For anyone looking to join the talented team at Scn Punk, you'll definately want to take note of the latest news there. Here's the description of the position that Ex-T gave:
"For all those who wished to join AoK PUNK team this is your chance!!! We are looking for someone who can show deep interest in the AoK map making community, and can find some good news here and there and post them. YOU MUST HAVE: -Fluent English. -Great Writing skills. -Great knowledge of AoK Map Making community. -Great Map Making Skills. -Be a well known person(At least 2 maps in AoK Blacksmith and at least 6 months of 'AoKH Map Making' forum posting. RESPONSABILITIES: -Posting Daily(Every Second day will do) AoK PUNK news with community content(like new masterpiece in blacksmith, new design team appear, some design team is hiring, new Best AoK Map, new contest etc,etc.)"
Pay a visit to those punks for more information on how you can get involved in their team, or check out their latest scenario creations! ...the bigger your foot, the more doors you can open...ol' family proverb... ; )
Remember last month, when all the EE sites were asking you to send an email to PCGamer? Well, it worked! Empire Earth was featured in the "Waiting is the Hardest Part" section of the monthly magazine, PCGamer. According to Sierra's Empire Earth site, these were the game totals:
20% Empire Earth 11% Duke Nukem Forever 8% Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos 6% Team Fortress 2 5% Neverwinter Nights
Lets start sending those emails in, and get Empire Earth on next months list! Simply send and email to eyewitness@pcgamer.com with the subject line "Waiting is the Hardest Part" and "Empire Earth" in the body.
Organizers for the 2001 World Cyber Games have announced the list of candidate games for their upcoming event! The RTS games up for a spot in the competition are The Conquerors and Starcraft Broodwar, along with the expected first person shooter titles like Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament. The final picks will be announced in mid-May.
You may recall the WCG event in Korea last year which featured $200,000 in prize money, and top players in many different games facing off against one another. That event included Age of Kings as one of the games involved. Keep your ear to the ground for more information on this year's event! ...thanks to Theta for pointing me to the list... ; )
While we wait for Angel Washizu to finish up his article on the recent 2001 Fanstock event, check out blue_myriddn's Fanstock recap. He's covered the big line-up of Microsoft Games that are currently under development and shares his experiences playing a few.
Wrapping things up elsewhere, the AoE Center crew has announced the winners in their contest, bringing it to a close. Pop by to see who takes home the AoE Collectors Edition! ...seem to be sold out of those in stores around my place... ; )
EmpireEarth.com has updated their screenshot of the week with a brand-spanking new screen, which I don't believe anyone has seen before. Also, they have a 9 meg picture of the last screenshot of the week, and it is huge. It looks like a Bronze Age town under siege (Troy maybe???) it has a nice view of the Colossium as well as a cool town and army.
No, SNUFF isn't drunk talk. The Tavern will enlighten all on that strategy post as well as the highs and lows from our most recent Forum Party, complete with a couple of gory pictures! There were a swath of brutal fights and more to come next Saturday. See you on the battlefield! ...where even Angels go down in flames... ; )
I am pleased to announce our two newest staff members at AoW Heaven: Cherub Cay and Cherub Blackmane. You will find each of them moderating several of our forums. Click here to give them a quick "Congratulations!"
Dara-Lynn has sent four screenshots out to the public from EE University. For those of you who don't know week two (the last week) of EEU has already ended with all the expert players leaving home. These screenshots were taken from a 3 v 3 game. Here is the description of the game the screenshots were taken from:
These are screenshots taken during the play of a 3 vs. 3 game played at EE University. These screenshots show several rival cities under development during the Dark Ages. During the game Stalin created a vast farming empire (pictured in one of the screenshots) who's economy supported a large army of War Elephants. These Elephants were used to counter early incursions by enemy Archers. VG_Ranger and Lightning_CN pushed an early attack with Javeline and bowmen against Player_Theta while Stalin and Anne_asr7 supported with Swordsmen and Cataphracts. Several epic battles ensued throughout the Western and Southern portions of the map, before the tide turned in favor of VG_Ranger, Lightning_CN and Jonny, who emerged victorious.
Our hearty congrats to RomanGladius who managed to win the DM Forum Championship! There was some serious competition in this event, and he faced long time DMer orangepanther in the finals.
Keep an eye on this post which will soon contain links to all of the Champs recorded games from this tournament, and or drop in to offer your congrats to the winner. ...mystery prize is a date with me...your mystery date...it's all very mysterious... ; )
With all the heated debates going on in our Age of Mythology Forum, Last_Knight lightened things up by posting the first AgeToon involving AoM. Check out the great work by this knight, as he incorporates units from AoM and AoK into a typical toony scene.
If you're a brave soul, you can jump into the many AoM debate threads there as well! ...maybe after E3 I'll have courage enough to wade in... ; )
Well probably most importantly and completely unknown to me until now, Age of Wonders Heaven has opened their doors with Angel Draco leading the site. Be sure to drop by the forums there and say hi.
Cossacks Heaven will soon be ending their contest on April 30. Come on guys all you need to do is fill out a form, and you could get a free game! I also heard rumors you still have a really big chance of winning
Also HG has been expanding a lot since last year which means it costs a lot more money. Help us out by buying your next game, book, video, computer equipment, or whatever you need through one of our partners. You can see all our partners and some of the good products they sell at HeavenGames Mercent Partners. Doing so could mean less ads and us staying around longer to provide you with the most and best news and information.
Co-Lead Designer of AOM, Greg "Deathshrimp" Street answered some of the recent fan criticisms of ES's decision to move in the mythology realm:
Critic: We heard there was 18 civs, compared to the 3 cultures that we've heard about so far for AOM. DeathShrimp: But you didn't know about the 13 civs (18 in the Xpack) until relatively close to ship.
Critic: ES also released a little bit of info about AOK (and not just screen shots to gawk at) on each of the civs over time. (such as the UUs and such). They've did nothing of the sort for AOM but 3 screenshots of boats so far, and we don't even know what's fighting half the time in them.
