The Battlefield.com clan gaming and tourney site gets a new look, and add RoN to their stable of featured games. Here's a link to their location. They are affiliated with the RoN World-of-Strategy site.
3D Avenue has opened a gallery of 28 RoN screenshots, some of which have been seen on other sites but with so many pictures in one place, it is definitely worth a look.
UK gaming magazine PC Zone previews RoN in its April 2003 edition: “We’ve waited a long time for an RTS to truly push forward the boundaries of gamplay and in RoN we believe we have found what we’ve been looking for….” Quote featured at the Microsoft RoN site.
"Jeremy Soule composed the orchestral music for Dungeon Siege and we're happy to bring you a sample of his music directly from Dungeon Siege! This first piece, entitled Ice Bridge, is available for download in mp3 format. Enjoy!"
Adrenaline Vault has published another more up to date preview of Rise of Nations. The arctile goes on to described the game that not only is an RTS with Civ elements but for the first time Ive seen makes a comparison to the classic wargame Diplomacy. Informative, especially in regards to the CTW campaign but contains a some outdated information as well. Article is 4 pages in length and included 12 screenshots (6 within article and 6 at the gallery at the end). Here is an excerpt:
Here's something for jaded strategy gamers to contemplate: Imagine a complete RTS in the Age of Empires mold, except its technology tree covers 10,000 years of history and a planetful of civilizations. Begin with hundreds of configurable options, subtract as much micromanagement as possible, and then embrace the result with a shell of turn-based strategy. Heaven? Maybe.
Thanks to MOnkaMen of RON Pantheon for the heads up.
Another dilemma for Soccy; someone needs to keep our Game Info section up-to-date with the latest information, as well as to add new articles to it. Well, I can think of no one better than Sunshine, who has proven her maturity and dedication to HeavenGames more times than I can count. She has been around Heaven since '97, and has continuously impressed me throughout the years; I know she's going to do an amazing job as a Cherub.
Congratulations, Sunshine! Ok, ok, I'm sure all this promotion news can go on one thread, but when I first got on the staff at AoKH, I wanted all of the attention I could get. Might as well give them that ;-) .
MFOreports that L_Clan_Geek is hosting a tournament sponsored by EverGlide that pits the top-ranking European players against eachother. A group of 24 hand-picked experts will be playing for some cool prizes and bragging rights! Here's the tournament's summary:
"This is a European tournament, with only players of 1950+ of rating invited to ensure every single game will be of a very high skill level and hopefully enjoyable to watch. I'm very pleased to have had so many good players wanting to play in it when there is no cash prizes on offer. After each game is played the winner must send me the recorded game as soon as the match is finished, you cannot play the next round until i have the recorded game and have given you the go ahead. Non of the games will be uploaded until the whole tournament is finished. The tournament will consist of 24 players, with a 3-way round robin final. The first round will be single elimination but round 2 and onwards will be best out of 3. The whole event shouldn't take more than 5 hours, but if need be and the final 3 players consent the final can be held the next day."
I've come across a predicament recently; the Strategy Section has needed an administrator. Upon thinking and considering, I find it an obvious choice to pick Cherub Aetius. He has been helping AoMH out for a long time in terms of content, so I figured it was appropriate for him to join the AoMH staff as the Strategy Section and Game Info administrator; and gets bigger Angel wings to boot. I'm sure he'll do an amazing job with his amazing skill (1900+ rating on Supremacy) and great administration judgement. You can congratulate him yourself in this thread
Between the War in Iraq and the spreading SARS threat dominating people's attention, and the lack of any real developments from Triumph about the upcoming Shadow Magic product, there's not been a lot of discussion or real news to report lately in the AoW world. Still, there have been a few threads started that might be interesting.
Ager Whiteleaf started a thread here asking about the possibility of of adding some sort of Shops in the forthcoming game. Something similar was mentioned long ago, ie the idea of Artifact Foundries in the Wizard's tower where items such as armor or weapons could be created. Other possibilities would be limited use spells or potions. What's your opinion? Would such elements enhance the game, or would carrying around inventories simply add to feeling some people have that Heroes [are] too Powerful?
As always of course that is no threads asking threads asking/stating opinions about which are the best or worse race or units, and whether or not the game is totally "balanced." Clearly, the the various units and races are not identical, but is this lack of "balance" a good thing or a bad thing? As relative newcomer to the forum PrivacyLost points out
One of the things I've noticed over the years about game players is that most of us have different playing styles. Some people like to do things one way, others like to do things another. This is why you get so much complaining about things being unbalanced. ... Some of the races definately appear weaker on the surface but they have hidden strengths that give them a real chance. But mostly your never really stuck with one particular race in a game. You can always take cities of other races and utilize them very effectively.
Not everyone agrees however. Many players prefer to play using only units of their "chosen" race to the exclusion of all others. So the question then is, what is the more appropriate model of the game - one in which your goal is to build a coalition of forces, or one in which your goal is to assert the ascendency of a given race? The diplomatic model and non-race specific Wizards would seem to support the former, yet the storyline of the campaign clearly alludes to the latter. That unlike many 4X games, this one can be played either way to some is a strength of it's design, to others it's a weakness. What's your feeling?
Somewhat relatedly, what is your feeling on the relative importance to the gameplay of strategic movement and management of an army, versus the role-playing aspects of individual hero development. What effect does this have on the importance of the Wizard/Leader in the game. Again, AoW2 attempts to bridge a gap between party-based dungeon quest type games games and traditional simulation based war games. How well do you feel it succeeds at this, and is this a good idea or a bad one?
