Red Bull Wololo: Legacy - Official Announcement

Announcement​

Are you ready for the most outstanding and prodigious event in the history of Age of Empires? We have teased you enough and are now ready to reveal what we have been brewing behind the scenes. Red Bull Wololo started back in early 2020 and pioneered the use of Empire Wars in major tournaments. The fast-paced, action-packed game mode quickly took off, and we had so many incredible moments spanning through the initial Red Bull Wololo all the way to Red Bull Wololo V in late 2021. As time went on, the events only got bigger and better, and here we are, in 2022, and we are about to blow you away.
To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Age of Empires, we are announcing not one, not two, but three tournaments. You will get to experience the original game that started the entire franchise back in 1997 - the original Age of Empires. You will also get to experience the arguably most influential game in the franchise's history, Age of Empires II - originally released back in 1999. Finally, the newest edition in the franchise, the incredible Age of Empires IV.

Once again, we will go back to Castle Heidelberg in Germany for the offline event spanning from the 21st to the 30th of October. During these days, you will experience the main event of both Age of Empires II and IV as well as the finals of all three events during the last two days - the 29th and 30th of October.

But what exactly is at stake here? Well, we have a total prize of a whopping $550,000.00 distributed among the three games, as shown below.

• Age of Empires I: $50,000.00
• Age of Empires II: $200,000.00
• Age of Empires IV: $300,000.00

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Invitations & Qualification​

Age of Empires II​

For Age of Empires II, you will see the return of all the previous conquerors. Mr_Yo, the champion of the original Red Bull Wololo. Liereyy, the only champion with two victories under his belt, Red Bull Wololo II and IV. DauT, the champion of Red Bull Wololo III. And finally, TheViper, the champion of Red Bull Wololo V. These players have proven themselves to be fierce warriors and have earned a direct invitation to the main event.

Other players must prove themselves worthy in different events leading up to the main event, as well as the two open qualifiers taking place from the 20th to the 21st of August and the 27th to the 28th of August.
You can already sign up for the open qualifiers here and here.

Age of Empires IV​

For Age of Empires IV, we're looking back to N4C to find our champions, and with that, Beastyqt, the winner of N4C, and Leenock, the runner-up, will already be waiting to meet everyone else that qualifies in Castle Heidelberg.

Other players must prove themselves worthy in tournaments leading up to the main event, as well as an extensive qualification event, Road to Red Bull held by EGC.
Registration and more information regarding this can be found here.

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I sincerely hope we can make this one of the greatest events ever. I'm aware of the commotion there has been following the release of Age of Empires IV, but remember that we are celebrating the franchise as a whole and the incredible history our beloved games have. We can't wait to share even more details with you soon.

For streamers, broadcasters, content creators and so on - I'm not able to share much information regarding streaming policies as of right now. I'll be sure to provide more information as soon as it becomes available. Feel free to reach out to me on Discord, and I'll take note of your interest for later. I know some people have already reached out regarding this, but please do so again now that the event has been properly announced. You can reach me at Chrazini#5687, thank you.

For additional information, go to redbull.com/wololo.

 

Thankyou!

Long story short, we essentially only have a single tournament organiser in aoe4 who is hosting large events (egctv)

Although there are many other tournaments, such as low elo legends weekly tournament for example, egctv is the only tournament organiser who consistently gets 1000+ viewers and has a prize pool of $1500+

In general, there was a level of displeasure at how Redbull handled the aoe4 portion, which didn't align with what the community was used too.

1. From, rules that the pro players publically said were "ridiculous" that conflicted with our regular tournament rules (the Aoe2 community is used to having a different game mode, but for aoe4 this was the first time another tournament has come in with rules that conflict with what the community was used too)

2. To, the exclusion of people who are a big part of the scene (Lidakor, who is seen by the community as the main caster of aoe4, (along with Aussie Drongo) not being invited and bee, who was the tournament favourite being disqualified without a reason that the community felt was sufficient)

2.5 this has led to a major split within our already small community, and has led to alot of fans being toxic towards each other with differing opinions of whether 1, both, or none of these players "deserves to be there" this is the first real internal drama aoe4 has had since it's release

3. To most of the community seeing aoe4 as a sideshow compared to Aoe2 (I know most people on this forum see the opposite).