DeathShrimp: That's how you play the game--release a little bit over time. Think about how movies are marketed--the first trailer you see is probably just the film's name, or a single image. You don't get many of the details until shortly before the film comes out, and even then, script details are protected so that there will still be some surprise left. As cautious as we were about AOK, I still remember some fans saying "Well, we know everything about the game now. I will be a little dissappointed when I finally get it and realize I already know it all."
Critic: There are historical buffs out there that don't want to run around with Ra, or Zeus throwing lightning at peoples towns. But rather having historical units such as longbowmen and TKs, as well as an historical setting and campaigns so you can actually feel how they battled. I still admire ES with AOK, since they were able to stick to history and still make it balanced much like midevil battles were, compared to how easy it is to make a fantasy RTS game now days. (making up 1-3 races to battle humans, such as in warcraft, starcraft, starwars and such is a lot easier to balance than the 18 civs in TC)
DeathShrimp: we realize history buffs like our games. We have no interest in alientating them. AOE was never a historical simulation. It was a game with some historical window dressing.
Critic: A lot of people admired the 2D hand drawn graphics that AOK had (such as I). 3D is very common and after 30 or so "3D graphics! You must buy because it's 3D!!" games its newness wears off. But, AOK was able to show that an old school graphics can still hold in the top 3 for months. AOM is pure 3D, which will make it blend in with the croud of new gen games.
DeathShrimp: I always said in interviews that we weren't interested in going 3D until we could make the art look as detailed as we could in 2D. That day has arrived. (Most) consumers are too sophisticated to buy a game just because it is 3D.
Critic: Many people that loved AOE and AOK for its history were turned off when ES stated that it would be "a treat for history and fantasy fans". In this, some people that like history and fantasy assumed that it was going to be another AOE type game with some fantasy units, which it isn't at all. Each culture has different base units and you must use gods to win, which a pure history fan won't like using Thor to crush a sea monster. (don't tell me you won't need to, since we all know we'll have to use gods or you're screwed).
DeathShrimp: We have released virtually no information about how the game will be played. Even if we did release a lot of detail, it would likely change over time. Fans still give us a hard time about cut AOK features, such as Outlaws, that were announced too early.
Critic: Not everyone can play multiplayer, and like to enjoy the in game random map settings as well as the campaigns. I have a junky connection with a 56K that won't even run on the zone, so I can care less on how much net support it has. Not everyone has a high powered server with a Cable that can support 8 people in a game at once. So far EE has stated that it will have campaigns as well as random map settings. So far neither of these are heard for AOM. For all we know it can be a multiplayer only game (which I doubt ES would do to us, but it is possable).
DeathShrimp: By far, the majority of our players play single player. We support multiplayer because those players tend to play the game for a longer period of time. We would be stupid to not make single-player a major focus of our game, as we always have.
You seem to be judging AOM based on tiny about of information you have heard about it and jumping to conclusions that the game won't have certain features because you haven't heard about them, or that the game won't be fun because we are forsaking our roots. You would think our reputation would be worth a little more than that by now.
I know waiting sucks. It sucks for us too. But all will be revealed in time and then I hope and expect a lot of the doomsayers will change their minds.
Very interesting. It annoys me that people think ES should make one type of game, and that's it. They are a creative bunch, and it hurts the fans in the long run if we pressure ES to stick to one theme or genre. Just my opinion, though.
Jordie (who is now back home) from Empire Earth NC sent me word that there's a new Empire Earth preview in a popular Australian gaming magazine called Hyper. Since I'm more than a day's travel away from Australia, we'll have to wait until Jordie gets a chance to scan the pages. It is also suppose to have screenshots although not sure if they'ld come up well.
Jace, webmaster of Empire Earth X has released a little bit of information on his Project. The bit of information is the prologue which sounds a lot like a campaign. This was what Jace said in his newspost:
Welcome the universe of The Project. What is The Project? Oh, sure I'll tell you. It's the coolest thing to come around since pea soup. Even though no one but The Project's team knows what it really is, it now has a background story, The Tiamat Saga; written by none other than yours truly. The story is enticing, even bone chilling. And this is only the prologue. We'll have more chapters coming along soon, so be sure to check The Project's main site often. I must insist that you read the whole thing if you are going to read it, because you simply don't get the same effect if you don't read it all at once. Here's the first paragraph: THE TIAMAT SAGA - PROLOGUE
It was once considered that the universe was timeless, an eternal realm for the heavens and...
I can proudly say EE Heaven is the first to release this Bronze Age movie to the public. The nice folks at SSS gave everyone who attended Empire Earth University a CD with the movie inside it. It seems shorter than past ones, but it is still a really great movie. It shows a few battlescenes as well as many zoomed in shots. No doubt once EE is out people will be having fun making some fun movies. As always the release date at the end of the movie is still September so that must be the set date. Head to Empire Earth Heaven's movies page to go download it and hopefully other fan sites will also upload it. Also discuss the movie in this forum thread..........well that is one movie down, how many more?
As Angel Thunder mentioned, I spent the last few days in Redmond getting a look at Microsoft's impressive line up of upcoming game titles. Among them were Sigma, Dungeon Siege, Mech Commander 2, MS Train Simulator, MS Flight Simulator 2002, Zoo Tycoon (wait 'til I tell you about the escapes ), and the XBOX's Halo. I'm shooting to have my full recap done by mid next week.
I got to meet a lot of new people, including MFO's blue_myrddn, Darren from SiegeWorks, Homeworld, and now Sigma, designer Alex Garden, Dragon from Strategy Planet, Pike from Relic News and even BILL GATES's employees. Haha tricked you there, but I did see his house again. I took a pic of Mike "Archangel" McCart's Ensemble Studios leather flight jacket. Unfortunately, I don't think it came out very well Oh well, maybe Mike will take a shot of it and post it up on the ES site. Many thanks goes out to Microsoft, Ensemble Studios, Relic, Gas Powered Games, and everyone else involved in the trip. Huge thanks goes to Steve, Leslie, De Ette, and Jon from Arbuthnot Communcations and April McKee from Microsoft for putting together a great trip. As I said before, I'll have a significant write up for you guys by mid next week.
