Will DE replace voobly?(Discussion thread)

[klavskisLV]

Well, we all know DE is here, and my question is, what do you think will happen? In my personal opinion i think voobly will die regardless of DE "quality" and so on, i think we can already see the first signs of this, i personally don't have a bias to either DE or voob, and if DE becomes the main thing I am completely fine with this, i just want to hear some people opinions, i would like some Pros or streamers to pitch in here as well tbh, because I know there will be ppl biased saying "oh DE sucks, voob is #1" and so on, so would be nice to hear people who kind of do this for a living and such.
My arguments so far would be this:
1. We have and will have DE tournaments,(already 2 announced) which means DE ladder which means you have to play DE
2.Pros and streamers will want more hype/tourneys/viewers/support/etc. So they will stream more DE to get that all, which again will put more people attention to DE
3. Voobly playerbase will shrink a lot, especially good level games, cause again all pros are on DE
4. So casters will sit on DE more and more as well, which again means less less voobly time
5.People that are tired of tryhard voob will obv go to DE, cause more chill/ new campaigns, AI and such, means it will attract the <1600 voob playerbase for sure
6. If we remove top 20 voob players from voob, it's basically done already, it's just a matter of time.

 

[buhanisson]

Where have I heard these arguments before, oh thats right:

1. We have and will have HD tournaments, which means HD ladder which means you have to play HD
2.Pros and streamers will want more hype/tourneys/viewers/support/etc. So they will stream more HD to get that all, which again will put more people attention to HD
3. Voobly playerbase will shrink a lot, especially good level games, cause again all pros are on HD
4. So casters will sit on HD more and more as well, which again means less less voobly time
5.People that are tired of tryhard voob will obv go to HD, cause more chill/ new campaigns, AI and such, means it will attract the <1600 voob playerbase for sure
6. If we remove top 20 voob players from voob, it's basically done already, it's just a matter of time.

In the end the quality of the actual product is the only argument that matters. I hope DE can do it, but who knows yet.

 

[dooog]

Will DE even be capable of hosting a 4v4 or 3v3 event in 2020

 

[MaSmOrRa]

Where have I heard these arguments before, oh thats right:

1. We have and will have HD tournaments, which means HD ladder which means you have to play HD
2.Pros and streamers will want more hype/tourneys/viewers/support/etc. So they will stream more HD to get that all, which again will put more people attention to HD
3. Voobly playerbase will shrink a lot, especially good level games, cause again all pros are on HD
4. So casters will sit on HD more and more as well, which again means less less voobly time
5.People that are tired of tryhard voob will obv go to HD, cause more chill/ new campaigns, AI and such, means it will attract the <1600 voob playerbase for sure
6. If we remove top 20 voob players from voob, it's basically done already, it's just a matter of time.

In the end the quality of the actual product is the only argument that matters. I hope DE can do it, but who knows yet.

Yeah I agree 100% with this.
We heard all these arguments many times in the past before and yet Voobly is still going as strong as ever.

If DE's performance at some point matches voobly 's+ UP's then maybe all those things will happen. But right now as we speak thats still far from happening, especially if we're talking 3v3's and 4v4's.

If Voobly keeps being the best performing version then we will see history repeat itself: Microsoft sponsors a couple of tournaments with declining viewer numbers and when they stop giving money, no pro will ever touch DE again as all the community sponsored tournaments will be played on Voobly cause it performs better.

TL;DR it depends on how successful DE's dev team is in optimizing the game's performance.

 

[Chainsaw]

TL;DR : it depends

 

[grizz_brit]

Hi guys

Don`t wish to appear ignorant , but is the DE site the one where you play the HD edition, or is there a nother site available I don`t know about?

Grizz_brit... played since game came out and still shit at 58 years old

 

[Spring_]

Gameplay: Great
Feels very smooth, no lag between NA - Europe so far. There is alot of new game play mechanic features that will improve QOL for all players like pre queing tasks+upgrades and some resources allowing vills to walk over like sheep/boar after slain. Most units seem to have very good pathing but there is some problems with vills blocking as always.

