Esports let's go! Age of Empires on Liquipedia!

As some of you might have read on Twitter, Team Liquid added Age of Empires to their esports Wiki called Liquipedia with this Age of Empires is joining glorious game series like Starcraft and Warcraft that have found their home on the platform.

Everyone is invited to contribute!

Due to the collaborative format of a MediaWiki it is made easy to contribute. Every more-correct-than-wrong contribution is valuable no matter how small.

You can for example start with keeping tournament results up to date while the tournament is ongoing. We are setting up the corresponding pages in these moments and you could fill in the results as they happen.

Other areas to help out with

Besides fixing typos or entering results you can:

• List an interview a player has done on the player's page.
• Add social media links on a team's or player's page.
• Fill out a player's page with information from interviews they've done and add references.
• Write part of the history of an organization, tournament, player, or team and add references.
• Update a player's or team's result pages with recent results.
• Add the times when a match starts to brackets or groups.
• Add general game information, either to an existing article or make a new one for a topic that is missing.
• Update strategy pages and create pages for new strategies.
• Create new pages for tournaments, players or teams
• Give the wiki the right to display your photographs and upload them to the wiki.
• Develop new templates to make our wikis look good and make contributing easier.
• and many more

Connect in #ageofempires and help making this big!

 

As I am interested into the more second-order priority of AoE 2 history I wonder if there are any eras we can the divide the game/esports scene into. It feels for me that is only part of the community for two years, that the current era started with tournaments like ECL/NAC/HC. But how can you decide where there were discountinous breakings in our history ?

It would be need to have an overview over old legends, the tournaments they played back then and the most important games there and so on. But I understand that the biggest emphasize is now in filling out the profiles of the current top players/teams and most recent events.

 

It is a small step for man; a great leap for humanity

 

As I am interested into the more second-order priority of AoE 2 history I wonder if there are any eras we can the divide the game/esports scene into. It feels for me that is only part of the community for two years, that the current era started with tournaments like ECL/NAC/HC. But how can you decide where there were discountinous breakings in our history ?

It would be need to have an overview over old legends, the tournaments they played back then and the most important games there and so on. But I understand that the biggest emphasize is now in filling out the profiles of the current top players/teams and most recent events.

Seems like MarcioColombia 's work on esportsearnings.com is perfect for this- thankful he's been creating this record for years

 

Seems like MarcioColombia 's work on esportsearnings.com is perfect for this- thankful he's been creating this record for years

Yeah the easier attempts to classify eras in the AoE history are ofc:

1. extension approach => a lot of new players started the game with new expansions like with FE or RoR
might have been the starting point for ECL and the other huge tournaments of the last years
2. eras by dominating players/teams

But I am also interested in if there is actual a possibility to see a

- a different playstyle in the meta over some years maybe dominating civs (maybe just all AoC after AoC ? )
- a different philosophical culture in the community like we have rn the era of attempting more esports

and so on :D Those thoughts might be even more second-order than the above, but I am just interested :D But a history section for the most legendary players/events is ofc a must after we add the current elite and the tournaments they shone.

 

I wonder if there are any eras we can the divide the game/esports scene into.

For the second decade of the game, I'd say:

2009-2019 Voobly/UP era (let's see if DE will be definitive...)
• 2011-2017 SYRanT string
• 2017-2019 Escape string
• 2018- Triumvirate (Memb, Nili, T90)

 

All good thinks for aoe2 are happening only cause of aoe2 DE !

 

As I am interested into the more second-order priority of AoE 2 history I wonder if there are any eras we can the divide the game/esports scene into. It feels for me that is only part of the community for two years, that the current era started with tournaments like ECL/NAC/HC. But how can you decide where there were discountinous breakings in our history ?

It would be need to have an overview over old legends, the tournaments they played back then and the most important games there and so on. But I understand that the biggest emphasize is now in filling out the profiles of the current top players/teams and most recent events.

+ kotd 1 and 2

 

All good thinks for aoe2 are happening only cause of aoe2 DE !

Let's not forget the people who has worked hard to keep this game and community rolling through times when there wasn't financial support and also remember to give thanks for the people who are behind the scenes in these better days too. Giving all credits to the game is disrespectful to those great (wo)men.

 

Seems like MarcioColombia 's work on esportsearnings.com is perfect for this- thankful he's been creating this record for years

Totally. I hope these data can be used and quoted as a reference in that wiki. The work the man has done is amazing.

What a year for aoe.

 

Yeah the easier attempts to classify eras in the AoE history are ofc:

1. extension approach => a lot of new players started the game with new expansions like with FE or RoR
might have been the starting point for ECL and the other huge tournaments of the last years
2. eras by dominating players/teams

But I am also interested in if there is actual a possibility to see a

- a different playstyle in the meta over some years maybe dominating civs (maybe just all AoC after AoC ? )
- a different philosophical culture in the community like we have rn the era of attempting more esports

and so on :D Those thoughts might be even more second-order than the above, but I am just interested :D But a history section for the most legendary players/events is ofc a must after we add the current elite and the tournaments they shone.