Well, this was EEU week. And most of the news I am reporting is in relation with EEU. Not much happened in the forums not relating to EEU either..so don't expect alot of threads to be in this news.
Community News Well, alot..and I mean ALOT of EEU Articles, EEU pictures and reports came out this week. But, I have organized all the EEU related objects for you..so you can read each one without having to search every site for them.
I most likely forgot someone, if I did I am sorry. But I didn't find any other articles or EEU related things around.That may just look like a few sites,yes, but some sites wrote more than one article. Some very long..
Other News Siera EE Page has changed their top border picture ... I would show you but for some odd reason the image HTML isn't working . Sorry..
Forum News Well...not much has happened in the forums this week. Other than a thread made by Rasher concerning EEU. You can find that here . The OD forums are active, but the threads that are there..you cannot really tell if they are top talk or just a passing faze..but none the less the OD forum is the most active...and I suggest you go take a visit their sometime soon. Right behind the OD forum would be General Discussion. But...I cannot see anything really there as of now that has not been done before..or I have no said already . Sorry guys...
Well that ends this week's Community News. As you can see, it was mostly EEU..but next week I am sure the forums will be more alive with interesting topics for me to report to you...until next time..
As I was cruising around EE sites today I saw an article in EE Zone about the June article of PC Games magazine, which has a 12 page article about EE, as well as a VIDEO. We don't know yet how long the EE movie is (it's part of a 1.3 GB DVD), but I put a post on the official EE site to ask Rick about it.
PS. Anyone who knows German plz tell us what the heck these sites say, Babelfish is so garbled I can hardly read it.
Most games are released in the region where they are developed before the rest of the world gets their hands on them. Cossacks, for example, was released months earlier in Europe than the US. Our good friends over at Sierra want to make sure that is not the case with Empire Earth. Guy Welch, a Sierra employee, made this post in the Sierra EE Forums:
The *objective* for Empire Earth is to have a world-wide simultaneous ship. That means all localized versions hit the street the same day. There will most likely be inconsistencies in particular regions, but the incredible popularity of Empire Earth warrants a world-wide simultaneous ship. And that includes Australia. : )
Its good to have a clear date in sight for Empire Earth. After all the hard work thats been put into the game, the staff at Stainless Stell might just get to relax come this September. According to the most recent movie, the release date will be September. But thats not all! Yesterday over at Sierra's EE Forums, this was confirmed by B Donor, a developer at SSS. You can check out the thread here.
For those of you using the Game Voice or thinking of trying it out, there is a great big upgrade available that adds and improves features. To name a few, they have improved the voice recognition software allowing for faster responces to your commands and have added server support, which saves on bandwidth while allowing for larger chat sessions.
To download the new version, including an updated version of their free software (Game Voice Share), you can snag it all here from the official site.
It's important to note that users who have v1.3 will not be able to communicate with Game Voice users who have any of the previous versions.
If you've got a Game Voice and are looking for folks to chat and play with, check out the Game Voice Forums. ...a great place to find tech advice too... ; )
Triumph Studios Programmer, Josh Farley, recently responded to some questions about mod packs and total conversion utilities for AoW1. He also hinted at a more powerful map editor for AoW2 and also plans for AoW2 expansion pack material (something AoW1 never got).
Q: I was wondering if Triumph will release utilities allowing AOW1 to be fully modded. If they would, either publicly or in a more controlled, licensed format, I would be very interested in putting a team together to form a true total conversion, modifying the rule set and other basic aspects of AOW. . . .what I'm hoping for is something akin to Valve's Worldcraft Editor, allowing for changes in the basic structure of the game, rather than just the constituent components.
A: I don't make the decisions on these kinds of issues, but I can say that the problem with "total conversions" support are many...
Time - it takes a great deal of it to make our internal development tools usable by outside parties. Sure, we could dump them on people w/no instructions and no "user-friendliness", but we don't want to do that, as any product we put out there reflects on us. We would also have to add an ENORMOUS amount of code to support every possible setting players could enter, and make every aspect of the game "open" instead of "locked in" (hard-coded)...
Compatibility - tracking down user problems is hard enough, w/o having to worry about which of an infinite number of user modifications they're running on their system. There are ways to solve this, but they add to #1...
Expansions - we would like to be able to produce additional AoW2 products after the initial game, w/o having to compete w/numerous free products on the net. The AoW2 engine is possibly the most advanced engine of any game in our genre, and we'd hate to have to abandon it prematurely because our own "open" system makes it unprofitable to continue development on it...
You may or may not agree with this reasoning, but these, and a few other lesser reasons, are what we're thinking. Of the 3 issues I mentioned, the biggy is #1... TIME. We will already be spending a great deal of it on the AoW2 Editor, which will hopefully incorporate everything that 95% of our players would ever want. Spending the additional time on "opening up" the system, would force us to spend less time on other aspects of AoW2, which would hurt the game much more than help it...
Making a game is a balancing act. It would be great to be able to put every option for everyone, but the developers who try to do that usually end up serving you french fries with your drive-thru order...
Q: There's a lot of potential for AOW2 to allow for the modding scene that existed with Half-Life, thereby extending the lifespan of the game immensely. As I understand it, AOW2 and AOW1 are similar in structure, therefore experience with modding AOW1 would allow a team to be well prepared for modding AOW2. Make sense?
A: The Half-Life model isn't really applicable here, as FPS games sell in much larger numbers than games in our genre, allowing them the financial leeway to experiment... We intend to allow a much greater level of control and storytelling in the AoW2 editor, all controlled with an extremely user-friendly interface, which should appeal to a greater number of people than tools that only accomplished programmers can use/understand...
