with a similar prizepool. His reaction to beasty's extremely mild criticism is to be expected given his track record

 

[Progeusz]

funniest thing is he posted his aoe4 tournament on a forum with 99% aoe2-interested users and all it took to trigger him was a handful of people calling aoe4 boring or saying they would like an aoe2 tournament with a similar prizepool. His reaction to beasty's extremely mild criticism is to be expected given his track record

Yup, exactly. He faced a lot less criticism than many other people/threads and most of negativity came from users who were already known for expressing themselves that way. It was pretty obvious he didn't bother learning culture of this place but sure was quick trying to force everyone to adapt to his whims.

It was also weird how OP of that thread was immediately arguing with anyone who dared to make a joke instead of blindly showing full support.

 

[oozkan]

Ahh this famous thread is alive again, to be honest, it is boring without people blindly supporting AOE4 though. Good old drama days.

 

[ninja14]

Ahh this famous thread is alive again, to be honest, it is boring without people blindly supporting AOE4 though. Good old drama days.

Yeah even @Nili_AoE switched to full aoe2 in the name of competing in tournaments

 

[akku]

How have viewer numbers for recent tournaments (Warlords, T90's League, etc.) been?

When is next AOE4 tournament to see if there is any growth? How many tournaments will AoE 4 get if they get low viewers again??

Forgot about how much Warlords got. IIRC close to 30K peak viewers across platforms.

Titan League got ~16K peak on twitch. I think it got 7K peak on youtube and 2K on facebook, meaning 25K peak maybe.

I'm fairly certain that Order of sheep tournament got the least viewership amongst compared to above two, due to announced too quick/lack of preparation/advert, new channel streaming + closed streaming.

 

[malamadre]

people still play aoe4?

 

[akku]

I think people here are being a bit harsh on ECGTV.

Some dudes vented out general dissatisfaction on the whole aoe2/aoe4 and Nili situation on the golden league thread. ECGTV then reacted by a bit of sperging out himself, while also actually at least being partially correct in pointing out that the reason Golden league got that much funding was because he himself put in a chunk of the money to begin with.
Of course MS was back then (and still is to an extend) full on trying to push aoe4, but no random tournament or organizer would've got that much funding from Microsoft. RB and ECGTV got that much for their aoe4 tourney, because of how much they resources they themselves bought in.


I don't follow much in aoe4, but I think I've seen enough to know that Beasty has bit of issues, to put it mildly. Like that one instance where IIRC he spearheaded an effort to get one player banned from a tourney for "cheating" by some scanning thing, while he himself later did the same in the tourney itself later on.

 

[SouFire]

I am still thinking that egctv was just some ghost enterprise to manipulate aoe4 tendency and generate hype over big cash events being thrown from the first week of aoe4 life's till the end of the fiscal year without making any profit to report it as 0 and then get some taxes reductions in exchange.

Now that the budget allocated for that purpose is gone and aoe4 has fallen in price, hype and users there aren't many reasons to continue it, as a game project it just failed like halo infinite and microsoft has chosen to let it die, that patsi's post seems more like an excuse to disappear and leave no trace once the current event finishes.

 

[Dusk2Dawn]

people still play aoe4?

there are very few pro players who play for big prize pools, which they eventually share amongst themselves; if they have a chance of eliminating competition before the actual tournament, they jump at it like hungry wolves at a small child