Things that attributes to this include like our regular memes in aoe4 being banned in twitch chat eg: there is a 'fun' rivalry between demuslim and Marinelord, and from what I gather there were dozens of people timed out for taking a side, which is a normal fun part of our game - but not understood by the twitch chat mods who aren't familiar with our community)

And a few pro players went on the Redbull discord before the main event and complained that aoe4 wasn't getting much attention

4. To what many within the community saw as favouritism and I know that chrazini is well liked within aoe2, but a series of events which many claim is discrimination, having favourites, and being inconsistent with rules has left a bad taste in the mouth of many of the community.. to be fair, it was probably all stuff out of his control, and made much worse by our own community but it is issues we hadn't faced before in our tournaments and has given the community an appreciation of our regular admins and tournament hosts

It's not so much Redbull directly doing something bad, I would say it's a combination of expectations that had been set within a small community for a new game, and an inexperienced aoe4 community person although highly experienced tournament host entering the scene leading to many issues has caused fights within our own community, and an appreciation for how things were with our regular admins and host leading to many comments such as "300k wasn't worth the drama that came with it"

I don't speak for everyone to be fair, and it's probably a loud minority who are unhappy with Redbull entering the scene

Thanks for your answer.
I wonder how ECGTV being only organizer is relevant here though.

1. I watched some matches from aoe4 in RB, doesn't seem like they had "empire war" type settings, but maybe it's different from the usual. Last time I followed the aoe4 scene closely was the tournament when Viper won (forgot its name lol)

2. Yeah, I agree there. The Lidakor situation is quite strange.
The Bee situation was absolutely ridiculous, there was no transparency at all and at worst he just abused some bug. But IIRC Bee is Russian right? Likely he wouldn't have been able to make it anyway, same happened to Vinchester in aoe2 and he had no drama at all. Still, the slander will have a longer lasting impact which isn't good.

3. Objectively speaking, the situation is the reverse right? Aoe4 got higher price pool, Sunday finals, and an expansion that coincided with the tournament. All in a tournament series built upon aoe2 to begin with. Microsoft clearly wanted aoe4 to be seen as the "main thing" of the current RBW.

As for the RB mods being party pooper clowns, trust me this isn't aoe4 specific at all. They were this cringe during aoe2 matches as well .

4. What are those events? I assume Bee situation was one of them. As for the mishandling of things, yeah I see where that point is coming from, though it's probably flawed planning rather than favoritism, if anything it's the reverse with MS

 

Thanks for your answer.
I wonder how ECGTV being only organizer is relevant here though.

1. I watched some matches from aoe4 in RB, doesn't seem like they had "empire war" type settings, but maybe it's different from the usual. Last time I followed the aoe4 scene closely was the tournament when Viper won (forgot its name lol)

2. Yeah, I agree there. The Lidakor situation is quite strange.
The Bee situation was absolutely ridiculous, there was no transparency at all and at worst he just abused some bug. But IIRC Bee is Russian right? Likely he wouldn't have been able to make it anyway, same happened to Vinchester in aoe2 and he had no drama at all. Still, the slander will have a longer lasting impact which isn't good.

3. Objectively speaking, the situation is the reverse right? Aoe4 got higher price pool, Sunday finals, and an expansion that coincided with the tournament. All in a tournament series built upon aoe2 to begin with. Microsoft clearly wanted aoe4 to be seen as the "main thing" of the current RBW.

As for the RB mods being party pooper clowns, trust me this isn't aoe4 specific at all. They were this cringe during aoe2 matches as well .

4. What are those events? I assume Bee situation was one of them. As for the mishandling of things, yeah I see where that point is coming from, though it's probably flawed planning rather than favoritism, if anything it's the reverse with MS

I think it's only relevant because it's a ruleset, and a community that has created values that most of the aoe4 scene as has come to see as what they expect to be normal, and havnt really been exposed to a large major tournament before from another tournament organiser with different rules and a different way of doing things. I think most of the aoe4 community have accepted it's a small community, and even want it to stay that way to a degree.