Q:What about the editor? Assuming you'll be doing something similar to AoW2, would it be too difficult to allow map makers to "set custom map" for specific cities, dungeons and the like?
A: That would require editing of the TC Maps, which is not likely to be supported. TC Maps are largely generated dynamically, and the ones with preset layouts also have dynamic elements and specific setup requirements. They would also require another set of Multi-Player compatibility checks, and so on... We have plans to increase the power mapmakers have over the game in many areas, but this is unlikely to be one of them...
Q: While you say that it wouldn't be likely or possible that we'd have an open system, could we perhaps be allowed to tweak stats and skills for custom maps? Inherent flying? Inherent Spell Casting V, and all that?
A: You can customize heroes & leaders already in AoW1... as for other tweaks, settings, and "RPG" aspects, we'll be trying very hard to incorporate as many of these kinds of features as we can. Many will make it for certain, since we'll need them for our own Campaign.
Tonight is the night for the final Zone tourney for April! There's already over 300 Agers registered for this event, but if you're looking to throw your hat into the ring you'd better hurry. For more information or to register, check out the Zone Tourney Page, and as always good luck to you! ...that must be a typo in the settings, post Imp RM? Naw...couldn't be... ; )
It's certaily too early for previews, but Computer Games Online has posted a short article that looks at the situation Ensemble Studios finds themselves in. Venturing out from under the Microsoft umbrella with their newest RTS game, still under development:
"The setting for RTS III will be during what Ensemble is calling an "age of mythology." You will choose a civilization and become its guiding spirit, using its heroes and cultural resources to gain world domination. With respect to mythological ties, you need to act in ways that will gain the favor of your civilization's particular gods. More "otherworldly" features will include interaction with "rare and fantastic creatures."
RTS III will be in full 3D using Ensemble's proprietary BANG! Engine which has been in development for quite a while, but also which is, not surprisingly, under wraps at this writing. Ensemble does promise "new ideas, new looks, and new features" though....
Now, we can talk franchise all we like, but so far the game has not announced a publisher. If you look at the fine print on your Age of Empires disc, though, you'll see "Age of Empires and Age of Kings are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries." It'll be interesting to see how innovative the publisher is able to become when cementing a title for this project, which is certain to extend well into the year 2002. They certainly cannot call it Myth."
There's certaily some interesting comments in there, especially that 2002 jab at the end. Through-out the article, they refer to the game as RTS III and not Age of Mythology, which suggests that either they are behind the times or saying that AoM is simply a working title that may be changed by the publisher that takes on the project. Do read the full article, and if you haven't seen the green sea monster screenshot, they've got that posted too.
Comments? Questions? Wild speculation? You know where to head, the Age of Mythology Forum. ...the article is just a day old, so I can't see them being behind the times... ; )
COSSACKS HEAVEN Update: Free Cossacks Game Contest Posted 4/25/2001 @ 11:37 AM EST by Angel ET
Only five days and counting, and five free Cossacks games will find a home with five lucky winners. Have you signed up, please check? The entry is free..it's easy, just takes a minute. Here's the special link again Enter and Win
Submit your entry and Win..best of luck to you all.
Thanks again to CDV and Heavengames for this great opportunity
He's a brave lil' guy, you have to give him that. Greg "DeathShrimp" Street dove into a thread in our Age of Mythology Forum where some Agers were voicing their displeasure over the non-historical theme of Ensemble Studios' next game. Referring to the recent press release that announced Age of Mythology, Greg said:
"Fellas, don't confuse a press release with a feature list.
We have so far announced virtually nothing about the game. Take all the numbers that you hear (about number of civs or anything else) with a grain of salt for awhile." - Greg Street
Yes, there are plenty of mysteries with regards to AoM yet to be solved. A few screenshots and a press release do not a preview make. As we get closer and closer to E3 (May 17-19), the clearer all issues regarding civs, resources, units, and the whole shabang will become. ...if I want history, I'll go here... ; )
The Angels at Cossacks Heaven send word there is only a week left to get yourself entered for a chance to win a free copy of the English version of the game! It's simply the luck of the draw, so break out your lucky bunny foot and head to their contest page. Deadline to enter is April 30 and the winners will be announced on May 1.
There are five copies of the game to be awarded, so your odds are winning should be pretty good. Best of luck!
While we're waiting for Angel Washizu and all the other webmasters to return from this year's Fanstock event at Microsoft's pad in Redmond, many of us have Age of Mythology on our minds. Washizu is likely getting a sneak peak right now of all sorts of games, but if AoM is among them he may not be able to tell us absolutely everything. No doubt though, he will have a bunch of pictures and tall tales from his trip which we will hear about upon his return.
Being one of those folks with AoM on his mind, I grabbed the AoM wallpaper from ES. I previously had the latest screenshot as the wallpaper on my desktop, and instead of giving up that great image for Thor and the new wallpaper, I combined them both. The new image is available in our downloads section and you can view a description of it here. The download of this file will start automaticly if you click here. The bitmap file is zipped, but still weighs in at 2mb. ...have a new "old" camera to take to E3...it's not digital though, I'd roll Washy for his if I could catch him... ; )
Well with the help of Strider and a few hours of work I was able to change the screenshots page. It is now 5 pages (might expand to 6 or 7 soon) long so those with slower modems don't have to wait as long. The aligned text bug has also been fixed. Pretty sure we also have more screenshots than anyone else although I still have 10-30 I have to put up. I hope you guys appreciate it, and Rasher had a few new screenshots in his EEU article.
The poll has been changed asking: "Should fan sites remove old screenshots?" I remember this was a small topic we had talked about before and for most other game sites they do. Last week's poll showed fans cared more about an active forum and lots of screenshots (they were actually tied at 24%) than anythng else. Luckily EEH is best at both
I'll start writing my EEU article today, I'm sure most of you are still reading MFOs', EENC's, and Rasher's anyway.
