The following is an official statement from the team behind Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires regarding its distribution following tonight's release:
Since there has been some confusion following AoFE's release and its compatibility on different clients, we feel it is necessary to make a statement and explain the situation to all of you who have been hoping to enjoy this expansion.
Prior to AoFE's release the Voobly team and AoFE have exchanged negotiations with the intent to make AoFE playable in Voobly same as in Gameranger. These negotiations [READMORELINKDOTS] had an unlucky timing in the small time that was left before release and no agreement was met.
Voobly did not agree with AoFE's Facebook page linking to Gameranger's Facebook page and they demanded that Voobly would have the same exposure. They would make their own installer from which they'd distribute it to the players. Something along the lines of "good work AoFE team, we'll take it from here". Naturally the AoFE team turned down this scenario among other reasons also because the official installer provides updates and necessary fixes to the game. A party uninitiated in AoFE's creation now taking over would take all the control away from the creators.
Then the big release followed. Unfortunately the official site got overloaded but mirrors sprung up quickly and as of now it's still being downloaded and enjoyed by many of you. However, shortly after release Voobly have gone further than ever before. Downloading AoFE from the official server, they ripped it apart and remade it into their own installer on their website with a warning that "the installer released by AoFE team will not work on Voobly as they did not have time to support Voobly with their release". A few lines later another warning tolled "that there are reports that the version released on FE.net sets invalid registry settings that will cause issues on Voobly, such as marking the version as 1.0. We strongly recommend you do NOT install the version until we resolve those issues with AoFE team."
What Voobly have done is unspeakable and utterly disgraceful to not only the creators but to the whole community. The Voobly ripped installer does not install AoFE but only the core of it: The new civilisations and balance. Missing are the new challenging AIs, the maps, the campaigns, the translations, all the additional content. What's more, the butchered version cannot even be launched in single-player or anywhere online without the Voobly client.
Exactly what heights this matter will reach is as of yet unknown but we would like to strongly recommend to everyone who has been looking forward to this project's release to NOT download Voobly's ripped and incomplete version and instead follow the link from our website below:
Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires download:
http://forgottenempires.net/
http://mirror.forgottenempires.net/
We all worked very hard on this project for the past year, seeing our project then being redistributed with only half of the core features is plain butchering. If Voobly wants to represent the AoE2 community then they should show some respect to the people who made this expansion possible. We made this version with a goal, a mission and many new features for people to enjoy. Releasing it without these features does not only ruin the first impression of people but also possibly turn them away from the game. Is Voobly really out there to support AoFE or to support themselves?
Thank you all,
AoFE Team
Since there has been some confusion following AoFE's release and its compatibility on different clients, we feel it is necessary to make a statement and explain the situation to all of you who have been hoping to enjoy this expansion.
Prior to AoFE's release the Voobly team and AoFE have exchanged negotiations with the intent to make AoFE playable in Voobly same as in Gameranger. These negotiations [READMORELINKDOTS] had an unlucky timing in the small time that was left before release and no agreement was met.
Voobly did not agree with AoFE's Facebook page linking to Gameranger's Facebook page and they demanded that Voobly would have the same exposure. They would make their own installer from which they'd distribute it to the players. Something along the lines of "good work AoFE team, we'll take it from here". Naturally the AoFE team turned down this scenario among other reasons also because the official installer provides updates and necessary fixes to the game. A party uninitiated in AoFE's creation now taking over would take all the control away from the creators.
Then the big release followed. Unfortunately the official site got overloaded but mirrors sprung up quickly and as of now it's still being downloaded and enjoyed by many of you. However, shortly after release Voobly have gone further than ever before. Downloading AoFE from the official server, they ripped it apart and remade it into their own installer on their website with a warning that "the installer released by AoFE team will not work on Voobly as they did not have time to support Voobly with their release". A few lines later another warning tolled "that there are reports that the version released on FE.net sets invalid registry settings that will cause issues on Voobly, such as marking the version as 1.0. We strongly recommend you do NOT install the version until we resolve those issues with AoFE team."
What Voobly have done is unspeakable and utterly disgraceful to not only the creators but to the whole community. The Voobly ripped installer does not install AoFE but only the core of it: The new civilisations and balance. Missing are the new challenging AIs, the maps, the campaigns, the translations, all the additional content. What's more, the butchered version cannot even be launched in single-player or anywhere online without the Voobly client.
Exactly what heights this matter will reach is as of yet unknown but we would like to strongly recommend to everyone who has been looking forward to this project's release to NOT download Voobly's ripped and incomplete version and instead follow the link from our website below:
Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires download:
http://forgottenempires.net/
http://mirror.forgottenempires.net/
We all worked very hard on this project for the past year, seeing our project then being redistributed with only half of the core features is plain butchering. If Voobly wants to represent the AoE2 community then they should show some respect to the people who made this expansion possible. We made this version with a goal, a mission and many new features for people to enjoy. Releasing it without these features does not only ruin the first impression of people but also possibly turn them away from the game. Is Voobly really out there to support AoFE or to support themselves?
Thank you all,
AoFE Team