#Age of empires 3 reddit plus#

Looking back, Goodman thinks Online was destined for failure because by then 'there just wasn't much left in the RTS genre.'

That became the short-lived free-to-play Age of Empires Online MMORTS, released in August 2011 and put on life support in January 2013, which doubled down on the saturated colors of old with a cartoony look. Then, in January 2009, after a change in management at Microsoft had killed an in-development Halo MMO the previous year, Microsoft decided to close the studio (which they had acquired back in 2001).Д®nsemble's closure triggered the formation of five independent studios, including Tony Goodman's Robot Entertainment-which made a deal with Microsoft to work on a fourth Age of Empires game. The company had many projects across several genres that were cancelled, at one point or another in development, along with a Halo-themed Xbox 360 RTS called Halo Wars. AdvertisementДЇor Tony Goodman, Age 3 never had much hope of matching the mainstream success of its predecessors because its timeframe, which charts a course through much of the first wave of European colonization, isn't one of the 'big ones'-ancient, medieval, and modern.ДЄge of Empires III was the last Age game that Ensemble Studios worked on. Unlike in Age 2-in which nearly all early design problems were resolved during development- Age 3 would end up shipping with some of these. There were missteps on the design side, in any case, with new ideas that didn't feel right for an Age game and that didn't gel together. 'There a million movies done about gladiators and a million movies about knights,' he explained, 'but there's not that many movies, if you think about it, done about Napoleonics or Revolutionary War/Civil War.' For Tony Goodman, Age 3 never had much hope of matching the mainstream success of its predecessors, because its timeframe, which charts a course through much of the first wave of European colonization, isn't one of the 'big ones'-ancient, medieval, and modern. Its eight-figure budget ensured that it would look amazing, at least-especially with the way cannonballs would bounce and roll across the world. One million units were sold worldwide in just four months.Д«ut Age of Empires III needed to stretch further from the series' gameplay roots.

#Age of empires 3 reddit plus#

Its flirtations with 3D graphics were enough to keep it looking modern, and both its gameplay additions-notably, hero and mythological creature units plus god/culture-specific abilities-and its fully orchestrated dynamic soundtrack-finally Stephen Rippy could get away from MIDI-were critically acclaimed. Age of Mythology managed to keep that old dance going a little longer. If it hadn't been a hit, Moulder theorizes, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer might have never signed off on the billions of dollars in losses that it takes to enter the console space when Ed Fries-who at the time was vice president of game publishing at Microsoft-pitched the idea in 1998. 'Then on the other side,' he continued, 'we had to show that we have the ability as a first-party publisher to deliver a hit game aimed at core gamers-because that's people who buy and play console games.'ДЄge of Empires was the game that fulfilled that second criteria. 'One success was the success of DirectX, which showed that we had the chops on the operating system side to deliver technology that made it possible to build great games-and that's what DirectX was.' 'I believe that there were two big successes that had to happen to Microsoft for the Xbox console to happen,' said Moulder. Age's other legacy Age of Empires' greatest legacy may not have anything to do with its continued popularity.