Remember a post a few weeks ago about a Cossacks contest? Well, you can still sign up for a chance to become the lucky owner of a copy of Cossacks. All you have to do is sign up.
The riders at Cossacks Heaven send word that there's only a week left to get yourself entered for a chance to win a free copy of the english version of the game! It's simply the luck of the draw, so break out your lucky bunny foot and head to their contest page. Deadline to enter is April 30 and the winners will be announced on May 1.
There are five copies of the game to be awarded, so your odds are winning should be pretty good. Best of luck! ...if ya don't win, the game will be on store shelves in North America in the coming days... ; )
he lucky draw for a copy of Cossacks: European Wars is still open. You can get a copy for free and all you have to do is sign up. Nothing could be easier, now could it?
That's right... although EEH may be a little behind a couple other sites in terms of speed, our full Empire Earth University Coverage is now up and running! Make sure you drop by and check out the full 4-part write-up, 16 pictures of the event, and a number of exclusive Empire Earth Screenshots!
Want to comment on the article? Head over to this post in our forums to comment, laugh, cry, or mock the pictures that show my face!
Empire Earth Command Center has gotten another EEU article, this time from Kaban who was my room mate. It isn't filled with pictures, but it is still an interesting read. Especially like the part of Kaban trying to beat everyone who came I think he beat me bad once/twice... Go read the article here.
I've been meaning to mention this for a couple of weeks or so now, but for some reason have kept forgetting. Must be a sign of getting old .
Angel Draco, one of the great stalwarts of the Citybuilding sites here at HeavenGames, and the man to blame for getting me involved in all this, has opened a new site under the Heaven umbrella. You might have already checked it out, but if you haven't, be sure to pay the old chap a visit at Age of Wonders Heaven.
We don't ask a lot of you, other than to behave nicely on the forums but we do have another request. You can help us keep HeavenGames up and running by taking a quick look at the following page: Heaven Games Merchant Partners.
If you ever need to buy something from one of our partners, like say a book through Amazon.com, please enter the merchant's site though the provided links, as they will help us to keep our little slice of Heaven from disappearing into oblivion.
The Archangel tossed a bone to us hungry Age of Mythology dogs with new AOM wallpaper for your desktop. It's available in small, medium, and super-sized (800x600, 1024x786, 1600x1200) right here.
The new wallpaper was plastered onto my machine mere minutes after this photo was taken to test out my digital camera (it's a bad camera, I know). Why did it need a test? Well friends, I'm headed out to Microsoft tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have a some cool info to share with you guys when I return. last year's trip was a blast
EENC staff writer Gandalf wrote a fairly lengthy report about his experiences at EEU, although he didn't tell as much info as blue, it's still a good read.
PS: I finally learned how to use NewsPro at EEH today have been searching all day for something to post .
Well I got an email from Mannedoc/Strider on the opening of Empire Earth Aztec. From what I can tell this is the first Mexican EE site or clan I've seen. They also have an AOK site as well. Be sure to give them a visit.
Strider is also a member of our staff. If you couldn't tell by now he also lives in Mexica.
Blue myriddn has finished his series with the final 4th day of Empire Earth University. It is pretty short since he had an earilier flight than most of us but still a good read. For those that haven't even went to Empire Earth Command Center, he added pictures for almost every day. Some of them are really great. Be sure to give it a read and look at past pictures.
Rasher and I will be trying to write up our own stories, but I'm currently waiting for the film to develop and get enough time........after school I spent 4-5 hours at work after a few mins on the computer. It was really busy/nerve-racking and extremely hot. Hopefully I'll have more time tommorrow.
Yes, Blue_myrridin from MrFixitOnline has written another report for day 3 at EEU. It looks like those guys are having a lot of fun out there, boy am I jealous Anyway go here to view the article. Just to reassure visitors, Rasher and Park will have a little something on EEU as soon as they finish it.
Jace over at Empire Earth X has updated his unit pages. They look pretty smooth although not sure if they are all just clip art or the real thing. Be sure to give a visit here.
The latest exciting bits from the ale swilling bunch in the Tavern includes the latest posts from members of the Ensemble Studios fellas, on topics from their scenario design contest to the environment, and the aftermath of our weekly Forum Party. Ian Fischer has offered some insight into the judging process for scenarios as well as clarifying a mountain of other issues. Pull up a stool at the Tavern! ...had no idea who this ES_General Buck Turgidson guy was for the longest time... ; )
Well seems Sierra decided to change stuff around at EmpireEarth.com while I was gone. They first changed their title picture to an Atomic Age theme.
They have also changed their poll asking: "Do you own a DVD Player?" Not exactly the best EE question, but I still want to see the results. Wonder if my computer's DVD count
Jordie over at EENC went a little screenshot crazy at EEU this weekend, and brought us back a bunch of screens to check out. Also over at EENC is an article written by Gandalf describing his experience at EEU.
Rasher and Park both arrived home this afternoon, after staying up until the wee hours of the night playing EE. I hope you guys can get some rest before school tommorrow morning.
The latest addition to Ensemble Studios' collection of Real World Maps is France, which barely topped the Mideast map in their poll. Drop in and download the map, which is just waiting for a scenario designer to add some fabulous looking terrain, and do vote to pick the next map. The two remaining choices are Iberia and the Mideast. ...Iberia is currently leading with over 60% of the vote...we will refrain from projecting a winner at this time... ; )
Straight from the keyboard of Mr.Fixit comes news of new events kicking off at AoK.cc, as well as the results of their team ladder tourney from yesterday:
"AOKcc MONTHLY TEAM EVENT MAY BLOWOUT
In May, AgeOfKings.cc is running a 4 week tournament where teams can compete with other teams in their class. Only one match (best of 3 games) are required each week and teams can set their own schedules. With $300 in cash prizes, 2 collector editions of Age of Kings (one signed by Bruce Shelley), and 5 Ensemble DVDs, this tournament should be fun. There will be multiple brackets setup for each tournament (Random Match and DeathMatch) with sign ups open until April 29th! Don't miss out on this large team bash...