It is super hard to divide the eras like this because some of the stuff is super hard to look at in isolation:

ROR expansion was connected to the first Escape tournaments which started a more professional approach to tournaments and established contacts to Microsoft. Also I think not so long before that Viper started streaming regulary again and more serious than ever and T90 started to really get traction around that time as well. All of that was huge in terms of growing the community and audience. ROR/Escape also brought the competetive scene in contact with all the expansions which of course had an influence on the meta, altough it was only after UP1.5 and after Memb thankfully forced players to adapt to WK in KOTD1 that expansions really took off in the competetive scene and brought something very refreshing to the game without which someone of the best players might have quit AOE already.

All of that happened between late 2016 and late 2017 and it affects three of your four categories directly.

 

+ kotd 1 and 2

Where is proven that I missed a lot even in the last three years :D

 

It is super hard to divide the eras like this because some of the stuff is super hard to look at in isolation:

ROR expansion was connected to the first Escape tournaments which started a more professional approach to tournaments and established contacts to Microsoft. Also I think not so long before that Viper started streaming regulary again and more serious than ever and T90 started to really get traction around that time as well. All of that was huge in terms of growing the community and audience. ROR/Escape also brought the competetive scene in contact with all the expansions which of course had an influence on the meta, altough it was only after UP1.5 and after Memb thankfully forced players to adapt to WK in KOTD1 that expansions really took off in the competetive scene and brought something very refreshing to the game without which someone of the best players might have quit AOE already.

All of that happened between late 2016 and late 2017 and it affects three of your four categories directly.

Which is a good incident for having a discontinous break of a new era at this very point And as I already assumed the pure existance of RoR was the starting stone for developments in all proposed classifications :D If there were no rational interactions between it would also be rather boring to examine ;D

 

All good thinks for aoe2 are happening only cause of aoe2 DE !

AoE2 was gaining momentum before people who were getting interest in it knew DE is a thing.

 

Which is a good incident for having a discontinous break of a new era at this very point And as I already assumed the pure existance of RoR was the starting stone for developments in all proposed classifications :D If there were no rational interactions between it would also be rather boring to examine ;D

Timewise yes, but I don't think it is entirely fair to just attribute it to ROR. AK did not have that impact for instance and ROR is not straight up a better expansion.

 

Timewise yes, but I don't think it is entirely fair to just attribute it to ROR. AK did not have that impact for instance and ROR is not straight up a better expansion.

I thought that ROR being a poorly done expansion was consensus fact? Why would anyone attribute much of the increase in popularity the game is enjoying to the recent expansions (or DE, even) when it is pretty clear that popular MOBAs are far more responsible for this interest. The shift of competitively minded players back into AoE2 from MOBAs simply coincided with the release of ROR, as that is when the most popular MOBAs started getting tiresome enough in all the obvious ways popular MOBAs are trash that people started looking for similar games.

ROR conceptually is fine - you want to represent the strongest empires in India/Southeast Asia, but as far as I can tell it has been a major source of game design/balance issues basically since the start. That speaks unambiguously to an addition that was not properly thought through in very important fundamental ways. It feels insulting the community of this game to insinuate they would be lured in by something like that?

 

...

Isnt it tiresome to carry around so much negativity and feel the need to spread it in every single topic? Jeeez...

 

Can you (people in general) please stop to use this thread for the egoistic ****- and flame show that so often people criticise here? There is many other threads and there is even a personal message function. Thank you.

 

Can you (people in general) please stop to use this thread for the egoistic ****- and flame show that so often people criticise here? There is many other threads and there is even a personal message function. Thank you.

Youre actually right and I am sorry for taking focus of the purpose of this thread. Its one more nice thing, that shows the attention aoe2 has gotten so far. Looking forward to checking it out!

 

Youre actually right and I am sorry for taking focus of the purpose of this thread. Its one more nice thing, that shows the attention aoe2 has gotten so far. Looking forward to checking it out!

Do you want to delete your posts? I will do the same.

 

Timewise yes, but I don't think it is entirely fair to just attribute it to ROR. AK did not have that impact for instance and ROR is not straight up a better expansion.

I never said its due to the quality of the expansion but just the fact there was the expansion in the right time to start new things, as little motivation. I did not say the expansion was so good that it created everything out of the void It is just a interesting coincidence. I mean its like with DEprobably but way less so far (real effects are not really measurable so far) that people maybe wanted to do something but delayed it to make it when there is attention on the game anyhow with a new expansion

 

I thought that ROR being a poorly done expansion was consensus fact?

