HC2 CaptureAge Feature Update!

[SirLaurenceNZ]

Welcome to the newest version of CaptureAge! we're incredibly excited to finally be releasing details of the countless new features in this update. Get ready and get hyped to see CaputreAge's first proper tournament debut!

Please visit our website for additional information: https://CaptureAge.com

Checkout the update video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D74U8OFazbo

Any comments here or on the video itself are welcomed, however we can't address many feature requests atm.

 

[SirLaurenceNZ]

Thanks @nimanoe for the post earlier, I was busy at the time!

 

[Psyychoz]

such amazing work!! can't wait to see it in action

 

[_CsK_Bluewolf]

Looks amazing. Well done team

 

[andae23]

This looks insanely good, I cannot wait to see it in action!

 

[Endoplasmic]

This looks insanely good, I cannot wait to see it in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mgSkb0Gjmc

 

[MaSmOrRa]

This is almost too good to be true.

So proud of this community that keeps bringing in new features we never even thought were possible.

Can I support this project financially? Are you guys accepting donations somewhere?

 

[Chainsaw]

Good Lord this is well thought out. Something tells me this will be better than what we'll get for AoE2 DE in terms of spectating. Second Masmora: anywhere I can donate?

 

[Dico200]

I'm very happy with all the positive comments, thanks, everyone!
I created a donate button link for anyone that wants to donate now, we intend to add a button to the website at a later point.

Any donations are very welcome and appreciated, and will be used to cover future and past developments. Additionally, we might see some other good uses of the money by putting some of it back into the community in some way.

Quick disclaimer: We cannot make any promises at all regarding features or availability for you or your favourite content creators. We only promise that we are trying our best to make HC2 a success with CaptureAge.

 

[T-West]

I'm very happy with all the positive comments, thanks, everyone!
I created a donate button link for anyone that wants to donate now, we intend to add a button to the website at a later point.

Any donations are very welcome and appreciated, and will be used to cover future and past developments. Additionally, we might see some other good uses of the money by putting some of it back into the community in some way.

Quick disclaimer: We cannot make any promises at all regarding features or availability for you or your favourite content creators. We only promise that we are trying our best to make HC2 a success with CaptureAge.

Dico go work on your thesis!

But also CaptureAge looks very promising so far! I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves going forward.

 

[Dico200]

Dico go work on your thesis!

But also CaptureAge looks very promising so far! I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves going forward.

Will do T-West, thanks.

 

[dogao]

When you think there is nothing else to be implemented in the game...

Amazing work!

 

[MaSmOrRa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mgSkb0Gjmc

For lack of a better place, I'll just give some feedback on @T90Official 's use of CaptureAge and hope he sees this:

It definitely needs more zoom outs in my opinion!
At some point you say "I'll be using this feature sparingly because I know it can be confusing" (or something along those lines...). I actually think exactly the opposite! Especially for new viewers who are not used at all to look at the mini-map, jumping across the map using the mini-map or using super fast scroll speed to get from one place to another is a loooot more confusing! Showing the way from the "departure" point to the destination through the zoom-out feature is actually perfect for people who are not used to look at the mini-map!
I realize this cannot be done if you just suddenly spot something happening all the way across the map. In that case you obviously need to "get there" as soon as possible lol

Zoom-outs can also help comparing the size of both players' economy: it's very easy to see who has more farms and more tc's with it!

Zoom-outs are also great to point out "points of interest" on the map: important hills; areas with a lot of resources concentrated in a small space; etc. You actually did this a little bit at the beginning but could have done a lot more in my opinion!

That particular game didn't go to late game, but should it happen in the future, zoom-outs will be perfect to show the amount or raiding and fighting taking place all around the map.

So if your main reason for not using zoom-out more often is because you think it's confusing, I actually think it's not confusing at all, especially not for new viewers!

TL; DR: needs more zoom.

 

[T90Official]

Thanks @MaSmOrRa

I definitely agree that I could have used the features a bit more in the videos I uploaded. The games weren't the best games to highlight the features of CA in all honesty as they were on the shorter side, but they were still quality games I felt could entertain. In my eyes it is something that I needed to ease into, the last thing I wanted was for people to think it's too radically different from original AoE spectating and to completely reject it without giving it a chance. Just because 50% want more zooming, another 50% might feel this is too much and so I will work to find a balance that grows on everyone. The input has been overall very positive, and I will ensure that I experiment with the features to make sure Hidden Cup 2 is shown in the best possible way.