Debaser, a huge StarCraft player who broke into the AOK scene in 1999 with a stunning win over maimin matty, returned to cause some havoc! His team was not able to upset tourney favorite - Storm who spent the day undefeated. On the DeathMatch side, some great matchups as the top DM teams duked it out; this month, favorite SDW Mercenaries pulled it out, defeating pG for the title.
Those ES DVDs would be a great thing to snag! (Ya ok, the Collectors Edition signed by Bruce Shelley wouldn't hurt) When the ES Behind the Scenes Video was released, we were still calling Age of Mythology by the code name of RTS III and had no idea of a theme. Taking a peak at these screen captures from the video is a little more exciting now. Just think of the great quality the DVD would have.
At anyrate, you've got to work for those great prizes, so make sure you've got your team assembled and ready to win something! ...ok, so knowing the theme doesn't help the quality of those screen captures, but squinting sure does... ; )
Sorry that I was late on reporting this, but I've been out playinga round of golf Anyway blue-myrrdin has written a report from day 2 of their EEU experience. I must say that I'm falling in love with this game even more than I expected Anyway you can view the report here. Enjoy.
Two articles have been added to the technology section, Technologies Researched from the Military Buildings and Technologies Researched from the Economic Buildings. Each include the basic information about each technology, the info that is tough to remember during the game.
It's starting to lose that new site feel, instead Angel Draco has been working to make Age of Wonders Heaven feel more like home. The site has just crossed that mythical 2010 hit barrier, not bad for being just a week old! Stop in and check out this new corner of Heaven.
You'll notice on our Merchant Partners page that you can pick up a copy of Age of Wonders for under ten bucks! It comes highly recommended from Angel Draco of course, and I hear there's a sequel in the works. ...how fitting that Draco is heading up a site with a Dragon head in the title pic... ; )
We had a pretty good first official week here at AOW Heaven. Thanks to everyone who helped make AOWH a reality and to everyone has contributed to the begining success of AOWH!
Another slice of heaven has opened: Age of Wonders Heaven, lead by the lawgiving Angel Draco. AOW is a turn-based fantagy game, combining the best elements of strategy, roleplaying, and adventure.
Please help keep HG up and running by taking a look at this page: Heaven Games Merchant Partners. If you need any products from our partners, please use the provided links on the page. Doing so will help HeavenGames from disappearing in the sands of time.
I read this first over at Evil Avatar. It's no surprise to us, but Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings is still a top selling game at #7 on NPD Intellect's charts for the week ending on April 7th:
1. The Sims House Party Expansion Pack 2. Black and White 3. Tribes 2 4. The Sims 5. The Sims Livin' Large Expansion Pack 6. Roller Coaster Tycoon 7. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 8. Diablo II 9. Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition 10. NASCAR Racing 4
Pretty soon, they are going to have to make a list of the top selling Sims games. By the way, NPD Intellect used to be called PC Data.
Cherub Jerusalem has once again selected a great Pick of the Week from our Blacksmith to enhance your single player experience. This week's choice is Roland's Quest, by professional scenario designer, Angel Rasher:
"As soon as Roland was out of sight of London, he carefully checked to make sure he was not being followed. Although he had no reason to believe there would be anyone following him, a man in his position could not afford to be careless.
Satisfied that he was alone, Roland turned not down the road that would lead him to the countryside and his wife, but the road that led toward Montaque, the capital city of the Revolution..."
This is how "Roland's Quest", one of the best scenarios in the blacksmith imho, begins. You play as Roland, the British royal officer, who also happens to be a turncoat for the Rebellion. You lie to your King, saying that you are going to your wife due to her illness, but you are actually going to give confidential documents to the head of the Rebellion. And if you thought the story was cool, hang on for the gameplay.
RQ pretty much has something for everybody. The scenario starts off as an RPG/Puzzle which takes a little figuring out, continues as a daring FF, climaxes as a B&D, and ends with a grand finalle with some more mind-boggling puzzles.
If there is one thing that particularly caught my eye when I was playing "Roland's Quest", it was the balance. In one part, I was attacked by about half a dozen enemy soldiers, and once I defeated them, I was left with exactly 3 hitpoints left. That is how balanced Roland's Quest is... In any case, saving from time to time is very adviseable, as any mistake can make you lose the game at some points.
I like Roland's Quest because of the intricate puzzles involved in it. A lot of the things in this scenario are quite ahead of their time! (this scenario was submitted in Jan 2000, and it's still worth playing).
The author, Angel Rasher, (informally also SSSI_Rasher), is 16 years old and from Nova Scotia, Canada. Along his designing career, he is also a full-time HG Angel, interested in AoK, EE, Alternative Rock, Heavy Metal and Ice Hockey (at least according to his profile).
Applications are now open for wannabe Beta Testers for Zeus Official Expansion: Poseidon, an add-on for our latest city-building hit: Zeus: Master of Olympus. We'll choose up to 250 people for a test period running from May 18th through June 1st. Sign up at http://beta.impressionsgames.com/poseidon/.
You must already own the North American version (United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia) of Zeus: Master of Olympus. We regret that logistics prevent us from opening this test to customers with other language versions of Zeus. We're looking for a wide assortment of different computer systems, ages and skill levels, and especially for the ability to write clear, succinct reports and suggestions.
If you are chosen, we'll e-mail you on May 1. You have to sign and return a standard Non-Disclosure Agreement, which is a legal promise not to talk about the Beta test. When we have that in hand, we'll send you pre-release builds of Poseidon for testing and evaluation. Everyone who contributes will get a free boxed copy of Poseidon when the game is finished.
If you haven't fiquared it out yet, Rasher and I are in Boston right now. To the right and left to me I can see people playing the great game. Don't got just time to actually say much since most of the day today is packed. For a desc. of what happened yesterday, you can read blue_myriddn's large interesting article over at Empire Earth Command Center. By the way I luckily beat him once out of 1-2 loses. I'll be back with pictures and a full article (hopefully Rasher too) once I get back.