Just some ideas that might be worth discussing while we're waiting for Wazzz fingers to grow back. Feel free to jump in on any thread or start a new one.
Wow it loosk like Empires:DMW is already making a following just like Empire Earth did. I received an email from Empires Aeon, the former makers of Empire Earth Aeon, that they just opened their doors. I'll just copy what Mike said:
What is Empires Aeon, you ask? Well, simply put, Empires Aeon is a website dedicated to collaboratively providing users with the highest quality, most accurate, and up-to-date information pertaining both to Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Empire Earth. While advocating amity and maintaining the utmost professionalism, Aeon will strive to surpass the competition on an immense scale.
For those who remember the old Empire Earth Aeon fansite, I cordially welcome your return; those new to Aeon, I hope you enjoy your stay. What you see here is but a mere fragment of better things yet to come, and we will be updating often, so feel free to visit regularly.
It is nice to see some more fansites opening up, now we just need the game. Be sure to visit them at http://strategyplanet.com/empires/.
RoN Alliance (Alliance Francophone) presents a video of the starting minutes of the French civilization in RoN. This is the second of a series of videos RoN Alliance is planning for the coming weeks. Video is 3 minutes, 30 MB, avi and in divx format.
In its second preview of RoN, Gamesweb (German) awards the game a “Sehr Gut,” a one-step improvement from the “Ausgezeichnet” of the first preview! Preview includes 18 total screenshots in the gallery.
Cobra and Warrior_t_Nick’s of RoN Alliance (French) has updated their nations profile. This installment features Rome. Other's they have covered in past installments include: Egypt, Japan, Germans, French, Chinese, Aztecs.
Cheating becoming more and more of a nuicanse and problem in online games. GotGame has posted an interesting article on a recent event in Everquest.
"The names here are removed to protect the innocent, and most of the threads I read this on have now been deleted which is why I [almost] think its ok to talk about. It seems that one of the "guilds" on the Stormhammer server has recently had a moment of crises with it's guild leadership. The group of RL (real life) friends that formed the guild apparently had a very different purpose than those intended by Verant and Sony Online Entertainment. After months of leading the guild on several high-end raids and gaining all kinds of in-game items and loot, this group of friends took those items from the guild vault and sold them on Ebay, and then vanished from the server.
Online identity and trust issues abound. But before you dismiss this as 'oh, well, who really cares about some gold pieces and magic swords that are really just numbers in a database', take a good look at what's happening in online communities of this size. One economic study by California State University at Northridge Professor Edward Castronova placed Norrath (the virtual world of Everquest) as the 77th richest world economy, based on the value of the items in the world adjusted to their value in then-current Ebay auctions. This was reported in WIRED (link above) and several other sources."
Now something similar shouldn't be possible for Dungeon Siege, due to the easyness to find, or create, good items. Cheating however do exists in Dungeon Siege as well, and many players have learned to backup their characters before each game the hard way.
This article might relieve some of our immediate worrys about new games in our future. Interesting also, to note some of the real facts on which games historically have been the most popular. A nice read found... HERE
Much appreciation goes to Angel Zen for sharing this find with us.
The NetCampaign's response in the community has been great; over 60 people have entered so far and the number is growing. Due to the large numbers, Ogre is going to set up a list of players that have entered; so those that entered can make sure they're listed.
Corante has created a "blog" on the future of video games; be it financial, societal, or academic. The writer takes a lot of information on the current and past industry and makes seemingly accurate predictions on how games will turn out later on in the years; it is surprising just how promising the gaming industry is, and how successful it is so far. The article is very interesting, here's a snippet:
"Nor are these trends considered transitory as there is a 70% growth rate projected for this industry over the next 10 years. There are, to be sure, different growth patterns depending on the analytical tools used for the projected model, but nearly all of the forecasts agree on staggering potential growth as the market for electronic entertainment continues to expand. Games are becoming, in a very real sense, the medium of the 21st century, if only by sheer volume."
Earlier this year it was revealed that Ideazon was planning on releasing a keyboard that would allow users to use hotkeys in a very optimized and easy way. Well, it's recently been released and NIBinforms us that Tom's Hardware has reviewed the innovative piece of equipment. Apparently, the keyboard performs quite well, and the reviewer was pleased with it; save for the high price and lack of keyboard interfaces. If you want to get your own, head down to Ideazon's store to pick one up.
Planet DungeonSiege has posted the winners of their Feb-March modeling contest. The winner? LadyH with "Firebird: Avatar of Truth and Justice". It's truly a magnificent model with great textures. The people voting seems to have had a big like of birds and fire, since the runner up was the Phoenix.
Sign ups for the AoM Net Campaign have begun. No date for the beginning of the tournament has been set as of now, but we are taking now since it's believed that the turnout will be good.
