Do we need AoEZone?

[_Andrew]

If you guys think AoeZone is toxic you should see some of the other forums I've routinely visited for the last 10-15 years. By comparison AoEZone is probably the most welcoming/congenial of all the forums I frequent.

I personally never understood the "toxic" complaints that started really showing up en masse here over the last 3-4 years.

In fact as Black Adder alluded to a lot of the most "toxic" stuff I've seen usually comes from the posters that complain about toxic posts to begin with. To be clear I'm not referring to Nicov with this comment.

 

[Rayne]

Perhaps toxic isn’t the most accurate word but more the go-to one. Like how rage is the common word for “anger”, despite there being almost always 3 degrees for emotions (annoying/irritating-anger-rage, nervous-fear-terror, etc). Terror for instance can’t be tolerated for long physically so it should rarely ever be used. Similar for rage tbh, I’ve rarely ever seen anything that can be called ‘rage’ from an online perspective (have known legit mentally ill people that truly fit the definition of rage). Annoying may be more fitting, or personally I find alienating to be the most accurate. I can think of too many well-known names that have spoken out about it since aocgroup, so it is definitely there and has been for awhile.

 

[_Andrew]

I get it. And if I were a 2.6k player competing at the very top level of the game would I find it annoying to come on here and read players 1000 ELO points below me critiquing my gameplay or my mistakes? Yeah I admit I would. So I understand why a lot of higher rated players seemingly share the sentiment that Nicov has re: AoeZone.

 

[Rayne]

I get it. And if I were a 2.6k player competing at the very top level of the game would I find it annoying to come on here and read players 1000 ELO points below me critiquing my gameplay or my mistakes? Yeah I admit I would. So I understand why a lot of higher rated players seemingly share the sentiment that Nicov has re: AoeZone.

It is more than this though from what I’ve seen over a lot of years. I don’t think most pros mind if people even if a 1000 or even 100 elo-level players are critiquing or genuinely discussing something on here, but the way it is usually done is the issue.


There has been a harsh undertone (or overtone?) from the “died like audi” meme which was used as a more insulting extremity when a known player lost badly (for those who remember how badly Barata lost when playing 2v2s with Alive 14-15 years ago), to using words like how some pro got “destroyed” or such like that. It’s those harsh comments with that tone that feel unnecessary and seems more like putting them down which is why they feel alienated. One thing to talk about how badly someone lost, another to add a sting to it (doubt many people remember Dreams’ sting that even made Daut talk trash on legion forums for 1-2 posts around 17 years ago).

It probably sounds too far, but to me it can also signal almost a lack of basic respect. Same way phrases like “Arena clowns” or “Arabia clowns” or “hunwhores” were never truly intended to be playful and fun, but more demeaning. It was usually always a troll that came up with stuff like that. Philippe did the Arabia/hunwhore stuff (no one was off limits from him back in the day he was younger too, he seemed to be changed few years ago which was pleasant). And as amusing as 8th wonder’s post was about Arena players, it felt a little bad that it became a widespread meme used to talk them down. Maybe people enjoy ‘poking the bear’ with those things which can be fine when it’s done the right way, but usually I think you need to know where personal limits are of that person are before teasing. Otherwise it just seems plain offensive when maybe it wasn’t truly intended that way, but sure came off like that. Also for some reason things seem more disturbing on forums than they actually are. Sometimes I never truly know when someone is being plain offensive and when they’re “just saying” or just discussing something. Hard to tell tbh.


That wasn’t intended to be a long rant of sorts btw and I don’t truly hate aoezone incase some are wondering. Just a bit sad sometimes? Known figures deserve more respect than they’ve gotten on here honestly.

And I think the reason why Dreams as a mod never worked is because he was Dreams. Dreams was one of those guys I think was either liked or hated, but mostly the latter so there was probably little respect. He’s probably one of the few known players that was disliked or got in less-than-friendly terms by more other tops than anyone else I recall. I actually had nice interactions with him as few as they were, but his personality could come off too strong. I think there’s gotta be some mod that just removes the harsh undertone of certain messages but preserves what the person wanted to say. Nothing to be banned over. I also think a lot of people don’t want to be the guy doing that, or ‘the bad guy’ which can be understandable. Also it may be a little too late with the inactivity or how many have been alienated.