The cheery Friday news from the merry red nosed fella in the Tavern is all about our weekly Forum Party. Gather your friends together for some games of AOK:TC tomorrow, and don't forget to put on your best suit of armour. The details await you inside! ...working the rust off of my duds right now... ; )
The Zone Tournament is a go tonight, so grab your best DMing bud and make sure you're registered for this event. Registration closes at 4pm PST, which is 7pm EST. They've banned the Korean civilization, and the map is Arabia, 2 on 2 with a lovely 200 pop limit.
There's just 35 teams registered at the moment, so it's not a great big field. Best of luck to one and all this evening! ...that first international tourney must have gone reeeeally well...they haven't had another... ; )
High quality versions of the Age of Myhtology logo are now available at the Ensemble Studios website. The logos are available with both black and white backgrounds, and you'll also find the new logo Ensemble Studios logo. Looks like their PR war machine is gearing up for an assault... and that's a good thing
Where would you fit into a medievil society? Are you the ruler sort, the doctor type, or perhaps a blacksmith? Check out the Kingdomality Personal Preference Profile, which takes your answers to just eight questions and gives you a medievil roll that suits your personality.
Once you've got your results, or if you're curious as to what category others have been thrown into, visit this forum post. So far, there's a couple of White Knights, a Benevolent Ruler, and an Engineer in our forums. ...I wonder if Plague Carrier is an option...or Arrow Fodder... ; )
A note sent our way by Xynon has announced that AoE Center's contest has been revised and is taking entries once again. The Ager Appreciation Contest will be open for our entries for about ten more days, with the many prizes being awarded shortly afterwards. The hefty prize list includes one of those AoE Collectors Editions, which are becoming harder and harder to find in stores. Even harder to find is one signed by Bruce Shelley! Click here for more information or to enter yourself for some prizes! ...Jackie Chan and the Matrix in one...skinny guys can kick butt too... ; )
Gamespot hosted a small little preview with Matt "Lightning_CN" Couillard, one of the strike team members. Although it doesn't really reveal anything new about EE, Lightning talks about how he got to the position he's at. There are also two sweetlooking screenshots with the article. Here's a few passages from the article:
The Strike Team generally discusses the balance issues of Empire Earth. It isn't our job to make the game bug proof; we just try to make sure everything fits in properly and is fun. We debate about different game features and their conceivable impact on the gaming community, such as if a particular unit might be too weak or too powerful for its intended purpose. We receive regular builds of the game, and our comments, analyses, and suggestions go right to Stainless Steel's designers. It's great knowing that they listen directly to what gamers have to say. After all, we'll be the ones playing it!
Thanks to Cherub Petard_Rusher for revealing this to us in the General Discussion forum.
I noticed whilst broswing over at VE that Strategyplanet has posted a preview of Poseidon (the upcoming Zeus x-pack, if you've been away for the past week).
This year's Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3), which is held in Los Angeles in mid May will feature a host of companies showing off their wares. Just check out these stats from Avault:
"More than 750 never-before-seen computer, online and video games and related products will debut at the 2001 Electronic Entertainment Expo, according to the IDSA. Overall, about 400 companies, including 123 first-time E3 exhibitors, will showcase thousands of games and products at the show, which will be held next month from the 17th to the 19th at the Los Angeles Convention Center."
Among the hundreds of games to be shown off is Ensemble Studios' new RTS which we've been getting glimpses of, Age of Mythology. Some very lucky Angels will be at the big show to check things out first hand and will be sharing their experiences with us! You can bet they'll be front and center for the Age of Mythology demos by Ensemble's designers Ian Fischer and Bruce Shelley. It's all less than a month away now. ...winging our way to LA... ; )
Here's a request from Up High. We don't ask a lot of you, other than to behave nicely on the forums but we do have an other request. You can help us keep HeavenGames up and running by having a look at the following page: Heaven Games Merchant Partners.
So if you need to get something from one of our partners, please use the provided links, as they will help us to keep these sites from disappearing into oblivion.
What are the design ramifications of having day and night in a real time strategy game that spans centuries? ES game designer Greg "Deathshrimp" Street offered his thoughts:
Two things have always annoyed me about day-night cycles. First, it seems kind of silly for a game along the time scale of Age of Empires. If I'm the Babylonians, and I am going to advance from inventing the wheel to iron weapons, that's like 3000 years of history (or 1.1 million day-night cycles) to cover in a 1 hour game. I think we might all get seizures from the light flashing on and off. Granted, this doesn't apply as much to the shorter time period of Age of Kings or to scenarios, which are generally depicted as covering a shorter time period (though still often weeks or months). Secondly, in the RTS games I have played with this feature, when it turns night, my LOS is reduced and I just end up waiting for light again. How many ancient or medieval battles can you think of that happened at night?
I am not giving away (yet) whether we have this feature or not. Just commenting on some of the design ramifications of trying to incorporate it.
Well, for the timespan issue, a lot of liberties are taken for playability's sake. My early villagers live to be a few thousand years old (until they are brutally slaughtered in their old age at the end of the game), it takes a few hundred years to chop down a tree, etc. RTS gamers are completely content with speeding up and slowing down time as needed to fit the gameplay. Now, whether or not I'd like to see night having an affect on the game is another story. It might look silly if all my workers are out chopping trees at 1AM (hmm.. I am working at 1AM, is that silly? ), but it would also make for a pretty boring time in the game if everyone went home and went to sleep. I know a few have suggested that this would be a good time for spy units, sneak attacks and such, but I think the real draw of RTS games is the epic battles, and not sneaking in a unit to poison your opponent's crops while they are sleeping.
What would be cool is if you could use night time as some sort of godly power. Maybe Loki could cast a curse on your land, putting you in darkness with only the moonlight to guide you, making it tougher to see things like resources. Just a thought. Read the whole thread here.