Using hotkeys can make all the difference between winning and losing, between having a rating of 1700 and 1800. They increase players' speed considerably, and aren't as difficult to master as a particular strategy or civilization. Chichiri has written an article showing people how to optimize hotkey position on your keyboard so you can go as quickly as possible. Here is a snippet:
"Hotkeys are tools of precision. They enable actions to be done faster, more efficiently and more easily. There is no such thing as a "best" set of hotkeys. It depends on the player who is using them, whatever feels comfortable for them. I recommend everyone to set up their own set of hotkeys, which they feel work best for them. In my opinion, the idle villager and military hotkeys are vital. Keeping every unit working in RTS games is really important... - Hotkey Guide by Chichiri
The World Cyber Games USA website has released the dates for the qualifying and semifinal tournaments for this year. They have also cancelled the tournament that was scheduled to occur in Bloomington, MN and are having another one in Chicago, IL. Here are the dates:
4/12 – Qualifier: Half-Life: Counter-Strike 4/13 – Qualifier: Unreal Tournament 2K3 4/19 – Qualifier: StarCraft: Brood War 4/20 – Qualifier: Warcraft III 4/26 – Qualifiers: Age of Mythology, FIFA Soccer 2003 5/10 – Qualifier: Half-Life: Counter-Strike 5/11 – Qualifier: Unreal Tournament 2K3 5/17 – Qualifier: StarCraft: Brood War 5/18 – Qualifier: Warcraft III 5/24 – Qualifiers: Age of Mythology, FIFA Soccer 2003 6/14 – Qualifier: Half-Life: Counter-Strike 6/15 – Qualifier: Unreal Tournament 2K3 6/21 – Qualifier: StarCraft: Brood War 6/22 – Qualifier: Warcraft III 6/28 – Qualifiers: Age of Mythology, FIFA Soccer 2003
7/06 – Semifinal: Warcraft III 7/19 – Semifinal: Half-Life: Counter-Strike 7/20 – Semifinal: Unreal Tournament 2K3 7/26 – Semifinal: StarCraft: Brood War 7/27 – Semifinals: Age of Mythology, FIFA Soccer 2003
The expert Age clan Legion is hosting a Full Random Tournament, giving out 1,600 dollars in prizes; 800 for the 1st, 500 for the 2nd, and 300 for the 3rd. Registration ends on the 17th of April, and the tournament begins on the 19th. Here are the settings for the tournament:
1vs1 Map: Random Game Type: Supremacy Major God: Random Handicap: None Map Size: Normal Visibility: Normal Allow Cheats: No
PHARAOH HEAVEN Pharaoh/Cleo maps in Excel format Posted 3/28/2003 @ 8:08 AM EST by Merepatra
ero Would has recently managed to create Excel versions of all the Pharaoh and Cleo career mission maps. These are sure to be a must have for the meticulous city planner.
There is a spoiler and no spoiler version of each map available. Further details of what is included in each can be found in this thread in our forums. The maps are available for download from our Miscellaneous Downloads section.
Peter Wayner of the New York Times interviews luminaries from the gaming industry, on cheaters in computer gaming. Big Huge Games' Brian Reynolds and Tim Train makes an appearance in the article, and describes how Rise of Nations will deal with cheaters. The article can be found here.
Gamers Depot has conducted an interview with James Loe, Senior Engineer at Gas Powered Games. The interview doesn't deal with DS, although it gives a tiny hint at technical solutions in their upcoming game. I'd say it's interesting mostly for people well into computers, and of course, if you want a better understanding of DirectX, especially 9.
"GD: Can you tell us how GPG plans on taking advantage of these shaders in future games?
JL: We have a very flexible shader system in place for our future products built very heavily around the use of HLSL. At the current moment most of our effects are running on version 1.1 shaders, but I’m sure that by the time we ship someone will have thrown something in that uses 2.0 shaders. One of the benefits of our system is that it takes hardware configuration into account so that we can fall back to earlier version shaders or no shaders at all, depending on the level of support. I can’t completely spill the beans on what specific effects we might be planning, but I promise it won’t disappoint."
A press release at the official World Cyber Games USA site has given out the 20 cities where the qualifying tournaments will be held from April through July of this year; all of them being in one of the city's CompUSAs. Here's the full list:
Redondo Beach, CA San Jose, CA Sacramento, CA Bellevue, WA Lewisville, TX Austin, TX Phoenix, AZ Denver, CO St. Louis, MO Las Vegas, NV Alexandria, VA Braintree, MA Southlake, GA Plantation, FL Bloomington, MN Pittsburgh, PA Nashville, TN Raleigh, NC Columbus, OH Syracuse, NY
14 new Screenshots have been added to our Beta Screenshot Gallery. They depict a wide variety of combat situations throughout the ages. Many thanks to Kumar Shah for these shots.
It saddens me to say this, but one of the hardest working and coolest person I've worked with at HeavenGames - TheShadowDawn - has resigned from HG. Real Life(TM) has been at his heels for a while now, but it's finally caught up with him. A hole in the staff will be filled with a couple new staff members, but I don't know if anyone could truly replace TSD. I don't believe I could. Ian, you'll be missed around here.
I really don't know what else to say, but I would sum up all of my words in Angel Zen's reply to his resignation:
You will be missed, TheShadowDawn. Thanks for all the hard work you put into the site under Thunder & Theta’s leadership, and as a seraph of Age of Mythology Heaven. You single handedly updated all of AoMH’s content sections, a task that is normally assigned to a small team of staff. You also brought about changes internally within HeavenGames, as well as changes that are about to happen.
Thanks for everything - your help, and your often humorous views on things. We were very lucky to have you as a talented member of our volunteer staff. It was an honor working with you.
You can read his resignation and talk about the issue in his forum thread.
