I'm posting because I've heard a lot of things about this expansion (Forgotten Empires) from friends and on these boards. So far, it has lived up to my expectations, which is that it hasn't lived up to them.
First of all, I reluctantly will hurt my argument in saying that Cysion has put a lot of time and hard work into this project and that his intentions are sincere. Considering that he's done most of the work by himself he's done a hell of a job and I congratulate him on his efforts. Having said that, I can't hide that my main goal here is to get him to stop work on the expansion and that I think the expansion will hurt both the community and the actual game play of the game. Lastly, I want to say that I don't like posting this in a public forum but I think it's the only way to get things done, to persuade others to my point of view so that they can join me in arguing.
I am here to argue in favor of a very small balance patch and scrap the idea of an expansion. In my best case scenario, Forgotten Empires is so overly ambitious and ridiculous that it will never be finished. My second best case scenario is that, if it does get finished, then people will try the expansion and just like AOE3, they'll hate it and come back to AOC. The worst case and most feared scenario for me is that it will split the community in half; that the people who are sick of the same old game go and play this, then get bored of that, and then quit the game altogether. Someone I talked to about this said, "nobody knows," but I don't want to risk it.
Arguments have been put forth in favor of Forgotten Empires. The main argument is that people say it will attract new players, but who, really, is going to be excited when they hear about some fan-modified game? We want people who like competitive gaming but aren't into Starcraft or other games like Heroes of Newarth. AOC is a competitive game. It has a steep learning curve and isn't very noob friendly. A lot players either don't know about AOC or don't know how easy it is to get, download and play a game. The game is really just old, but on that note, making the widescreen patch free to use for everyone on Voobly would do more to attract people to this game than 5 fan-made expansion packs would.
(And speaking of that, Voobly should make the widescreen free for everyone. I'm on my 3rd gold membership subscription, I pay for it out of charity and love for the game, not because you actually offer a good deal.)
The other popular argument, which is silly, is that it has great balance changes, but even the list of proposals that I'm told were taken seriously/considered, sounded laughable to me.
AOC, for all its faults which are trying to be corrected, is a finished product. It was made by a professional software company who had professional programmers, professional play testers and professional game designers. If anyone is serious about making AOC an eSport now that we have live streaming and commentary, they should stay mindful of the fact that a fan expansion undoes a lot of that "finished product" feel that a software company gives. The fact that it is a finished product gives the game and community credibility, and credibility is important for outside sponsors (with streaming ability) and bringing in new players. If we don't have Microsoft's support or blessing for the game then the next best thing is having a game that they published in its final, intended state.
A balance patch
I think if you look at the ideas I originally posted (a long time ago) a lot of the best players will agree with those. I haven't looked recently but in this ever evolving game I'm sure that some need to be scaled back some, but they're probably still good enough to be a good starting point for testing. The thing with this game, if you're not aware of it, is that if you have 10 vils working on a resource for 1 minute it may not seem like it matters much but if they're there 3 minutes it adds up. If they carry +3 every time it adds up. If they work 10% faster it adds up. If they work another 10 or 15% faster it adds up. If they walk faster it adds up. Or if they only do some, or one, or none of those things.
Playing pocket in a team game, the amount of gold you collect on your way up to castle age dictates how many vils you need on gold after you get to castle age, depending also on how many stables you're using, how you want to use those two stables and when you're doing after the 20 minute mark, if you're going to make stables in the low to mid 20's or if you're going to boom or do whatever else. You have to count how much gold you have when you get to castle age, decide when you're going to get wheelbarrow, your mining upgrade and everything else. I'm talking about the complexities of deciding how/if/when to use 3-6 villagers over the span of 10 minutes, so imagine how it is for the rest of the villagers in your economy. If you think this is where the skill lies in this game then throw in the variables of dead and garrisoned villagers and then imagine doing this while managing more than one army, fighting off raiding units and going around to buildings queuing and researching technologies. The very best players are very aware of all these problems and they have found solutions to them.
At the highest levels of this game AOC is about 1 or 2 villagers in the right place at the right time and with the right technologies researched. You have to make the right military decisions, but a military decision starts as an economic decision every time. The best players either have studied and know or just have a brilliant sixth sense for what to do and when to do it, everyone else lacks this sense or hasn't put in the hard work to study hundreds of scenarios and perform statistical analysis on resource gathering methods and tech combinations.
Understanding the game is more important than skill when it comes to changing game balance. There are many good players who are good enough to play the changes decided by someone else since they are highly skilled. But do they understand it? I have met many good players who don't. They kind of know why they're good but a lot of it is just natural ability. Or they understand for themselves but don't see the bigger picture. This, I think, is the problem with the Forgotten Empires team, a lot of them are good players but they're not good at thinking about this game from a game balance perspective. So even if they dropped the expansion idea and focused on a balance patch I still think they would be the wrong team for the job.
So pardon the expression, but this is why I hope we can forget the Forgotten Empires. It's why I favor a small, careful balance patch devised by elite players and tested by anyone who's good enough to play. It seems that this suggestion was ignored, more than once, when I pleaded for it. So this is my plea now to terminate this expansion and get a proper patch made. The expansion, or even a poorly done patch, threatens to split this community in half right when it was beginning to gain some steam with live streams. Any changes to this game need the unanimous approval by the very best players and the credibility that their backing provides. AoCZone can facilitate this, Cysion has the know-how and the obvious project experience to lead it, he just has to see that for the benefit of this community it's better to draw a small, perfect circle than a gigantic, squiggly, lopsided one.
At the very least, how about a top quality balance patch first, and then apply the lessons learned from a small, successful balance patch to finishing work on an expansion? Surely a logical and evolving course is a better way to go about your project if you reject my request to halt work entirely.