First of all please stop taking your opinion as a "consensus fact". It has been been clarified a lot of times that people have different priorities and may like something even if it's not desgined perfectly for everyone.

Why would anyone attribute much of the increase in popularity the game is enjoying to the recent expansions (or DE, even) when it is pretty clear that popular MOBAs are far more responsible for this interest. The shift of competitively minded players back into AoE2 from MOBAs simply coincided with the release of ROR, as that is when the most popular MOBAs started getting tiresome enough in all the obvious ways popular MOBAs are trash that people started looking for similar games.

ROR conceptually is fine - you want to represent the strongest empires in India/Southeast Asia, but as far as I can tell it has been a major source of game design/balance issues basically since the start. That speaks unambiguously to an addition that was not properly thought through in very important fundamental ways. It feels insulting the community of this game to insinuate they would be lured in by something like that?

The post that attributed all positive things to DE was a pretty obvious troll post by a well-known forum troll so we shouldn't discuss that in detail.
However, your post does the exact same thing on the other side. There are always multiple factors that contribute to something like this. I cannot really judge the influence of other games on the popularity of AoE2. Yet noone will switch to a game that s/he doesn't like and the release of a new expansion always causes some attention. In this specific case the expansions did contribute to AoE2's popularity. After all they were the basis for WK, which fueled competitive AoE2 quite a bit.

With regard to AoE2DE: Yes, the popularity of AoE2 already increased before DE was released. Still the viewer numbers made a huge jump upward after the release. In the end it doesn't matter for this discussion whether the increase was mainly due to additional marketing or due to DE being a great game (I agree with you that it's mainly due to marketing).

tl;dr: Popularity does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the game. Hence the quality is mostly irrelevant for this discussion.

The problem with your "deep thoughts" is not the content itself but the apparent urge to spam it in every thread you see. I'd also prefer to not have this kind of personal discussions but I hope you understand that it's annoying for some if 50% of the threads is only about how much you hate DE/Microsoft/FE.

 

First of all please stop taking your opinion as a "consensus fact". It has been been clarified a lot of times that people have different priorities and may like something even if it's not desgined perfectly for everyone.

If I was doing that I would have not have asked it as a question. That aside I laid out a pretty compelling logical argument for why it was unsatisfying, and I don't think people "liking" it is really a valid reason to suppress discussion on the problems it continues to provide for gameplay balance.

However, your post does the exact same thing on the other side. There are always multiple factors that contribute to something like this. I cannot really judge the influence of other games on the popularity of AoE2. Yet noone will switch to a game that s/he doesn't like and the release of a new expansion always causes some attention. In this specific case the expansions did contribute to AoE2's popularity. After all they were the basis for WK, which fueled competitive AoE2 quite a bit.

Fair, I did focus too much on other reasons. That is a big one though but like you and Rob both said the expansions can help precipitate it so I think we can agree.

With regard to AoE2DE: Yes, the popularity of AoE2 already increased before DE was released. Still the viewer numbers made a huge jump upward after the release. In the end it doesn't matter for this discussion whether the increase was mainly due to additional marketing or due to DE being a great game (I agree with you that it's mainly due to marketing).

tl;dr: Popularity does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the game. Hence the quality is mostly irrelevant for this discussion.

Okay yeah we agree about this aside from the part about quality not mattering. I think it definitely matters because game quality tends to be a more enduring draw than marketing. You can talk about the game popularity without necessarily needing to get into why it is popular but it is generally useful to keep that in mind as well.

The problem with your "deep thoughts" is not the content itself but the apparent urge to spam it in every thread you see. I'd also prefer to not have this kind of personal discussions but I hope you understand that it's annoying for some if 50% of the threads is only about how much you hate DE/Microsoft/FE.

What is the point of a discussion forum if not to share thoughts? I don't think saying that the criticism is because I "hate" those things is necessarily fair, but regardless of that I don't think they are viewpoints shared only by me. Maybe the volume is a little high but there is also a reason for that.

 

AoE 2 keeps growing and growing it really is NUTS!!! AoE 2 has so much history that there is A LOT to be put in that Liquipedia.

Really happy for this. I use liquipedia a lot since it has a lot of great info on tournaments, players and teams of differents esports. With this I see another step for AoE 2 to become an esports itself. Really cool stuff

 

AoE 2 keeps growing and growing it really is NUTS!!! AoE 2 has so much history that there is A LOT to be put in that Liquipedia.

Really happy for this. I use liquipedia a lot since it has a lot of great info on tournaments, players and teams of differents esports. With this I see another step for AoE 2 to become an esports itself. Really cool stuff

Indeed, so many tournaments and legendary players to put in. Will probably try to do some history writing myself if I find the time for it.
And the sources, not all tournaments was as well described back then as they are now.