Yep, MrFixitOnline is starting up another one of its cash tournaments sponsored by the great guy Almojo, but all the major info that is known about the tournament is this: The map is going to be "The Unknown", it will start on the 4th of April, and 64 people will be getting cash prizes. Besides that, nothing. Try and glean whatever other information you can out of blue's announcement:
"That's right folks - be the first on the block to signup for the upcoming tournament. Why? I'll tell you why - 64 players will walk away with cash from this event. The top players in the world will be participating. You have balls of steel and want to prove your skills to the world.
That enough reasons for you?"
Map: The Unknown
Sponsored by Almojo
64 players are going to walk away with cash prizes
Will be divided into regions to make scheduling matches easier
Civ will be player's choice
Final 64 matches will be best of 3 with civ requirements (can't chose the same civ)
Signups will end April 1, tourney will start April 4th.
Screenshots that is. SiegeWorks has posted quite a few new screenshots of various things. Most of them are from the just passed Game Developer Conference, where you'll be able to see the GPG team having some fun.
KS_Josey_Wales - the super helpful elite expert - has posted two new articles on his website. The first one goes over a Hades Fast Heroic, the other is a guide to Mediterranean. Here's a snippet from his Medd guide:
"I would suggest going for the water in a galley war, on this map you can likely go all out with 3 docks pumping, make sure to get the gold and wood upgrades as soon as you can afford them. Also try to scout out what your opponent is likely doing either by scouting the water with a fishing ship to see how many docks he has up, if you see only 1 dock then it's not really nessessary to go all out on gallies and it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some military buildings up early instead..."
Cobra and Warrior_t_Nick’s of RoN Alliance (French) has updated their nations profile. This installment features Egypt. Other's they have covered in past installments include: Japan, Germans, French, Chinese, Aztecs.
News straight from the Archangel's mouth: The ESO servers being down will be fixed in a couple hours, here's what he had to say:
ESO Status: - ESO DNS is in the progress of being updated thru out the Internet. I Expect (hope) only a couple of more hours of those of you unable to connect still.
Gamecatcher magazine publishes a profile of each of RoN’s wonders. Article is 4 webpages long, includes their picture, characteristics and costs, so be sure to click on the page flaps at the bottom to see all the pages.
Due to some complications with the championship spot in our ladder, it has been decided to have a championship tournament, pitting the top 4-ranked players against eachother for the championship. Here's what Kumar Shahhas to say about it:
"With the recent disputed regarding the ladder championships, a decision has been taken by the staff which is as below. 1.) Birdman will be removed as ladder champion with effect from the next update.
2.) The top four players at the end of this Sunday (midnight, CST) will compete in a round-robin tournament for the championship.
The player with most wins will be declared the new AoMH Ladder Champion
Now, start playing more to get yourself into the top 4."
Thanks to MFO for this bit of news: Clan Reyes - a Spanish clan - is organizing a world tournament for AoM. They've taken special care to make it accessable to people of different languages, which is great for us non-spanish speakers. Here's the basic details:
1v1 Random Map - Supremacy
Matches to be played on ESO and arranged on the tournament forum
Single elimination for the first and second rounds
There are a variety of non-cash prizes from Microsoft
Yeup, the points system for the NetCampaign has been finalized. Can't elaborate much on that, so here it is:
Obviously, the most important aspect of the Net Campaign is the points system. It is what sets it apart from other tournaments. The Ogre has tried to make things fair as far as the points are concerned. Below is the basic layout. Please note that this setup differs from the original AoE Net Campaign.
Loss = 0
Unlike the ESO rankings, if you lose a game, you don't get any points taken away.
Offensive Win = 20
Each time a challenger wins and becomes a landowner, they receive 20 points added to their score.
Defense Win = 10
Each time a landowner successfully defends a map, they receive 10 points added to their score.
Multiple Map = 50
If a landowner is able to hold onto a map until the very end of the challenge, they will receive 50 additional points added to their score.
*Please note: When you loose a game, you don't lose any points. They just stay as they were.
Cobra and Warrior_t_Nick’s of RoN Alliance (French) has updated their nations profile. This installment features Japan. Other's they have covered in past installments include: Germans, French, Chinese, Aztecs.
Apolyton CS has posted the third of four installments of screenshots from Preview Beta #2. This set is of installation screens, each featuring interesting background images from games.
Dag Petersen of ToTheGame previews RoN: “…I can without doubt say that this game combines the best of the RTS’s out there. So, if you like RTS games don’t let Rise of Nations slip by.” ToTheGame has a modest accompanying gallery of 15 screenshots.
Sorry for failing to notice this review initially but it was on a computer game stores website! The review features a meaty chunk talking about how AC now truly gives fans a chance to re-enact epic battles.
"In the past trying to accurately re-create a series of historical themed battles within a Real Time Strategy (RTS) title would have been extremely difficult to accomplish. This is because the most famous battles worthy of reconstruction consisted of many more units than any game of this period could attainably place on the screen at the same time. So for many years the genre was largely populated with more fantastical and futuristic battle themes so the developers could dictate the scale of the battles to work with both the limitations of their game engine and the average home PC. More recently though several European based developers have made significant strides in readdressing the balance of realism with best selling titles like Sudden Strike and Cossacks: European Wars; and now American Conquest is looking to firmly push historical battle re-creations into the realm of accessible real-time strategy."
Spotted this at MFO: KS_Josey_Wales - one of the top-ranked supremacy players on ESO - has been interviewed by E-AoM, a Spanish-speaking fansite for Age of Mythology. Here's a snippet of the interview (which was nicely translated into English for those of us that don't speak Spanish):
"E-AoM.org: Civilization and preferred attack combination? Why?