First of all, I reluctantly will hurt my argument in saying that Cysion has put a lot of time and hard work into this project and that his intentions are sincere. Considering that he's done most of the work by himself he's done a hell of a job and I congratulate him on his efforts. Having said that, I can't hide that my main goal here is to get him to stop work on the expansion and that I think the expansion will hurt both the community and the actual game play of the game. Lastly, I want to say that I don't like posting this in a public forum but I think it's the only way to get things done, to persuade others to my point of view so that they can join me in arguing.
I am here to argue in favor of a very small balance patch and scrap the idea of an expansion. In my best case scenario, Forgotten Empires is so overly ambitious and ridiculous that it will never be finished. My second best case scenario is that, if it does get finished, then people will try the expansion and just like AOE3, they'll hate it and come back to AOC. The worst case and most feared scenario for me is that it will split the community in half; that the people who are sick of the same old game go and play this, then get bored of that, and then quit the game altogether. Someone I talked to about this said, "nobody knows," but I don't want to risk it.
Arguments have been put forth in favor of Forgotten Empires. The main argument is that people say it will attract new players, but who, really, is going to be excited when they hear about some fan-modified game? We want people who like competitive gaming but aren't into Starcraft or other games like Heroes of Newarth. AOC is a competitive game. It has a steep learning curve and isn't very noob friendly. A lot players either don't know about AOC or don't know how easy it is to get, download and play a game. The game is really just old, but on that note, making the widescreen patch free to use for everyone on Voobly would do more to attract people to this game than 5 fan-made expansion packs would.
(And speaking of that, Voobly should make the widescreen free for everyone. I'm on my 3rd gold membership subscription, I pay for it out of charity and love for the game, not because you actually offer a good deal.)
The other popular argument, which is silly, is that it has great balance changes, but even the list of proposals that I'm told were taken seriously/considered, sounded laughable to me.
AOC, for all its faults which are trying to be corrected, is a finished product. It was made by a professional software company who had professional programmers, professional play testers and professional game designers. If anyone is serious about making AOC an eSport now that we have live streaming and commentary, they should stay mindful of the fact that a fan expansion undoes a lot of that "finished product" feel that a software company gives. The fact that it is a finished product gives the game and community credibility, and credibility is important for outside sponsors (with streaming ability) and bringing in new players. If we don't have Microsoft's support or blessing for the game then the next best thing is having a game that they published in its final, intended state.
A balance patch
I think if you look at the ideas I originally posted (a long time ago) a lot of the best players will agree with those. I haven't looked recently but in this ever evolving game I'm sure that some need to be scaled back some, but they're probably still good enough to be a good starting point for testing. The thing with this game, if you're not aware of it, is that if you have 10 vils working on a resource for 1 minute it may not seem like it matters much but if they're there 3 minutes it adds up. If they carry +3 every time it adds up. If they work 10% faster it adds up. If they work another 10 or 15% faster it adds up. If they walk faster it adds up. Or if they only do some, or one, or none of those things.
Playing pocket in a team game, the amount of gold you collect on your way up to castle age dictates how many vils you need on gold after you get to castle age, depending also on how many stables you're using, how you want to use those two stables and when you're doing after the 20 minute mark, if you're going to make stables in the low to mid 20's or if you're going to boom or do whatever else. You have to count how much gold you have when you get to castle age, decide when you're going to get wheelbarrow, your mining upgrade and everything else. I'm talking about the complexities of deciding how/if/when to use 3-6 villagers over the span of 10 minutes, so imagine how it is for the rest of the villagers in your economy. If you think this is where the skill lies in this game then throw in the variables of dead and garrisoned villagers and then imagine doing this while managing more than one army, fighting off raiding units and going around to buildings queuing and researching technologies. The very best players are very aware of all these problems and they have found solutions to them.
At the highest levels of this game AOC is about 1 or 2 villagers in the right place at the right time and with the right technologies researched. You have to make the right military decisions, but a military decision starts as an economic decision every time. The best players either have studied and know or just have a brilliant sixth sense for what to do and when to do it, everyone else lacks this sense or hasn't put in the hard work to study hundreds of scenarios and perform statistical analysis on resource gathering methods and tech combinations.
Understanding the game is more important than skill when it comes to changing game balance. There are many good players who are good enough to play the changes decided by someone else since they are highly skilled. But do they understand it? I have met many good players who don't. They kind of know why they're good but a lot of it is just natural ability. Or they understand for themselves but don't see the bigger picture. This, I think, is the problem with the Forgotten Empires team, a lot of them are good players but they're not good at thinking about this game from a game balance perspective. So even if they dropped the expansion idea and focused on a balance patch I still think they would be the wrong team for the job.
So pardon the expression, but this is why I hope we can forget the Forgotten Empires. It's why I favor a small, careful balance patch devised by elite players and tested by anyone who's good enough to play. It seems that this suggestion was ignored, more than once, when I pleaded for it. So this is my plea now to terminate this expansion and get a proper patch made. The expansion, or even a poorly done patch, threatens to split this community in half right when it was beginning to gain some steam with live streams. Any changes to this game need the unanimous approval by the very best players and the credibility that their backing provides. AoCZone can facilitate this, Cysion has the know-how and the obvious project experience to lead it, he just has to see that for the benefit of this community it's better to draw a small, perfect circle than a gigantic, squiggly, lopsided one.
At the very least, how about a top quality balance patch first, and then apply the lessons learned from a small, successful balance patch to finishing work on an expansion? Surely a logical and evolving course is a better way to go about your project if you reject my request to halt work entirely.