 

[megabomberman]

If you are not going to moderate and you don't have a downvote feature which would bury all the personal, nasty, crankish and persistent trolling posts under the rock they deserve to be, you end up with the wasteland that this place has become.

 

[TopperHarley]

I'm old schooler, so I will always prefer AoEZone over anything else. Besides, this website is part of the history of the game, I hope it will never be shut down.

I can only reiterate this post. AoeZone is by far the best, hope it never shuts

 

[oozkan]

If you are not going to moderate and you don't have a downvote feature which would bury all the personal, nasty, crankish and persistent trolling posts under the rock they deserve to be, you end up with the wasteland that this place has become.

Not sure that's the solution, because sometimes popular people might have stupid ideas that is supported by mass and even these popular might be funded to promote these ideas. Like AOE2 vs AOE4 debate.

 

[cort]

how active aoeforums

which forums do you mean exactly?

I think discord killed the communication and exchange. Also saw that at other places.

sad that there is no talk about tournaments anymore in aoezone forums

but the vibe in the forum was definitely special and not so easy to handle for everyone as Rayne already mentioned. And a few people had a very "special" tone with the rest and newer players which you could also label toxic, trolling,... and should have probably be stopped. It is cool that for a long time, the pro community is/was also part of aoczone (beside theviper) which is way more interaction as in other esports/games.

 

[teutonic_tanks]

which forums do you mean exactly?

I think discord killed the communication and exchange. Also saw that at other places.

sad that there is no talk about tournaments anymore in aoezone forums

but the vibe in the forum was definitely special and not so easy to handle for everyone as Rayne already mentioned. And a few people had a very "special" tone with the rest and newer players which you could also label toxic, trolling,... and should have probably be stopped. It is cool that for a long time, the pro community is/was also part of aoczone (beside theviper) which is way more interaction as in other esports/games.

II - Discussion

Discussion about Age of Empires II Definitive Edition!

forums.ageofempires.com

not saying there is useful highlevel discussion, but it's fairly active

 

[JoshuaR]

Aside from using aoezone as a calender to know when important games are happening, for which you mostly use liquipedia nowadays anyways, i don't think aoezone is needed anymore.
Barely any members are online anymore and the forum is pretty much dead, especially if you compare it to how active aoeforums, discord and reddit are. Even some announcement posts aren't made here anymore (just think about nili).
Why did this happen? There was always a tradition on gatekeeping on aoezone, shitting on new players, new ideas, people posting their recs, allthough they aren't 2k4 or just generally new things and people found places where they aren't shitted as much as here, especially aoeforums filled the niche for new players to voice their opnion, even if it might be a whacky one. Same goes for some tournament hosts/coordinators, who got fed up with the toxicity and just stopped caring.
Could this have been prevented? To some extend I do think so. If aoezone had some better moderation to deal with some people trashing everybody and everything (or as they are calling it "critical thinking"), then one would get rid of at least some of the gatekeeping and was this place would have been more beginner friendly,

Anyways, aoezone was sometimes very nice to read, thanks for providing this service Pkz and it's not the end of the world if you stop it

No thank you, I'm not joining five million discord communities, twitch chats, subreddits, tiktoks, twitter follows, facebook pages, instagrams, and liquipedias to try to stay abreast of what's new in AoE2. I want one central place for my news, and I want it to be here.

People feel cosy in their echochambers. If you see no value in conflicting opinions then its much more comfortable to surround yourself with people that resonate your own views. Its a global phenomenon especially affecting the people that spend much time online.

It breeds a society of whiners that cant even stand someone having a different opinion; let alone being told they are wrong. Many cant even formulate a coherent argument. And with discords around and being indirectly necessitated by the fact that aoe2 DE has shitty clan/community-features you got competition.