KS_JW: I like Zeus the best probably, as for attack combination, in classical I like to use hoplites plus a few toxotes plus the two hero's plus several centaurs . I like this combo because it is very difficult to counter except for by norse, centaurs are very powerful as are the hoplites. However I don't get to use this much because the hoplites cost too much food early on."
Ok, thanks to everyone who has said they wish to participate in a forum party! Tomorrow the games will be starting at 7am EDT (Noon GMT, 8pm SGT) Sorry for it being early for the Americans but I want to make sure our Singaporean friends get at least 1 game in! The party will run for as long as their are people so get practising because tomorrow all hell will be let loose!
Worthplaying have held off for a while now about reviewing Back to War. However they certainly have picked up on all of the great qualities of the game giving it an impressive 7.5/10! One of the few things we ever really heard about cossacks was about graphics however from the section below you can see that sprites are still classed as good looking
The graphics are pretty nice to look at. The environments, although a little repetitive, are pretty good-looking. Water looks nice, trees are good, grass is fine, and high fields of wheat are cool, especially when you can see people walking around in them. The character animation is certainly nice, with scurrying little peasants and galloping horses and whatnot. They look like little men on a battlefield, frankly, and it's pretty darn cool to watch.
Big Huge Games has just released a very interesting behind the scenes article on the processes they used to create the incredible number of unique buildings that are included in the game.
Our final count was over two hundred individual buildings, each with its own unique function and flavor. Every unique "building set" presented its own challenges and sometimes it was difficult to decide on a style for a certain culture, but in the end we were always surprised and excited by what we had made. The building team hopes you enjoy discovering all the little details we have put into the buildings and that you will spot something new each time you play Rise of Nations. - Ted Terranova
You can read the full article here. Be sure to check out the second page for a few sketches and renders of the buildings including a new version of the Terra Cotta army seen below.
Screenshots from 2 different upcoming siegelets, The Elemental and The Isle of Bau Len has been posted at Siegeworks.
The new Elemental screenshot, showing a view of Jericho, can be found here and the 8 screenshots of The Isle of Bau Len can be found here.
Trailstorm-Radeem has also posted new screenshots of the upcoming expansion of The Circle of Lorent. This week's shots are showing of some new monsters, weapons, and textures, and can be found at Radeem.com.
Archangel passed by our forums to post some more updates on the developing remake of ESO.com and the 1.05 patch. ESO.com will probably take a week or so longer to open, and the next patch has been delayed to around the end of April. Here's the scoop:
"Patch 1.05 Status: - The AOM Patch Team is making good progress on the patch. This patch includes quite a few bugs fixes. As such it's going to require allot of testing to ensure we don't add more bugs in the progress and everything works. I wouldn't look for this patch before the end of April (Maybe sooner - but I don't want to get your hopes up . -- -- -- User-made random map XML files can now specify rollover help text. -- Made Priests and War Elephants better.
ESO Webpage Redesign: - Looking good, but also we want to spend a little more time on this. Maybe just a week longer, but will give a better update next week."
These things have been showing up more recently, this one in particular give AoM a 91% as well as their Star Game Award. Not bad, here's an excerpt:
"The ancient Greeks knew how to live didn’t they? Ancient tales full of heroes slaying multi-headed beasts whilst the Gods had huge orgies full of virgin maidens whilst raining down terror from above whenever they good pissed off with someone, or bored. Now whatever your opinion on ancient mythology, you’ve got to admit it does make a rather funky setting for a strategy game."
Folks here's a bunch of Italians fansites with a bunch more screenshots. Couple of interesting ones I saw what looks like a WW2 style German staffcar, and another one has what looks like a Tornado Attack Jet.
PCeye.it (Italian) posts Tenaka’s preview of RoN with ten screenshots
Fifteen RoN screenshots can now be found at PC.multiplayer.it (Italian) also it seems the same 15 are also at Next Game (also Italian).
MTV very recently aired a show that followed around various gamers including fatal1ty, world-renowned best PC gamer. I believe the show was called True life: I'm a Gamer and no doubt will be airing again this weekend for US fans. I strongly recommend any serious gamer to watch it. How many times do gamers hit mass media apart from The Sims? Follow fatal1ty win his 3rd championship, the gaming heaven/hell of 6 men and many games, and few other delights.
Tsunami Studios sent me word that they have been revived. Make it short and sweet by giving what they said:
Tsunami Studios, originally known for their team and indie projects based on Asian Civilizations for the Age of Kings series, has reopened it's doors today. After what turned out to be months of website downtime, moving servers, etc., Tsunami Studios is relaunching with a new look and focus! With a keen focus on the new strategy games available, Tsunami Studios, unfortunately, will not be able to comply fully with the original "Asian Based Civ Design Team" focus, as many of the new games do not involve such civilizations. Tsunami Studios is proud to be working on projects for the following titles: Empire Earth Age of Mythology The Age of Kings Series The Age of Empire Series Stronghold
Please feel free to visit regularly, as news, new projects, articles and new members will be announced often. Once again, Tsunami Studios is looking for excellent designers and scripters. If you are interested in joining Tsunami Studios, please visit the "Join Us" link on the main site.
Good luck to Tsunami Studios and hopefully we'll be some great EE campaigns. My email box is always open if anyone else wants some EE/E:DMW news posted.