Ranked: Great (I'm so hyped for this)
Finally a ranked Que that will solve so many problems with wait times, players refusing to play each other, map + civ diversity. I would like to see ranked map pools change bi-monthy or have a way to adjust them manually for those single map players though. I also think adding upcoming tournament maps to the pool would be a good incentive for tournament players to play ladder more and would give a chance for lower players to learn new maps along side the pros. I think this is the part of AOE that we have been missing, the ability for anyone to rank up and grind and have the potential to que vs the top in the world.

Graphics: Great
may actually cause potential problems with lower level systems but if you have the right set up its amazing. New animal/unit/building skins and death/destruction animations! nerd chills (takes a bit to get used to though!)

Lobby/client: Needs improvement
While in ranked que you cannot navigate the client, look for non-rated games in lobby ect... The lobby browser doesn't have a player list which takes away the social part so you cannot invite, chat with or even see who is online aswell, it could cause players to feel alone as if their friends, or rated players at their level arnt online which would send them back to voobly after a couple long wait times. (you will see alot of msger being used which is sorta cringe)


Long story short, I think this is the best job MS has done in any expansion by far and this actually stands a real shot at changing/improving the game in such a meaningful way that the community actually goes back to business daddy.

 

[robo]

I do not think major tournaments (especially team game) are able to be hosted on DE without serious work being done to improve the lobby system, and related elements (ranked games being downloadable, public ladder, viewable profiles with match history won/lost elo etc.)

 

[klavskisLV]

Gameplay: Great
Feels very smooth, no lag between NA - Europe so far. There is alot of new game play mechanic features that will improve QOL for all players like pre queing tasks+upgrades and some resources allowing vills to walk over like sheep/boar after slain. Most units seem to have very good pathing but there is some problems with vills blocking as always.

Ranked: Great (I'm so hyped for this)
Finally a ranked Que that will solve so many problems with wait times, players refusing to play each other, map + civ diversity. I would like to see ranked map pools change bi-monthy or have a way to adjust them manually for those single map players though. I also think adding upcoming tournament maps to the pool would be a good incentive for tournament players to play ladder more and would give a chance for lower players to learn new maps along side the pros. I think this is the part of AOE that we have been missing, the ability for anyone to rank up and grind and have the potential to que vs the top in the world.

Graphics: Great
may actually cause potential problems with lower level systems but if you have the right set up its amazing. New animal/unit/building skins and death/destruction animations! nerd chills (takes a bit to get used to though!)

Lobby/client: Needs improvement
While in ranked que you cannot navigate the client, look for non-rated games in lobby ect... The lobby browser doesn't have a player list which takes away the social part so you cannot invite, chat with or even see who is online aswell, it could cause players to feel alone as if their friends, or rated players at their level arnt online which would send them back to voobly after a couple long wait times. (you will see alot of msger being used which is sorta cringe)


Long story short, I think this is the best job MS has done in any expansion by far and this actually stands a real shot at changing/improving the game in such a meaningful way that the community actually goes back to business daddy.

Well, i personally watched various streamers battle it out in 3v3/4v4 and saw major issues with lag/fps drops stutters, and before you say "oh but they had shit pcs" i doubt that t90/viper/daut etc. have shit pcs as most of them even have 2 pc setups and around 2k+ computers, unless you need a NASA pc to play this, i would argue towards your first point, as i saw you play 1v1's(Idk if u actually played tgs), but yeah, i agree 1v1's run smooth like butter

 

[Spring_]

remember they are also on high graphics, multiple monitors + streaming aswell it may be lots of reasons causing lag due to needing settings tweeked ect. What I can tell you is that 1v1 are seemless and much better than voobly on high graphics (for me) and the couple tg's I played had lower than voobly lag but I think alot of players will need to turn graphics down drastically for TG's. You really gotta compare 1v1 vs 1v1 and tg vs tg on the clients because obviously TG will always lag more than 1v1s.

What is clear is that they put real effort into the game and the raw materials are there, they just need slight optimization.

 

[Laskerf]

DE will replace hd

 

[MuscleChamp]

I think there will be a timeframe where a lot of new players join, the game gets hyped, everyone streams and plays it and the DE devs have to make the game playable(at least comaparable to voobly) before all that stops.

If they manage to do so rip voobly, but easier said than done.