The internet is practically unlimited which should be a great thing. But the issue is no matter how stupid your point is you will always find someone who agrees with you and convincing you that you are right.

15 years back the internet was definetely not less toxic 11

I feel this all across the internet. Instead of a few places where people of different ideals meld them together, everyone wants a tight knit community where no one disagrees with anything.

 

[KolyaKrasotkin]

No thank you, I'm not joining five million discord communities, twitch chats, subreddits, tiktoks, twitter follows, facebook pages, instagrams, and liquipedias to try to stay abreast of what's new in AoE2. I want one central place for my news, and I want it to be here.

+1

 

[SouFire]

Everything has changed, from aocgroup to aoezone there used to be lots of discussions about different subjects and drama post about daut and chris rivalry for several years, known cheaters and the current state of the game and the gaming platform such as voobly, we knew what was coming and there was somewhat interaction with the people in charge, name it dreams, taff and even chrisvoobly.

Some big changes were pushed by pro players or the community around, the elo split from 1x1 and tg was pushed by chris and viper to prevent guys like alive or bact to be on the spot number 1 by trade pointing with a smurf ally, the decay was also pushed by chris, so those things that we have now had their origins here, cause there used to be more participation and the people in charge was listening.

If you guys think that i attack the devs for free, it ain't true, back on 2012 there was a hug balance topic where most pro players gave their thoughts and there was some kind of agreement of the changes that were needed, but then suddenly cysion released a game version were he took away one range from plum archer, something that was never suggested and had no approval, it was removed later but the bridge was broken at that point cause cysion will always find a way to impose its ideals over the community consensus, probably poles and gurjaras and the strong preference on hindustanis it's on him, at least the palisade gates came from that long topic.

There used to be a lot of angry ppl at cysion back then, that could be a reason why he never came back here as an active user, but that was about it, people could express freely their opinions about the state of the game and the decisions going on, now on most aoeforums people just want to avoid any discussions about the current state and those negative topic get lost cause somehow these new generations of users just want to read positive things, no matter if the game is unplayable or full with bugs and cheaters, sadly the aoe influencers now need to have a good relationship with ms cause of personal purposes so they don't speak with the truth or entirely free which leads to his audience the idea that everything is just fine and the game just needs minimal tweaks and that they are more than happy with moar civs being added and that it doesn't matter if a civ is broken at release "cause the devs will nerf it later" i know you read that with he voice of ur personal influencer, cause they are acting the same now.

If you go to aoeforums, it is about the same, you can talk about 200 bugs and you will get downvoted or reported cause for SP users the game is perfectly fine and not a single hotkey was changed cause they don't use them kappa, oh and don't forget to like those civ suggestion about north american tribes.

The same goes to different discords or reddit, people just wants to read positive stuff as if their mental health would depend on it and with that the aoe environment has become a wasteland when it comes to any sort of criticism to the game/devs or the aoe icons.

 

[sheeesh]

Honestly, I feel that the intellectual level of the forum is pretty high and, setting aside some shitposting and trollposts, this is a rare place on the internet to see people disagree rather productively -on internet standards. Furthermore, given the discreet moderation things rarely get out of hand. Complains of the franchise's renowned personas about what is sometimes, said in an unfortunately insulting way by us the plebeians is another great function of this forum, you see the foam of the game getting the vibes of the abyss, even if it stinks.
All in all my opinion as a small account in here is that AoEzone is in general part of what makes this game's community so special. If it needs to go down, as a sacrifice in favor of a better life for the people who supported it those years, all those stated above fall short and all there is to say is a big thank you and wishes for a happy life.

 

[_Andrew]

I spent 1-2 days trying to figure out Discord before I just threw in the towel and basically said "I'm too old for this ****.

I'm with Wakko and JoshuaR- I'll come to AoeZone as long as its up and active.

Its become part of my routine over the last 12-13 years to check this site everyday, even if I go extended periods without posting or watching the game. I'm always keeping up to date on what's going on in the community even when I'm "absent." I suspect there's a lot of people who don't post but still do the same.

