Anyone playing Age of Empires Online?

I didn't know about this game until my friend call me earlier today. It's a free game wihout optional in game purchases, just like Team Fortress 2. They changed the graphic to cartoonish style like Torchlight or World of Warcraft.

I am 2 hours into the game and I am completely hooked! Can't believe this is free. The core game is exactly the same as the classic age of empires II.

If you play this game, let me know. We can be friends and build up our empire.

Ill be giving it a shot when i have a little more time on my hands. Looks promising.

My personal word of advice.... Might as well just do a complete re-installion of anything "Games for windows live" related before you try to install AoE online. the GFWL client is crap and never work as intended. It took me a good 30 minutes to get the live product code working.

I played about an hour today. I was in the beta earlier this year. Now I play with Egypt. I think they're cooler than Greece and I really like the Priestess of Ra mechanic.

It's addictive. A bit slow to start, but it picks up fast with various items, boosts and upgrades. If you like cIassic AoE you'll like this. The paid balance and prices are FUBAR, but whatever. There's enough content to keep one entertained for many hours for free, there's no reason not to try it.

I could see myself buying a Premium Civ and some booster packs, but alas, I made a UK GFWL account because I live in an unsupported region so I won't.

By the way, it's much better than AoE 3.

Ive just downloaded the patcher anyone know how big the pacthes/game is.

2.5 GB

After playing for an hour I agree the game is fun, looks goods, runs well.

On the down side i jsut reached lvl 3 or 4 and one of the quests rewards a choice of blue (rare) item but you cant use it unless you go premium. Made me sad.

They should have adopted the League of Legends model - either pay with real cash or acquire items through playing. The Empire points, for example, act as a totally useless secondary coin if you don't buy premium content. All those items should be available for everybody. And why not unlock the Premium Civ once you reach max level or finish the campaign? How about gathering points in multiplayer and use them to unlock stuff? Have in-game achievements that grant unlock choices? Or even spending XP to get items...

The game is very enjoyable. There's a lot of free content, but I think they screwed up the pricing model.

I just started playing as well, and it seems pretty cool overall. The graphics are beautiful imo, and the game runs great on top of that. I'm a little concerned about the price of the marketplace, but I guess I'll see how that ends up effecting me down the road. Could someone tell me what critical elements of the game I WON'T get by now purchasing anything from the store?xxxLUGZxxx

- ranked pvp (unranked is free)

- the last overpowered technology of each research tree

- less crafting options

- some (many) more or less overpowered items and units are unavailable

- limited storage

After playing for an hour I agree the game is fun, looks goods, runs well.

On the down side i jsut reached lvl 3 or 4 and one of the quests rewards a choice of blue (rare) item but you cant use it unless you go premium. Made me sad.

Kendog87

You can sell a lot of premium items. I think I'm stuck with an arena blueprint in my inventory though :/

will give it a try

thanks op

I've really been enjoying it. I haven't played an AoE game since the second one. Definitely a lot of fun for a free game.

By the way, it's much better than AoE 3.

Baranga

Cant say I agree with that from what Ive played of Online so far.

It is surprisingly good. I am playing the egyptians.

The game gets a huge difficulty bump once you reach Libya, the enemy actually tries to kill me nowand sends elite premium units to destroy my town. No matter, they stand no chance against my war elephants and I can still abuse the path finding to kite them to death.

It's pretty good so far, but F2P is really a misnomer. If you want to have a good time, you really need to put down $20 for a premium race. Treat it as a $20 budget game with the option for DLC (new game modes, new races) down the line, and it's not too bad a game. It's not pay to win directly, but indirectly it is. Buying premium allows you to use the better items, but you still have to take the time to actually play the game to get them. It seems like if you play free you can still collect premium items. You just can't use them. So in the future if you ever decide to pay your $20, you can use all those items sitting in your storage instantly. Free players can't use the proper PvP modes, so balance isn't an issue but that does kind of suck.

Try not to think of it as a free to play game and you'll proably enjoy it a lot more. Think of it more as a 20$ game that already has a couple expansions already released.

It is surprisingly good. I am playing the egyptians.

The game gets a huge difficulty bump once you reach Libya, the enemy actually tries to kill me nowand sends elite premium units to destroy my town. No matter, they stand no chance against my war elephants and I can still abuse the path finding to kite them to death.

Maroxad

I can't see many casuals sticking with it past level 6. The difficulty curve suddenly becomes vertical.

Unfortunately, the previous levels are so easy that I can't see many RTS fans sticking with it until then...

I've been playing it as well, and I also was in the open beta earlier this year. So far, I'm enjoying it enough for what is offered for free. My Greek civilizatioin is at level 14 and my Egyptian civilization is at level 3 (a campaign quest bug prevented me from getting farther with the Egyptians, but I'll try it again soon). Up to the level I am at with the Greeks, I would say the game is very easy. Even once you unlock Age III at level 10, the quests don't get much harder unless you're inexperienced with RTS games. It's certainly not as difficult as the campaigns in the previous Age of Empire games, but I'll wait and see what quests there are once I unlock Age IV. So far, however, everything up to where I'm at is an extended tutorial. Not a bad thing, but it can be cumbersome to those who are already familiar with Age of Empires gameplay mechanics and want to jump into the action, be that PVP or challenging singleplayer and co-op.

[QUOTE="Baranga"]

By the way, it's much better than AoE 3.

kozzy1234

Cant say I agree with that from what Ive played of Online so far.

The game is good, but the free to play model is terrible. I stopped playing Age of Empires Online once I start receiving quest rewards that I couldn't equip without a premium account.

All the paid content is so expensive that I wish this game wasn't free to play.

Not sure why everyone is so upset about the pricing model. For $20, you can get a premium pack for a Civ, which essentially unlocks the whole game for you.

If all you get is one premium pack for $20, then you get a full featured game for less than half the cost.

Why are people so willing to pay $50 for a retail game, yet are apprehensive when spending money on a F2P game?

Played it until level 7 when everything ended up friend oriented and if you want to use good loot and items - buy the civilizations via MS points ... no thank you MS - uninstall ...

P.S. The game was just announced as a Free to Play ... when it's actually a Pay to Play ... pay for this so you can use this, pay for that so you can do that, purchase this so you won't need to do that ... oh boy ...

As someone who has gotten up to level 25, I will note what I like and dislike so far.

Pros

• The Age of Empires gameplay we all know and love.
• Nice Visuals
• Excellent User Interface
• Keybindings for buildings are very easy to remember
• Elephants
• Allows for plenty of differentiation, or at least while levelling. Me and a friend both picked egypt, and our builds are very different with different focuses, strenghts and weaknesses.
• Co-Op missions

Cons

• Free to play version is essentially a glorified demo, non-premiums are really gimped
• Thanks to the gear, levelling and advisor system, the game will never be truly balanced
• Path Finding is bad
• The beginning is slow