 

[MembTV]

we need DE get the same performance than voobly and also we need a looby system to be able to find rooms, players, chat, etc etc, so what we need is to use voobly to play DE2, that would be best to get the community in one place all together but won´t happen, so im afraid that we will be on DE2 now in the start and then all splitted depend on where the tournaments are, for casuals they will go where they feel better and for "less" PROs they will be even more lonely that they feel now.

So my hopes is that DE2 get the wk/userpatch performance and being connected with voobly, but that won´t happen, so im pesimistic and i think if they do not work together and DE2 is not getting the voobly performance in few months everyone will be asking for a WK update with new civlizs and features and will be playing on voobly again.

Maybe now i won´t get sponsor by microsoft? maybe but is my opinion.

I LOVE THIS GAME.

 

[MaSmOrRa]

Hi guys

Don`t wish to appear ignorant , but is the DE site the one where you play the HD edition, or is there a nother site available I don`t know about?

Grizz_brit... played since game came out and still shit at 58 years old

AoE2:DE is yet another version of AoE2 (different from the HD version) with better graphics, 4 new civs and some new quality of life features.

You will be able to buy it on Steam or the Windows Store on November 14th. If you already own the HD version from 2013, AoE2:DE will cost you 15$, otherwise it's 20$.

 

[ZeroEmpires]

I think DE will struggle if the ranked matchmaking stays as it is. I made a video about what I think needs to change in order for DE to be interesting to existing voobly players:


AOE2:DE - How To Improve Matchmaking
https://youtu.be/dtqCJVNAS04

 

[SouFire]

We already had this discussion like in 2013, there will be a lot of hype and sponsored tournaments, the top 30 will be playing there insanely, but as soon as the money stops, they will go back to voobly.

The main reason is the performance, guys with expensive computers have low fps, don't lie to yourselves the game can't handle steady frame rate for 2 seconds its always jumping and the lows are amazing.

It's exactly the same as the HD back then, the game wasn't and isn't capable of running on most computers with no lag even 6 years after its release, so lets be skeptical about the magic fix, the benchmark score restriction to play rated games is a cheap solution to prevent guys lagging show matches games on the launch of the game, most consumers will only play campaigns, single player and some unranked games but lets be honest multiplayer has never been a thing to the 10k users of HD playing single player.

Even look how they are advertising the game "more than 200 hours of campaigns for 20 dlrs" that says something.

Anyway my sight gets tired faster on this game, everything looks so washed not sharp enough, even i felt dizzy after 6 games.

 

[NkoDragas]

I think DE will struggle if the ranked matchmaking stays as it is. I made a video about what I think needs to change in order for DE to be interesting to existing voobly players:


AOE2:DE - How To Improve Matchmaking
https://youtu.be/dtqCJVNAS04

Thats system it's almost perfect for AoE, You said "I'm not an UI designer" and what you did it's more than good.
I'll take the example of EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2, It tooked 2 years for the community to put enough pressure to take the game to where it is right now, one of the first changes they asked was to the devs to make and completely new UI, and what they came with was almost all community suggested, and right now there's a dedicated forum for UI changes for the future updates.

Knowing that DE will have a lot of support from devs we just have to be clear with the things that are not good enough for us.

 

[zuviss]

voobly will still be strong, the large majority of south americans and asians have potato PCs that just cant run DE, and they(we) are a huuuuuuge part of the playerbase...

DE is pretty nice tho, so far enjoying it and getting used to the graphics and trying to tell units apart from each other, but nah, voobly wont die.

 

[Elvaenor]

I think DE will struggle if the ranked matchmaking stays as it is. I made a video about what I think needs to change in order for DE to be interesting to existing voobly players:


AOE2:DE - How To Improve Matchmaking
https://youtu.be/dtqCJVNAS04

I like your ideas about the matchmaking.
One thing I would like to say though, is that with your system in a teamgame, you can't actually communicate if everyone should go random civs or pick one. This may lead to the forcing of picking civs if one of the opponents choses a strong civ for a particular map.
Other than that I think it's a very nice way of solving the matchmaking system!