 

[Rayne]

I’m also with the being too old for discord/social media thing. Aoezone is my go-to habit and always will be for aoe.

I remember I joined not even more than like 4-5 servers and there were so many messages/notifications over a few days that I just turned them all off. Not even including friends that I have on there so even more messages to look at which is what I’d prefer seeing. Seemed too much. I’d rather not have some kind of side job playing catchup with the internet. I have no idea how those youngsters do tiktok, reddit, instagram, facebook, twitch, and discord all on top of each other. Maybe they’re even looking at Hollywood gossip too which I’ve never understood either. Not a way I’d want to spend some of my time when I could be enjoying myself elsewhere.

 

[Lokalo]

I’m also with the being too old for discord/social media thing. Aoezone is my go-to habit and always will be for aoe.

I remember I joined not even more than like 4-5 servers and there were so many messages/notifications over a few days that I just turned them all off.

Yeah, exactly. I don't even understand how people can say there is discord, so people don't need a forum. Discord can be good, especially for joining into call, but overwise it's not really anything like a forum. I have exact same experience as you, joined some discords, ended up making all chats "mute unless you are mentioned". Worst part is, they keep adding new channels/topics or how to call them in the same channel, so I need to mute those new channels too. And to be fair Discord seems quite bad to use overall, often I get some notifications I can't find where it comes from, I try to check "inbox" "mentions" I still can't find where it coming from.

And then for sure, all those discords are some little bubbles as was mentioned before, where you either basically agree/go with a flow or no point being there. And overall if you want to have some conversation, it can be nice, but then 2-3 ppl end up spamming 200 lines and most people won't read it and it's normal, but forum is different in that sence, even if thread explodes with multiple posts it has different people posting them, which makes it completely different and less spammy.

As for being offensive and stuff, well idk, I don't even understand this current trend of wanting to have 0 negativity, that's not how world works, people became snowflakes. Worst part is, half of streamers sometimes do toxic and bullying stuff themself and they don't even see it as bad, but then same streamers start whining right away when they get some feedback. Even if we would compare some top players, not giving names, but you can get banned for some nonsense stuff in one, others do not ban even when I would ban them myself. It's sometimes hard to understand the boundaries for viewers too, as if you get on tilted streamer it's much smaller than when he is not tilted. But sure, you ban everyone who disagrees with you and then being shocked that in forum where you can't ban everyone you are not receiving just positive stuff.

 

[Rayne]

As for being offensive and stuff, well idk, I don't even understand this current trend of wanting to have 0 negativity, that's not how world works, people became snowflakes. Worst part is, half of streamers sometimes do toxic and bullying stuff themself and they don't even see it as bad, but then same streamers start whining right away when they get some feedback. Even if we would compare some top players, not giving names, but you can get banned for some nonsense stuff in one, others do not ban even when I would ban them myself. It's sometimes hard to understand the boundaries for viewers too, as if you get on tilted streamer it's much smaller than when he is not tilted. But sure, you ban everyone who disagrees with you and then being shocked that in forum where you can't ban everyone you are not receiving just positive stuff.

I do agree with some of what you said. People shouldn’t have to tolerate negativity unnecessarily though right?

Some things on here at least seem to be over the top (long time since I visited aoe streams so no clue what happens there unless it ends up here). I think it is one thing to give feedback or express an opinion in a neutral and somewhat ‘uncensored’ way, it’s another to give what looks to be needless and harsh criticism which I think is mostly what some known figures here talk about and is what they disapprove of. One example to start is Nili since it is by far the worst.


The whole thing with him must’ve gone on for at least 4-6 months. One post always stuck in my mind. It was a user that listed like 3-5 things about him that was why he became bad. I don’t remember all, but one was how he put 100k to his tourney, then another one which is more to the point, was written as ‘sold his soul to aoe4’. Isn’t that very needless negativity no one should endure? Is that to paint Nili out so bad in a way that he went knee-deep into the occult for example, was sacrificing living things on an unholy altar, and even made a deal with the devil for financial prosperity in return for his soul? There was more than one post like that I think as well, but stuff like that shouldn’t be tolerated. I get people were disappointed or angry, but expressing feelings (in this case trolling I suppose) could certainly be worded far better than saying he made a satanic pact. And he was also tagged numerous times with other negative posts which doesn’t make it better.