David "Aghrivaine" Krieger at Gamespy has done an editorial on Strategy Game interfaces. It is a pretty long read with one page on RTS interfaces. Here's a quote:
Unlike the user-controlled pace of a turn-based game, real-time games are as much a matter of speed and accuracy as they are careful planning. Rather than make careful assessments of information, possibilities, and circumstances, real-time games occur as a race against the other player's (or the computer's) build up of resources and units. As such, a good player will have to make very speedy assessments of the situation, and issue quick and accurate commands. Having a simple and robust interface is absolutely critical to making a RTS game fun to play -- otherwise the user gets bogged down in fussing with controls, rather than seeing to what units are doing, what resources are produced, and what the opponent is doing.
Be sure to give a read at the start of the article or skip to the RTS part.
The ever vigilent Enrique Orduno caught a glimpse of Ensemble's Age of Mythology site today and was immediately drawn in by a new screenshot posted there! He shared his discovery here in our AoM Forum.
The screenshot is easily the best yet! Viking Longboats are making a landing, and Egyptian units are coming to greet them. There's archer units, soldiers, and what appear to be civ, or should I say culture, specific units! An Egyptian Sphinx and a Viking Giant make their first appearances! It also looks as though there may be day and night cycles as the sun appears to be setting.
Share your thoughts on the new screenshot here, if you can bring yourself to type. ...holy hell...the wave action and the oars in the water are superb! ; )
**UPDATE** If you have had troubles loading the screenshot in the past hour or two, the URL was changed on the ES site and should be working ok now.
Redux time again, as Krakencomments on the racetrack building, which will be present in Poseidon:
The Racetrack is among the larger innovations in Poseidon. Racetracks are an Aesthetic structure whose benefits increase with the track's length. Racetracks produce income for your treasury, among other effects.
Only seconds ago, the Map Making section of EEH was updated to include an exclusive Map Editor Preview. This preview, not available anywhere else, takes a good look at the many aspects of the powerful scenario editor that will ship with Empire Earth. This comprehensive preview will focus on areas of the editor such as triggers, the Civilization Editor, the many menus, and much more. Be sure to give it a good look here, and post any comments you may have in this thread
Will there be another patch for AOW to address stability in multiplayer IP games? Josh Farley had this to say:
"If I knew that the changes would fix the issues some people are having with multi-player, it would probably be worthwhile to spend the (rather large) amount of time to re-work and re-code some aspects of AoW to work around network limitations.
The problem is that I do not know if it would work, so we could end up taking valuable time away from AoW2's development, and end up with absolutely nothing to show for it. That's just a bad gamble by any reasoning.
The number of players in a game will definitely affect [multiplayer] stability. All it takes is one connection between any two players being bad, and the game will seem sluggish, or disconnect often. In a 4 player game, there are 6 separate connections... in an 8 player game, you have 28 separate connections.
If any 1 out of those 28 connections goes bad, it will mess up the game... if more than one of them is bad, you get some serious problems... and if 1 player in that 8-player game has a bad modem/ISP/software/etc, then you get 7 bad connections.
Note that we did completely re-code the DirectPlay system in one of the patches, to fix problems that affected many more systems than this problem seems to. Sadly, that was also caused by bugs/missing features in the MS DirectPlay architecture, which is one reason I'm suspicious about that as a possible cause in this case.
Josh on LAN Instability with IP games: I don't recall hearing much about this.... We tested LAN quite a bit, including me on my personal 2-PC LAN. Of course, in addition to normal testing, I played some TC-only multiplayer (small map with just a clump of big armies to force a 3-4 player scrum) with my friends on the Internet, and that hasn't stopped some people from having problems with Internet play.
Well pretty almost afternoon here. There's been a few changes around the EE sites the past few days.
Mithras, the webmaster at Empire Earth Oracle, has created a new great wallpaper for his site. This time it features some future screenshots/units and has a future feel to it.
Joffe has finished changing the forums over at Empire Earth Net Center. It seems he changed a lot of the colors and images to a dark/light purple. Luckily EEH still leads with more forum threads/posts than any other site.
Jordie has left his computer and Australia for a trip to Boston which is one of America's oldest cities as well as where Stainless Steel Studios is located. Gandalf will probably be leaving sometime soon as well. Interested in seeing who else is leaving.
Aragorn at Total Empire Earth is working on his own new forums. Go give them a visit to be a forum tester.
Finally everything in HG is under control. The server(s) are still running and all the staff are still doing their work. No worries about hacking or whatever.
Our scenario design contest is finally wrapping up, the end is truly in sight! Angel Rasher has announced the scores for those who did not reach the finals, as well as the trio of talented finalists to make the grade here in the Scenario Design Forum.
The three finalists, Andres_age, The Conquistador, and Zanzard Lothar will have to bite their nails for another week or so as the judges re-evaluate and scrutinize their entries to decide a winner. Following that, all scenarios entered will be available for download from the Blacksmith, so keep your eyes peeled for the big announcement! ...I hope ya'll are entering this contest too...make the time to do it, you'll be glad you did I am sure... ; )
The cream is still busy rising to the top, but it's not going to be easy with this skilled field! Cherub_BiggN sends us the match ups for the final 8 players who are currently playing a best of 3 series against each other to advance:
"illusionS_ Vs Ugly_Goth_Man
RomanGladius Vs BiggN
BioSoldier007 Vs OrangePanther
FootballBeast Vs Aarz"
Best of luck to those left, and stay tuned for recorded games and results from this tournament. ...some big names in DM circles in the running here, whew... ; )
ngel Baltic has 
.
Oh well, maybe Mike will take a shot of it and post it up on the 
. Sorry..
he lucky draw for a copy of Cossacks: European Wars is still open. You can get a copy for free and all you have to do is sign up. Nothing could be easier, now could it?
. 
The cheery Friday news from the merry red nosed fella in the 
ell, I just recieved an email from our favourite angel: Gustavia, telling me that the 