A few of the guys and girls out there have mentioned how they wished that we had more organised games at CH. What I'd like to know is whether we ought to go back to having the legendary forum parties from long ago? To state your opinions check out my thread HERE
Forumer Celois was nosing around in the game data files and brought to light something I found rather interesting. Specifically a disused data file seemed to indicate the possibility that earlier in AoM's development, minor gods gave bonuses, perhaps in addition or instead of technologies. For example:
Ares has granted decreased cost for your military buildings.
Artemis has granted decreased cost for your Archers.
Hathor has granted free goats for you to eat.
Nephthys has granted faster gold income.
Bragi has granted free Villagers to help you build your empire.
If you want to see the full info and comment with your thoughts, then you better click your way over to Celois' thread in the forums. (Frigg was replaced with Skadi during development, for those of you confused by that name among the Norse gods.)
Tsunami Studios, originally known for their team and indie projects based on Asian Civilizations for the Age of Kings series, has reopened it's doors today. After what turned out to be months of website downtime, moving servers, etc., Tsunami Studios is relaunching with a new look and focus!With a keen focus on the new strategy games available, Tsunami Studios, unfortunately, will not be able to comply fully with the original "Asian Based Civ Design Team" focus, as many of the new games do not involve such civilizations. Tsunami Studios is proud to be working on projects for the following titles: Empire Earth Age of Mythology The Age of Kings Series The Age of Empires Series Stronghold
As announced by Inquizative in the Scenario Design Forum. Please go here to comment or congratulate.
Well, for the month of February, at least. It got 15th place for the sales of last month - one ahead of Warcraft 3 and two places ahead of AoK - which isn't all that bad, considering that it's been going against brand new major games recently such as C&C: Generals and Ultima Online. Here's the list of the top 20 games for the month of February:
"1 Command & Conquer: Generals - Electronic Arts $46 2 Battlefield 1942: Road To Rome Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $19 3 Sim City 4 - Electronic Arts $48 4 Unreal II: The Awakening - Infogrames Entertainment $46 5 Ultima Online: Age Of Shadows - Electronic Arts $30 6 The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts $42 7 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $27 8 Master of Orion 3 - Infogrames Entertainment $49 9 Battlefield 1942 - Electronic Arts $45 10 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Ubisoft $47 11 MS Zoo Tycoon - Microsoft $27 12 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - Infogrames Entertainment $28 13 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $21 14 NASCAR Racing 2003 Season - Vivendi Universal Publishing $46 15 MS Age Of Mythology - Microsoft $44 16 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos - Vivendi Universal Publishin $44 17 MS Age Of Empires 2: Age of Kings - Microsoft $24 18 The Sims: Vacation Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $28 19 Sponge Bob Square Pants: Operation Krabby Patty - THQ Inc $19 20 Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets - Electronic Arts $29"
Since the weekly top sales listing only lists the top 10, AoM was not on the list, though I think it's safe to assume that it's still around the range of 15th. Here's the top 10 list for the week ending March 8th:
"1 Command & Conquer: Generals - Electronic Arts $47 2 Master of Orion 3 - Infogrames Entertainment $40 3 The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts $44 4 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Ubisoft $47 5 MS Zoo Tycoon - Microsoft $26 6 Battlefield 1942 - Electronic Arts $47 7 Sim City 4 - Electronic Arts $49 8 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $29 9 Battlefield 1942: Road To Rome Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $20 10 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $21"
A new war against Iraq has started today. Many different opinions, many different feelings, but it is indeed war. And as crony as it says, knowledge is power. To not argue, lets just hope for a better future. There're a ton of places to voice out, but there's also many threads in the community forum. Just keep it civil like you would when talking to a friend.
The NetCampaign official page has come up at TTA, check that out for any more information you're needing about the tournament. Later this week the first campaign will be announced, as well as signups; so be sure to keep updated at AoMH or TTA.
The developing ESO.com is almost finished with its new shiny community features and whatnot. MFO recieved a message from Archangel, which is as follows:
Will be release a new ESOnline Community Webpage early next week, with a special download.
All I can say right now..
A special download? I wonder what that is, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Tsunami Studios - one of the top design teams for the Age series - has reopened their doors. The new site looks great, best of luck goes out to the team with it! Here's what Inquizitive - the team leader - has to say about the reopening:
Tsunami Studios, originally known for their team and indie projects based on Asian Civilizations for the Age of Kings series, has reopened it's doors today. After what turned out to be months of website downtime, moving servers, etc., Tsunami Studios is relaunching with a new look and focus! With a keen focus on the new strategy games available, Tsunami Studios, unfortunately, will not be able to comply fully with the original "Asian Based Civ Design Team" focus, as many of the new games do not involve such civilizations. Tsunami Studios is proud to be working on projects for the following titles:
Age of Mythology The Age of Empire Series The Age of Kings Series Empire Earth Stronghold
Please feel free to visit regularly, as news, new projects, articles and new members will be announced often. Once again, Tsunami Studios is looking for excellent designers and scripters. If you are interested in joining Tsunami Studios, please visit the "Join Us" link on the main site.
Empires Center has new screenshots of several of the Empires units including Korean Cavalry, so far my favorite. They also have a new interview with Rick Goodman himself, the founder and lead designer of Empires along with Empire Earth. Most of it covers entering the gaming business and reactions to Age of Empires. Here's a small clip of it:
The game design process is one of creativity and communication. Creativity is required in order to devise the game mechanics and communication is required so that all other team members can implement the design. You must communicate the look and style of the graphics to artists. You must communicate every tiny detail of game play to the programmers who will implement the features. You must communicate precisely how features will work to the test team so they can verify that the game is working as intended.