Another which quickly comes to my mind is about Ellie co-casting The Grand Melee back in November (early December?). I don’t recall the whole post, but it was how she was selected because she was a woman. Doesn’t sound over-the-top bad, with the exception that towards the end there was some rhetorical question like “why is someone being selected not on the basis of ability but because their sexual organs are different?” It’s not obvious when reading it the first time, but after a second read, it reeks of a touch of sexism. It comes off as some degree of woman hating at least. A male caster would never be talked down that way. That post is still there too (or was for the longest time if it is gone), or there’s another with a sex joke about Ellie and plugging holes (women don’t appreciate sex jokes from people they don’t know or even some they know incase some people don’t know). Ellie was in that topic too, was probably disturbed by what she read. That really shouldn’t be allowed to stay. There were a few others talking her down too, but those were the worst.


I feel like I write at least 1-4 posts of these every year for past two or so and I’m not trying to paint this place in a bad way since I think I’ve been called out twice for it (and one is some posts above this to add), just responding to what you wrote and giving examples to illustrate a point. This type of stuff shouldn’t be tolerated though right? The forums could be better off without these things for instance but I believe most known figures have been alienated in recent years (think I can actually use the word most).

 

[Crawsack]

I don't come on here a whole lot because there doesn't seem to be really interesting conversations about the game I love, taking place. Every tournament thread, it's some variation of

"I can't believe X caster wasn't invited, such BS"

"This tournament organizer is employed by MS, of course they'd set the rules up this way"

"Ackshually, I really like this tournament organizer, I can't believe you support that caster/organizer"

In like 10 paragraph statements. Brevity is completely and totally lost on this forum. I go into a thread and half the time I think, "I do not care about this random person's beef enough to read 6 paragraphs".

Writing more doesn't make you more intelligent, it means you can't concisely make your point, generally.

There's been some funny/educational/entertaining stuff over the years, and I do like that the pros still come on and comment here, you don't see that elsewhere. So, I hope that the forum stays around, but the forum doesn't seem to consistently produce genuinely engaging conversation about the game itself. It's all meta talk. "Is this the end of X player's dynasty?" "Is this game dying?" "Why are the devs so stupid?" "Do people love me?"

I love seeing the posts where people link a cool video they made, a website/tool that contributes to the community, cool tournaments being organized, pro players hopping in a thread and sharing their genuine opinions, etc. That's the stuff that makes this place great. Unfortunately you see less and less of it, because of some of the repetitive toxicity.

Plus, AoEZone frequently bugs out for me. Half the time the page doesn't load, won't let me like comments, etc. which is annoying.

 

[The_Philos]

Plus, AoEZone frequently bugs out for me. Half the time the page doesn't load, won't let me like comments, etc. which is annoying.

The maintenance of AoeZone definitely has gone down, which makes me check aoezone less and less. The top list have not been working for almost a year now and you can't find facebook streams. Plus the website got really slow (at least for me, every page takes a long time to load).
In this very thread PkZ expressed his frustration about the activity going down and that he didn't want to put in the time anymore, if nobody is interested in the content. I guess he rarely checks on the website, since the activity has gone down even more.

I really like the forum or forums in general and some topics have been very interesting, but lately I just check out of a habit and not for engaging topics. If aoezone stays like it is, I don't see the point in having this website on life support, while there is little to no user interaction and interest in the website. I guess, PkZ must be thinking about shutting it down as well.

