AOE-II DE Is the hype dead?

[Paint]

It might just be me but it feels like ever since Age4 came out and the 2 biggest streamers took the Facebook money all the hype that has been built up over the last decade of AoE2 has evaporated. (this is not meant as attack I understand why they did it)

I am aware that there are still tournaments happening and new DLC is still being made but it doesn't feel like the game is getting any bigger or better.

 

[archxeon]

Its not as big as DE during the Pandemic but I think its still pretty solid.

 

[_Andrew]

Personally feel like the hype around the last two major 1v1 events (Nili's Cup and now KOTD V) has been extremely high. Maybe I'm just projecting my own excitement onto others but just the gut feeling I get watching streams and reading the chat/threads.

I wouldn't say it's getting bigger or better but definitely going strong/steady.

 

[SouFire]

The game has been decreasing steadily, i wouldn't blame the post pandemic environment, first lets take a look at twitch, without viper and t90 the game hasn't been able to recover those viewers they did not migrate to others like we all thought, they are gone and they are not on fb either, so that has been on the biggest factors, even hera he used to peak before his aoe4 journey around 4k viewers reaching peaks of 5k and now those numbers are not close to what it was, i know mistakes were done, but the viewers are long gone, they probably went back to watch amouranth like content.

Now lets take a look at the actual player base, ever since the punishment patch pushed by some nazy like minorities who want to enforce anyone else their ideals even if you stop playing entirely, the actual number of active players went down and this wasn't during the pandemic's peak, it was after so do not try to link both events, the trigger was the punishments methods and up to this day the devs and the in game responsable for the numbers haven't figured it out how to keep the actual players but instead throw a lot of money to the same streamers and players that are not even a 0.001% of the total player base, while they have more reach in social media, not taking the measures to keep your active player base and not the viewership has been a huge mistake.

I have been playing lately and the game is broken, you garrison some vills to drop the food and the vills go back to their previous task which in most cases it was eating a sheep, so they all go nuts and kill innocent sheeps, the scout or probably all the cavalry pathing is broken i don't understand how the top players remain in silence during kotd5, the most basic feudal age unit can't even kill villagers like before and we are having a 80k event about arabia, also some shift commands do not work properly but hey don't forget to buy return of rome and support the game.

They need to fix the game, stop adding broken mechanics/units on purpose, fix the match making for solo players on the most played game mode (team games), remove punishment system which has proved to push away your own players, aoe2, aoe4, halo infinite, etc, give back some control to the players on what they want to play on their free time to me it sounds beyond dumb to ask for something like that in a game and thinking the opposite about this puts you in the wrong side of history alongside with mass murderers who can only think in themselves and not the others. Until they don't do something about this those numbers will keep going lower and lower, no matter how many redbulls might be in the horizon.

 

[Giuseppe551]

It's undeniable that hype is lower than it once was. Just look at coverage of MBL vs Tatoh today: scant. People just drifting away from the game I guess. Which I suppose is normal enough, but when your scene relies so heavily on just a few big personalities it obviously hurts more than it would a healthier game.

 

[Liamsmalley7]

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

The game is doing completely fine, dunno what these guys are talking about

 

[robo]

The game has been decreasing steadily, i wouldn't blame the post pandemic environment, first lets take a look at twitch, without viper and t90 the game hasn't been able to recover those viewers they did not migrate to others like we all thought, they are gone and they are not on fb either, so that has been on the biggest factors, even hera he used to peak before his aoe4 journey around 4k viewers reaching peaks of 5k and now those numbers are not close to what it was, i know mistakes were done, but the viewers are long gone, they probably went back to watch amouranth like content.

Now lets take a look at the actual player base, ever since the punishment patch pushed by some nazy like minorities who want to enforce anyone else their ideals even if you stop playing entirely, the actual number of active players went down and this wasn't during the pandemic's peak, it was after so do not try to link both events, the trigger was the punishments methods and up to this day the devs and the in game responsable for the numbers haven't figured it out how to keep the actual players but instead throw a lot of money to the same streamers and players that are not even a 0.001% of the total player base, while they have more reach in social media, not taking the measures to keep your active player base and not the viewership has been a huge mistake.

Is critical thinking dead? It sure looks like it, just make up random statements and dont support them with any facts and expect people to believe you know what you are talking about.

The higlighted month is when dodging punishment started, see how it was already part of a decreasing trend from the peak of covid? wow, never would have expected that

 

[LeoMontero]

what are you talking about?? every tournament has more viewers, every tournament has more people that want to participate, the pro base is growing, a lot of young people are becoming experts. every LAN the tickets are sold out in less than 2 hours.
Age has more viewers than SC2. Yesterday were tournaments from age and sc2 at the same time in twitch. age had more viewers by 2000.
again, what are you talking about???

 

[Paint]

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

The game is doing completely fine, dunno what these guys are talking about

Your own link shows that it has gone down. The peek was 2021 covid winter but even 2020 winter had a peek 5k higher then this winter. But it does look to be connected to covid after looking at it again.