Rise of Nation Center has posted an image of the techtree from the beta2. No numbers but you get a good idea of the levels of progression and the actual graphics used in the game.
Two of StArLiGhT's - the top deathmatch clan on ESO - members have recently been interviewed by AoMMatch. They are StArLiGhT_Frank (the top ranked ESO DM'er) and StArLiGhT_Burnt (the clan leader). The interview basically just went over Deathmatch gameplay, here's a snippet:
"Grim: Does the StArLiGhT clan get to see each other much on ESO, to play team games and communicate?
StArLiGhT_Frank: Well in a short reply, yes we do. Mostly I see Dream, Burnt and Shadow, and I also see Fury and Draco on ESO a lot as we actually live in the same country. Some of the other guys like Realm and Ziggy I hardly ever see on, but that is mainly because of our totally different time zones. In fact we just won our latest 2v2 clan tournament held at MFO, while I wasn't playing in that tournament because of the time zones, I was able to watch the final recorded game."
RoN Alliance (Alliance Francophone) presents a video of a fierce Information Age battle ending in a nuclear explosion! This is the first of a series of videos RoN Alliance is planning for the coming weeks. Video is 1 minute 22 seconds, 16 MB, avi and in divx formats.
Firing Squad’s Jakub Wojnarowicz previews RoN: “Depending on the difficulty level, a match in Rise of Nations can be a leisurely romp to see who can win by Wonders of the World, or a hair-loss inducing juggling act between military, economic and technological advancements.” Article is three pages and included 18 screenshots.
Ensemble Studios lead programmer Rob "Xemu" Fermierstopped by the forums today to comment on the current hot topic...patch 1.05! To be more precise, he commented on the lack of details from ES about what we can expect in the patch.
These sorts of problems constraints aren't at all obvious to most fans... and rightly so! Who wants to worry about QA processes when you could be hurling fiery death down on your enemies?
Xemu goes into quite some detail about the patching process - for those interested minds, head over to his thread in the forums to hear what he has to say.
Angel Zen has informed me that he's finished making an update to our downloads section; one that increases the preciseness of rating downloads as well as separating each category more to make looking around easier. Here's the details:
Decimal Points: 4.8 vs. 5 There was a bug in the system that rounded up averages instead of displaying them with 1 decimal point. This has been fixed.
Best of AOMH You can now find the best of AOMH and new releases for each category by visiting the main downloads page (http://aom.heavengames.com/downloads) This is a temporary solution while we work on incorporating feedback and ideas into the downloads system.
Forumer Avenger_ recently posted his confusion about the origins of the Son of Osiris god power in AoM. (After all, wasn't Horus the son of Osiris?) Greg "DeathShrimp" Streetdropped by to comment, as well as give a brief insight into the game design process.
This question illustrates one of the common misperceptions about game development. In the most ideal world, the designers would map everything out and no other work would begin until we were done. Then all the code and art would be added without changing anything and the game would be done.
I wish. :) What really happens is that design changes over time, based on play feedback, technical or artistic limitations. We tried many different implementations of the minor god systems. (I believe the DVD with the collectors' edition has some old techtrees on it.) In this case, the Son of Osiris godpower was designed long before Horus was added as a minor god. There are plenty of other examples like this, the Dionysus - Centaur thing was one that still bothers me, and we were very close to fixing it, but were just too worried about all the extra bugs that might cause that late into the project. [Note from TSD - the Centaur was supposed to be Dionysus' MU, not Hermes'.] Then again, this was our first time with a lot of new systems (GPs, MUs, minor gods) so it came out pretty well all things considered.
The Petsuchos isn't fake. :) Though like Wadjet, the crocodile with a sun on its head is often considered a god. He was a late replacement for some Apep or Ammit like beast that we could never develop a good look for.
Particularly with Egyptian mythology, there is no canon you can go to for the official word.
Want to comment? Head over to this thread in the forums. By the way, does someone want to investigate the collector's edition DVD? It's news to me if there's goodies on there. TSD would do so, but he doesn't have a DVD drive, unfortunately. Bleh.
Graphically, Age of Mythology is top notch...the effects for god powers and myth units make them very exciting to watch. Age of Mythology contains plenty of nice touches, such the ability of some myth units to send a human soldier flying through the air, which will literally make you smile with glee. Most of all, Age of Mythology can safely lay claim to having the most fluid looking human units. If you've ever cringed at Empire Earth's rag-doll infantry, you'll know what I mean.
To check out the full review, click here. Thanks Svede for sending this one in.
eX_WOLF - one of the top players in our ladder - has taken the time to write an overview to Loki; going over the god in each age, as well as how its military fares against other civilizations. Though Loki is looking like it's possibly to be eclipsed by Set and be toned down by the patch some time in the future, it's still being used on ESO the most. Be sure to take a look at the article, here's a snippet:
"I will continue assuming you decided to do a Loki rush. There will be two main things going on in classical: a) Economy and b) Military. In this article I will try to focus more on the military aspect of the game. But as a general note for economy, it is important to keep your TC producing villagers or dwarves. At first build Dwarves to save food for Hersirs, but then switch to villager production.