The capture age team have been an absolute joy to work with. As you can imagine, I am quite stressed trying to make sure everything for HC2 will be perfect, and to add in a brand new spec tool definitely adds tot he possible things to go wrong. But these guys have been working with me and making constant improvements, just a month ago it was completely different than it is today.

Overall I'm very grateful I'll get to use this for HC2, it will add to the appeal of what will already be the biggest event of my AoE2 life.

Cannot. Wait. Go Willy!

 

[sinthome]

Very lovely stuff!

Only minor thing that jumps to my eye is the animation-based height of the HP bar above units. I can appreciate the attempt to make the game look more "vivid" but I expect this to look messy most of the times. Also, those jumping bars draw a lot of attention from the viewer's eye (or from mine at least), a good example being the huskarls in your update video. I'm imagining this to become more blatant, the more units there are and the wilder the animations get. You're probably aware of this but it also seems to be quite off with several units (e.g. ships, kings) and buildings (e.g. TCs, docks). Love your work and attention to detail though!

 

[ZeroEmpires]

Amazing stuff guys, truly awesome to see so much development and progress toward making the game more viewer friendly. You guys working hundreds of hours to create and publish these tools are the real heroes.

 

[Dico200]

Very lovely stuff!

Only minor thing that jumps to my eye is the animation-based height of the HP bar above units. I can appreciate the attempt to make the game look more "vivid" but I expect this to look messy most of the times. Also, those jumping bars draw a lot of attention from the viewer's eye (or from mine at least), a good example being the huskarls in your update video. I'm imagining this to become more blatant, the more units there are and the wilder the animations get. You're probably aware of this but it also seems to be quite off with several units (e.g. ships, kings) and buildings (e.g. TCs, docks). Love your work and attention to detail though!

Haha, I appreciate that you think we opted for those buggy healthbars! It is actually for a lack of understanding how the game is calculating this, let alone where in the assembly binaries. I found some code that was doing this that looked like it was drawing health bars, but I was clearly mistaken. We aim to address the issue before the event.

 

[RogganWololo]

Amazing stuff! Can't wait to see capture age in action for HC2! Great work by the developers!

 

[n0brain]

Amazing stuff guys, truly awesome to see so much development and progress toward making the game more viewer friendly. You guys working hundreds of hours to create and publish these tools are the real heroes.

hundreds? i wish that was the case :D , but stuff like this needs another digit. were above 2000 allready i believe

 

[Andre_2i]

Purely amazing.

 

[csatooms]

will this be available for everyone or just caster's

 

[tommie86]

Really awesome stuff - totally changing the viewer experience 20 years after release. Amazing. Like a work of art 11
My 2 cents:
Is it possible to add in a feature to highlight certain areas? iirc t90 said sth. like "... and this area is really important to defend/attack" and I wasn`t looking so I couldn´t see which area he meant.
If the caster could somehow highlight the area for a few seconds to make it clearer? (As drawing a circle with MS Paint - which I would do ) It would also be easier to see than the mouse symbol 11

Another feature concerning the Zoom-Out feature (Which by itself is truly amazing):
How about while zooming out the caster can highlight certain buildings?
"Look at this - 4 Tcs for red and 16 Tcs for blue - TC-Rush new meta 11"

Keep up the amazing work! Someone @ Microsoft to fund you Kappa

 

[Dico200]

Really awesome stuff - totally changing the viewer experience 20 years after release. Amazing. Like a work of art 11
My 2 cents:
Is it possible to add in a feature to highlight certain areas? iirc t90 said sth. like "... and this area is really important to defend/attack" and I wasn`t looking so I couldn´t see which area he meant.
If the caster could somehow highlight the area for a few seconds to make it clearer? (As drawing a circle with MS Paint - which I would do ) It would also be easier to see than the mouse symbol 11

Another feature concerning the Zoom-Out feature (Which by itself is truly amazing):
How about while zooming out the caster can highlight certain buildings?
"Look at this - 4 Tcs for red and 16 Tcs for blue - TC-Rush new meta 11"

Keep up the amazing work! Someone @ Microsoft to fund you Kappa

If we had infinite time, these things would already be there.

 

[snellefiets]

Great work guys! Really enjoyed it. I think this will be new standard for casting in a few months. Keep up the good work.

 

[tommie86]

Totally understand the time aspect - I just don´t know what it takes to create something like you guys have done.
what you have achieved will prove itself over HC2 with t90 and in future events.

24 hours to go! Really looking forward to it.