 

[SouFire]

Steamdb is a great tool to do the research you need to look at the numbers it has both twitch views and in game numbers, last time i used it to show the bad numbers of aoe4 some guy who work at ms came and told me those numbers weren't accurate cause they weren't counting MS numbers or gamepass which were 4 times higher(with 0 evidence) so i am not bothering again looking for info that is available for anyone looking for it cause there is always people defending their interests.

But don't rely only on those numbers, use the aoe2.net tool to see the actual MP numbers at different time zones which are like 1/4 from the numbers you see on steamdb on daily basis and those numbers are what keep the MP alive and it has been decreasing cause simply there are no conditions to change the trend despite 500 000 usd events, cause guess what the active player base want a playable game to keep investing time on it.

 

[robo]

But don't rely only on those numbers, use the aoe2.net tool to see the actual MP numbers at different time zones which are like 1/4 from the numbers you see on steamdb on daily basis and those numbers are what keep the MP alive and it has been decreasing cause simply there are no conditions to change the trend despite 500 000 usd events, cause guess what the active player base want a playable game to keep investing time on it.

True, there are less people playing ranked than a year ago

oh, wait, that isn't what I was told by AoEZone critical thinkers

 

[YodaIamm]

True, there are less people playing ranked than a year ago

View attachment 204897

oh, wait, that isn't what I was told by AoEZone critical thinkers

Source of information in your excel spreadsheet?

 

[robo]

Source of information in your excel spreadsheet?

taken from aoe2.net on the specified dates

 

[LowEloNobody]

True, there are less people playing ranked than a year ago

View attachment 204897

oh, wait, that isn't what I was told by AoEZone critical thinkers

Please stop using data and reason to support your arguments. This is not the 'Zone way

 

[_sevem]

About Viper and T90 - I've been wondering for a long-time:

When they left, both had a huge viewerbasis on twitch, peaking four or five thousands viewers sometimes even on average days, the facebook / meta share was worth roughly 5 times what it is worth today and Zuckerberg had just announced his metaverse strategy including a big push into gaming / streaming platforms.

One year or more later: Both Viper and T90 feel non-existent as streamers. How can they be satisfied with that? Do the facebook-deal really pay off? Does anyone know details?

 

[SouFire]

I never referred to those numbers but instead the number of active players playing at certain times which can't be filled with smurf accounts as people can't multiply themselves irl.

But i am done here, clearly we are liers and the hype is at its maximum and the game is perfectly fine and thriving cause one guy who happen to work at ms says it.

 

[akku]

I don't really think so.

RBW peaked at around the same viewership it peaked at RBW5. Around 70-80K IIRC
This is really impressive given:
- aoe2 events were not streamed in peak time, that slot was given to aoe4
- viper/t90 move already happened.

In spite of these factors, RBW 6 still had this viewership. I would consider this, generally speaking, a positive.

NAC4 also got good viewership. Superior viewership compared to NAC3.


So, I'd say that aoe2 is at least maintaining the interest, even if not growing.
I would argue that the interest slightly grew even, because the viewers lost through T90 and Viper moving, were replaced with new viewers

 

[akku]

BTW, anyone knows of the viewership of aoe4 nowadays? Haven't paid attention to that for many months at this point

 

[MembTV]

I don’t know why some people keep trying to show arguments or data when is clear that even with it, people that is negative will never change their opinions no matter how much facts you show, honestly is perfect example why aoezone has lost interest to many, super negative in 95% of the threads.

 

[Potkeny]

super negative in 95% of the threads.

You mean the same 3-4 user is super negative and spamming their opinion in every thread? If you just ignore them, suddenly its balanced.

 

[LeoMontero]

BTW, anyone knows of the viewership of aoe4 nowadays? Haven't paid attention to that for many months at this point

dead game since day 1.
as soon as the release, it was obvious that is going to fail. its an ugly game.

 

[YodaIamm]

dead game since day 1.
as soon as the release, it was obvious that is going to fail. its an ugly game.

not as dead as we might think

AOE 4

Age of Empires IV - Twitch Statistics and Charts

Age of Empires IV detailed historic statistics

twitchtracker.com

AOE 2

Age of Empires II - Twitch Statistics and Charts

Age of Empires II detailed historic statistics

twitchtracker.com

 

[LeoMontero]

not as dead as we might think

AOE 4

Age of Empires IV - Twitch Statistics and Charts

Age of Empires IV detailed historic statistics

twitchtracker.com

View attachment 204903


AOE 2

Age of Empires II - Twitch Statistics and Charts

Age of Empires II detailed historic statistics

twitchtracker.com

View attachment 204904

are you kidding? for me thats not good numbers, at all. i only feel bad for EGCTV, he must put a lot of money in a bad game. if he put that money in age 2, another would be the story.

 

[oozkan]

not as dead as we might think

the data you shared proves that it is about to die.

 

[oozkan]

Back to real topic, to measure hype, I think most important factors are not user numbers play the game, intangible factors like sponsor interest are also important.

When I go back, biggest problem there seems like NAC especially compared to AOE4 event, but it might have a personal factor caused by Nili so it is hard to reach a conclusion.

Better to ask tournament organizers, if they receive any sponsoring offer other than MS sponsored tournaments, how are donations of regular users compared to previous years.

We need this data to understand if hype is there or not.