 

[Zbyszek]

voobly ladder works fine

 

[IvIaximus]

Back then, there was always handful of pros active at the time. You did not have streams, neither websites that automatically update results and tournament scores and stuff like that. Only way to see and enjoy expert level gameplay was to play against them yourself or watch their recorded games. There were even times when recorded games were only available when uploaded by players themselves. So, there was element of genuine surprise. You loaded AoCGroup and found few new topics with little serbian, canadian or brazilian flag, names of players and date. And you were happy that someone decided to share their games. You would swallow those games whole if you could because they were rare treat. Score was often hidden as to not spoil the joy. Yes, even daily rated games. You downloaded recorded games and then watched them in private. Only then you would go to forum and read all the comments, discuss new strategies, shittalk others and so on. Recorded games were very valued. Often you could only find recs of some experts through friendship with player or some of his friends. Recorded games were so rare and so valiable that many people collected iconic games on external discs. Some recorded games were shared in private only by friends. From retrospective it sounds ridiculous, insane even. Sadly, you will never experience this nowadays.

Nowadays, you have live streams, multiple at times. Updated pages with results, discords, chats and so on. Ironically, you can discuss games live, yet most of twitch chat is lame inapporpriate jokes and parasocial interaction masquerading itself as friendship. There is abundance of content, streams, youtube videos. There is little mystery about game itself. There is no need for forums, because there is nothing to discuss here, other than politics, drama and release of DLC's to "definitive" edition of game.

Also, as many others said, forums are generally outdated, though if we lose AoeZone, I guess we would lose a lot of older players like me, since I will never do with discord, steam, reddit or anything like that. Other than that, I think simplifying aoezone would help. I only ever click on "whats new", personal messages and alerts. There is plenty of subforums that I have never used.

 

[Rayne]

That post of yours certainly brought back a lot of memories. I think actually there were more than a handful of pros/known figures, there were many now that I think about it.

- Ruso talking about being a stoner or posting a pic of his gf licking his nipples.
- Chris actually posting some helpful things on legion/aocgroup though it was few (before being trolled out of aocgroup sadly).
- Kkab on forums mostly when something was leaked or supposedly highly active on Dex/bsk ones. Or the famous Chris vs kkab “talks” about how ‘unfair’ it was that tyrant could play all day while Chris’ team works. Then users were asking kkab aoe questions on the side 11 and he answered all of them.
- Karl while not a top, known and probably one of the most liked 2k+ players among all of the past tops was active (think he was a friend of literally every top player, even Halen/kkab).
- Yo used to post when he was 2k-2200ish I think. Before a top, but still.
- Viper used to post a lot too once he became top 1-3 and generously shared a lot of things. Most notable imo was how guitarizt (think that’s his name) posted a game of his and unexpectedly Viper took the time to review it and the notes were highly detailed. That should still be on here too.

More names I could list too, Nicov (one of few tops that’s still on here it looks like), Ding (one time thing though where he posted an answer on legion forums to a guy, but notable), 8th wonder mostly on aoczone to troll Carlos, dogao used to be active, and of course Dreams. Probably some names I’m forgetting too.


One thing I found sweet though was the recorded games you mention. Mostly how it progressed into something and how ‘the torch’ was always picked up when a predecessor retired. First official rec poster was mystery_enigma as I recall, back in 2009ish(?), then he disappeared somewhere around 2011? Falling_star was next and I think he did it for a year or so. Then was Katsuni for the longest up until 2015(?), and his format for renaming games was apparently very loved and became the thing if I’m not mixing things up. Last was huehuecoyotl whose name I’ve probably butchered. What I also found interesting was I think Katsuni went AWOL twice, once for a week and another for a month. Users wondered where he was and some decided to fill in for Katsuni until he returned. It’s actually kind of cute recalling it. Even if there was a time when one of the known rec posters didn’t post for 1 day, all you had to do was wait 1 day and 100 topics suddenly appeared. Didn’t ever have to search voobly for games, was always covered. Great times tbh.

 

[IvIaximus]

I would not recall all those posters Apart from Katsuni, huehue and one you forget was Buga_the_Great or something like that. Dude was from Serbia

 

[Rayne]

Oh wow, I can’t believe I come back to aoezone and see Buga is still around. Literally haven’t seen that name in a decade. I did forget and I feel bad now. There was also Bublifuk I think? Who was filling in classic games section in 2010-2011. Marian was one who uploaded during Katsuni’s absence and some Brazilian guy whose name I don’t recall (only recall flag because people complained he didn’t have the Katsuni renaming format).