I choose Heimdall as my minor god for executing the rush. I believe he is superior in most cases. His God power Undermine allows you to take out a wall if your enemy has walled himself in, or a tower. If he has neither, save it for when you plan on taking out his TC if game goes to that point. It can also be used later on Forts. The Einherjar is one of the biggest weapons in a Loki rush. He is very powerful and good against buildings. His draw backs are his slow speed and vulnerability to archers." - Loki Overview by eX_WOLF
Thanks to Cherub Aetius about this piece of news. IamShiauTz has overtaken Mr414 in supremacy on ESO, and is on top of the pile; ahead for both Geek and Mr414 by 5 points. Looks like the top spot on ESO is changing a lot more frequently recently, I wonder who will take it next. Here's the current top 10; to see how things stand now:
Thanks to PAoM for this: A new game map website - MapShack - has opened. It covered several strategy games, including AoM. Be sure to check it out for things concerning map design and downloading.
It turns out the 5th patch will take a little longer to be released, as it's needed to be tested and worked out some more. Here's the scoop from ES:
"ES is working hard on patch 1.05, we are still testing and QA'ing the patch, looks like a couple of weeks or so before it will be out. Just a couple of the things in this patch.... -- Fixed an alt-tab crash that was most commonly seen with AMD machines. -- Fixed a pair of bugs that were helping the Norse naval game out too much.
more testing is needed.... Want to make sure what we are fixing is not breaking other things.."
You might remember this a couple weeks ago; Wulfgar_the_Red at AoM Holland has been working hard on his analyses of how efficient each of the units in AoM are. Well, he's finally completed his work, and you can find it in the site's strategy section. Here's a snippet:
"In terms of human Hack Attack I don’t think people will be too surprised by Hippikon and Hoplites in the two top slots on base MER. The Counter units, Prodromos, Hypaspist and Peltast suffer from weak performance against all but their targets, and their low ranking is perhaps not surprising.
Cowboy from AoM Universe has informed me that he's interviewed x2_chromage the former #1 DeathMatcher on ESO. The interview goes over info on chromage himself, along with DM gaming. Here's an excerpt from the interview:
"Cowboy says: I notice your preferred civ, is Loki. What are your reasons for this? x2_Chromage says: in deathmatch loki firegiants x2_Chromage says: if you use them right x2_Chromage says: you can't be stopped x2_Chromage says: in supremacy i prefer posedian though"
Or so says BravenIrish in a forum thread. Yes, you heard right; this BravenIrish is the same legendary webmaster of the old Age of Kings Battlefield (thanks to Sunshine's investigative abilities, you can find an old archived version of the website here; notice the -1223 days until AoK's release). He's broken under the strain of the need to be in the Age community and is back to posting in our forums.
And what a post he's made; throughout a series of tests, he's proven that Norse buildings are in no way weaker than Egyptian or Greek buildings. This is due to the fact that it costs them absolutely no villager seconds to build anything, it only costs the seconds that are needed to get the resources for the building. If anything, they're better than the other civilizations' because of that. Here's a snippet of his thread:
"NORSE House - NO villager seconds Besides the initial cost of 40 wood, take your pick of either of the following and add it... Food = 0 Gold = 0 Wood = 0 EACH ONE
Barracks - NO villager seconds Besides the initial cost of 110 wood, take your pick of either of the following and add it... Food = 0 Gold = 0 Wood = 0 EACH ONE
Hillfort - NO villager seconds Besides the initial cost of 200 wood, 200 gold and 5 Favor, take your pick of either of the following and add it... Food = 0 Gold = 0 Wood = 0 EACH ONE
WOW!
I Freaking DARE any exclusive Norse player to ever...EVER say that thier buildings are "Weak"! I'm also very tempted to throw in the one handed salute to anyone who says Egyptian have free buildings. If anyone has free buildings..it's Norse."
You can comment on the subject and read the rest of the post here.
It saddens me to have to announce that Gustavia has decided to hand in her wings. I'm sure we all remember her hard work on the the City Builder sites, starting early in Pharaoh Heaven's history, the incredible involvement in the Pharaohlympics and the many and varied bits of fun she's putin on the forums.
Thanks for all you've done to make these sites the succes they are.
You can add your own words of appreciation in The Town Square
The South American civilizations are some of the most enigmatic that ever existed in the history of the World. So continuing along the same line of long lost civilizations, that we had in the last Nations feature. This week we present the Inca.
Here's an excerpt:
The Inca began as a warlike tribe inhabiting the Andeas Mountains and forged an Empire that became the largest native American civilization that ever existed.... In Rise of Nations, the Inca is provided with a powerful melee type light infantry called the Inti clubmen starting from the classical age. The Inca was also called the People of the Sun. Not only because of their religion but also for the vaste amount of gold and silver that their land yielded. This inspires the Inca in Rise of Nations to gain the Power of Gold, which gives them the ability to accumulate wealth in addition to metal when mining.
Check out the article here, and if you missed the other Nations, you can check out the full list here!
Alliance Francophone has put together the first of a series of stunning graphic charts of nations’ units displayed by age and production building. The first two-page graphic is of the French units.
GameSpot interviews Brian Reynolds as the game approaches it's final stretch. Here's an excerpt:
Right now we're in 'final polish' mode--all that's left to do is fix all the bugs, be sure that the performance is good on all the systems we run on, and finish up any final gameplay balancing that we think is necessary.</
ero Would has recently managed to create Excel versions of all the Pharaoh and Cleo career mission maps. These are sure to be a must have for the meticulous city planner. 
These things have been showing up more recently, 
