Once the release date announcement came out for the official expansion, I decided to dust off my steam account and buy AOE2:HD to get ready.
I had a few games and have lost confidence in the steamed platform in general. It is incredibly laggy (even offline), a lot of the animations are broken (eg arrows being shot travel from origin to target in what seems like three frames, as opposed to the smooth motion you can find in the userpatch). I swear the framerate is below 24fps because everything feels so choppy. Input feels weird. The opening movie is super washed out. there is no offline LAN play, and all your friends have to buy the game as well (this is a dealbreaker for me).
I could go on and on complaining about things but I'll stop and ask some questions instead. The platform provided by userpatch is so much more stable and pleasant to use, and that is going to be the platform I play most. I understand that there are some technical difficulties in adding things like the new campaigns complete with "mission selection maps", but are you guys going to keep updating the original mod in line with the official expansion? I get the feeling that you aren't.
I plan to buy the official version and enjoy the single player campaigns. But then I'm heading right back to userpatch for all my LAN and random map games. I've been having Forgotten Empires LAN parties almost every weekend since december last year and using AOE2:HD instead of Userpatch would be infeasible and unpleasant. At the very least it would be awesome if you could keep updating the core gameplay on the free version. IE if you add a new civ in the HD version, also add it to the userpatch version. If you decide to boost/nerf eagle warrior stats on the HD version, also do it on the userpatch version. Because until the AOE2HD team get their sh*t together, userpatch is the superior AOE2 platform (and I wish them the best of luck on that front, they're obviously working hard but have a long way to go). As long as you keep the core gameplay in sync between the two versions I would be happy.
I had a few games and have lost confidence in the steamed platform in general. It is incredibly laggy (even offline), a lot of the animations are broken (eg arrows being shot travel from origin to target in what seems like three frames, as opposed to the smooth motion you can find in the userpatch). I swear the framerate is below 24fps because everything feels so choppy. Input feels weird. The opening movie is super washed out. there is no offline LAN play, and all your friends have to buy the game as well (this is a dealbreaker for me).
I could go on and on complaining about things but I'll stop and ask some questions instead. The platform provided by userpatch is so much more stable and pleasant to use, and that is going to be the platform I play most. I understand that there are some technical difficulties in adding things like the new campaigns complete with "mission selection maps", but are you guys going to keep updating the original mod in line with the official expansion? I get the feeling that you aren't.
I plan to buy the official version and enjoy the single player campaigns. But then I'm heading right back to userpatch for all my LAN and random map games. I've been having Forgotten Empires LAN parties almost every weekend since december last year and using AOE2:HD instead of Userpatch would be infeasible and unpleasant. At the very least it would be awesome if you could keep updating the core gameplay on the free version. IE if you add a new civ in the HD version, also add it to the userpatch version. If you decide to boost/nerf eagle warrior stats on the HD version, also do it on the userpatch version. Because until the AOE2HD team get their sh*t together, userpatch is the superior AOE2 platform (and I wish them the best of luck on that front, they're obviously working hard but have a long way to go). As long as you keep the core gameplay in sync between the two versions I would be happy.