One of the few reasons I recall mystery_enigma and falling_star is because they were both from India. But I also remember that scarce period of rec games you mention and also pro “activity”.


I misread your post before btw, thought you only meant pros active on forums, but the period you’re referring to is definitely 2006-2007 on aocgroup and before that (before my time, no idea of things except multiple clan forums). I think not only does this have to do with some laziness, but a reason no pros/known players ever really posted was because they got slammed with the grand “ego post” remarks. Ralber was the only one ahead of the times and only posted losses so he never got that 11. Happened to everyone though, nice to know there was no prejudice. It’s what trolled Chris out of that place, and I think it’s what partially caused Dreams to be Dreams and say “You must be 2k+ to talk about 2k+ games” after the added craptalking on top. That actually tilted the forums which I found a little amusing if I may say so.

For the pro activity, I always wondered about that. There actually were something of a “handful” of pros, but I remember Dreams saying something in response to no games or no pros. Something exactly like “Bullcrap, there’s lots of games.” I dunno tbh, because the scarce period had to do with Chris kind of leaving aoe to study chemical engineering. Then the game sort of died for Daut around the same time when he felt forced to play WCL6 when he really didn’t want to. Wonder if that had something to do with it. There was also a time Daut’s nick was at 1700 for half a year or more, dunno if that was same period. It did seem dull.

But there was always a new pro emerging actually, maybe not top 1-2 like Daut and Chris but very well known names. Feeling, Ding, Kyo, goodboy for example and up to Riut in 2009-2010. Viper came after that. All new ones. There was even a smaller subset of new/active names below Chris/Daut territory like Canary with Lawliet on GP, Iori’s brief return, Wrath was still around, Alive of course, CNA_hs (one of the most mysterious 2500s in aoe history tbh, never knew one thing about this guy), Erhan, and I’m sure other names that could be added if I remembered more.

 

[AttilaTheHun]

No we dont need this forum anymore. It is replaced by other means. That is just how the internet works. Things come and go. And to me it looks like it is time for aoezone to go.

This site is really buggy recently. I got lots of errors coming to this site. It will more ofter not load at all. And if it is loading, then it is really slow. There seems to be something really wrong with the software behind the scene. It feels like you mobile subscription after using up all of your bundle. You still might have some access to the internet, but it is really, really slowly. That is the speed i notice using this site.

Also the discussions are pretty terrible. It is all about the pro scene only. If you aren't a 2k rated player, then you such and you should not have an opinion based on some replies. This forum behaves really elitist. I feel great for the big influx of new players because of DE. But based on this forum, they are all terrible and such and should not have an opinion. That doesnt make much sense to me. Almost none of these new players found this place. And if they found it, they quickly go away. That is all because of the elitist behaviour of many here. New players are better of using places like reddit, discord servers or even the official forums to ask for help instead of doing that here.

Nowadays you only look here for the drama threads. Like who's dynasty do we have currently? I can say: Most of the players dont care at all about that drama. The average player base is more likely want to discuss all the things about RoR. Looking here, almost nothing is discussed about RoR. Why? Probably because most of the pros dont care about AoE1, so they pretty much ignore it. And for pros RoR didnt add much. Even the new AoE2 civ isnt added to ranked yet. So no one here care about that new civ.

As result only some veterans are here. People who played the game for ages. While there is a big influx of players since DE, almost no one really finds the way to this place and sticks to this place. In the past this place was used for some great guides to help players, you could find up to date build orders. All of this stuff is pretty outdated, but this is the stuff newer player are looking for. That want to learn how to improve at the game. But currently this site doesnt offer much anymore, except some outdated artifact of the past.

At this rate, AoEZone become a relic of the past. Sorry to say, but this is for me the only conclusion. I can see this will be a tough pill to swallow. I wish i could conclude something else. But this is really how a more outsider looks to this forum.