1. Yep, you're right, we had our regular game mode, but some of the rules such as: in aoe4, walls have an 'end pillar' to them, which don't actually count as a part of the wall that blocks units and can be deleted to return a certain amount of resources being allowed in Redbull, when the tournament scene is used to this being banned and is frustrated many people that the rules which the community had developed and taken for granted are now being changed, and boars not being allowed to be killed by certain civs, when in our regular tournaments there is a powerful strategy that is allowed that is referred to as 'boar casino' and is an instant highlight of games, and probably about 5-6 other examples of conflicting rules which are highlights but relatively minor affects on the outcome of the game were directly conflicting with what the scene has never experienced someone changing the 'regular' rules before, the draft is another which was heavily criticised by the pro players for being different to how it's done in aoe4, whilst, that doesn't really affect the viewers.. there seems to be a lot of negative influence left from criticism by a few of our popular streamers

Even during the event, players were posting about one specific play being allowed, and it was quite embarrassing when the admins stepped in and said essentially "you're all wrong, that's NOT allowed and never has been in Redbull",

It went to show a lack of clarity of the players understanding what the rules even were, being different to what we're used to, letalone the viewers understanding


2. Totally agree with you

3. Objectively speaking, I agree - the tournament gave way more to aoe4 than aoe2 in the end, but the feeling among the community, based on subjective experiences (such as the influence of the criticism of popular streamers, the feeling that the tournament was run by people who were applying Aoe2 rules and commonalities to aoe4 without considering the differences of the aoe4 competitive scene, etc) left many people feeling that they wish it was run by people who knew aoe4 better, and that it was just an add-on, and that it was adapted to how Aoe2 is run and managed as best as they could.. even though that objectively aoe4 was equal in production and better funded prize money.. I think this mainly stems from being a community that is very small, and has come together from multiple games forming our own way of doing things, and that it was a shock when Redbull brought their way of doing things into the scene.

4. I've posted about some of this here, https://www.aoezone.net/threads/the-official-red-bull-wololo-drama-thread.185473/

To give you an example there were at least 3 rules broken or abused/taken advantage of in the quarter final. (And at least a dozen during the entire event)

None of them were game altering plays, but it's a hot topic amongst the aoe4 community that if bee was banned without a reason that the community believed was sufficient, then every single rule should be followed to the letter and everyone should receive at least a warning, if not the same punishment as bee, however minor the rule broken is.. and right now there is a bit of outrage that these instances were unacknowledged (even though the event is finished, and the player in question lost anyway)

 

once AoM retold is out AoE4 will go down with AoE3. Fun game but

 

once AoM retold is out AoE4 will go down with AoE3. Fun game but

I've not been hyped for a release for a long time like I'm for AoM.

Please don't disappoint, Microsoft!

Don't really care for other newer campaigns. I want more Arkantos and Greek/Atlantean focused campaigns which also mixes well with Egyptian and Norse.

 

I've not been hyped for a release for a long time like I'm for AoM.

Please don't disappoint, Microsoft!

Don't really care for other newer campaigns. I want more Arkantos and Greek/Atlantean focused campaigns which also mixes well with Egyptian and Norse.

Not to be a d!ck but have you not seen what they've done with AoE and AoE2 definitive? Absolute half baked unfinished tripe upon release.

 

H. I apologize, that I write here too late, but I want to ask a question about the RULES at that tournament - (2022) Red Bull Wololo: Legacy.
I read the Official Hadoook, but I could not find that,
What Hardware and Software were allowed to use the Players at that tournament ??
Do the player use their OWN computer, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse and software for them, or the players received that from the Managers of the Tournament ??

 

H. I apologize, that I write here too late, but I want to ask a question about the RULES at that tournament - (2022) Red Bull Wololo: Legacy.
I read the Official Hadoook, but I could not find that,
What Hardware and Software were allowed to use the Players at that tournament ??
Do the player use their OWN computer, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse and software for them, or the players received that from the Managers of the Tournament ??

Players bring their own mouse and keyboard.
Computer and monitor are provided by the host.

 

H. I apologize, that I write here too late, but I want to ask a question about the RULES at that tournament - (2022) Red Bull Wololo: Legacy.
I read the Official Hadoook, but I could not find that,
What Hardware and Software were allowed to use the Players at that tournament ??
Do the player use their OWN computer, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse and software for them, or the players received that from the Managers of the Tournament ??

Players bring their own mouse and keyboard.
Computer and monitor are provided by the host.

So the players need only SOFTWARE for the Keyboard and the mouse ??
( while it was forbidden to use multiple commands using only one key- I find in the Handbook) ??