 

[NOVAinc]

I want DE to be succesful because I want the franchise to get more popular and accessible to new players (HD is bad and Voobly is high friction). I think the game will sell a lot but unless some serious improvements happen, as mentioned by people above, voobly will likely stay popular for tournaments.

On top of that, as zuviss said, Voobly will not truly die anytime soon just because of the technical reasons preventing a big chunk of the playerbase to switch over.

 

[gs10]

I think DE will struggle if the ranked matchmaking stays as it is. I made a video about what I think needs to change in order for DE to be interesting to existing voobly players:


AOE2:DE - How To Improve Matchmaking
https://youtu.be/dtqCJVNAS04

This is really good. We should all do what we can to get the devs to see this, and to get them to see how vital it is to the multiplayer community that the matchmaking/lobby system is done right.

Then again, they probably already know this and it's just not a priority to them.

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

Will DE even be capable of hosting a 4v4 or 3v3 event in 2020

Not even in 2026

 

[SuperskinnyBLS]

I can't imagine TG tournaments being played on DE with this awful ancient spec system xD

 

[_antena3]

The AOE II has something that unfortunately seems unhelpful, and is the most important thing for this game to remain alive today. It is the most democratic multiplayer game of today, it runs with any computer, it is competitive, and what is more important Voobly has given it so many improvements that it seems to me to look with little perspective at not knowing how to recognize them.
As long as there are sponsors, they will try to make us believe that the DE is a success, the truth is that Voobly has this week the same average number of games in MS as before the very promoted launch of this new game.
It is a game that is badly thought out, does not respond to the needs of the grassroots community, and they hope to reach new people that is impossible. AOE II is a game that goes against the logic of today's successful games, requires training time, lots of practice, and time to learn how to play. If they are going to have existence with people who play campaigns, but in multi player there is no future.
Voobly on the other hand should be much more restrictive with the people who have posted on these forums "it's time to leave voobly" which are many of the well-known players and stremers.
In the end, when a userpatch comes out for the civilizations and improvements that the DE brings, everyone will return to voobly, all those who are being sponsored to promote a game, which works badly and by the requirements can be played by a minimum of the community.
The base version of the conquerors is unmatched, and voobly for all that it offers too.
The DE is a game that was launched and does not exceed in twich when they transmit all together T90, Nilpferd, Memb, Daut, the 3k viewers, that is a game that only the community sees, they will not be able to attract anyone else, on the basis of a game that runs badly and only represents some graphic improvements compared to the traditional one.
Finally, for people who are happy about the possible death of voobly, they should know that if voobly dies, AOE II dies, please don't be so ridiculous and think a little what they write.

 

[AkeNo]

The AOE II has something that unfortunately seems unhelpful, and is the most important thing for this game to remain alive today. It is the most democratic multiplayer game of today, it runs with any computer, it is competitive, and what is more important Voobly has given it so many improvements that it seems to me to look with little perspective at not knowing how to recognize them.
As long as there are sponsors, they will try to make us believe that the DE is a success, the truth is that Voobly has this week the same average number of games in MS as before the very promoted launch of this new game.
It is a game that is badly thought out, does not respond to the needs of the grassroots community, and they hope to reach new people that is impossible. AOE II is a game that goes against the logic of today's successful games, requires training time, lots of practice, and time to learn how to play. If they are going to have existence with people who play campaigns, but in multi player there is no future.
Voobly on the other hand should be much more restrictive with the people who have posted on these forums "it's time to leave voobly" which are many of the well-known players and stremers.
In the end, when a userpatch comes out for the civilizations and improvements that the DE brings, everyone will return to voobly, all those who are being sponsored to promote a game, which works badly and by the requirements can be played by a minimum of the community.
The base version of the conquerors is unmatched, and voobly for all that it offers too.
The DE is a game that was launched and does not exceed in twich when they transmit all together T90, Nilpferd, Memb, Daut, the 3k viewers, that is a game that only the community sees, they will not be able to attract anyone else, on the basis of a game that runs badly and only represents some graphic improvements compared to the traditional one.
Finally, for people who are happy about the possible death of voobly, they should know that if voobly dies, AOE II dies, please don't be so ridiculous and think a little what they write.

game release date is in 5 days lul
why don't we all just wait and see how it turns out instead of taking sides already?