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FoolyCharged posted:It's just so hard to see why this expansion got its rep Maybe this next mission will make it apparent! Tale of the Dragon 4: Trapped! One of the toughest survival chapters in the whole game actually, but I came up with a creative and unique strategy to beat it.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:57
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I believe this victory respects the Tao of Programming.
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Apr 2, 2023 03:06
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It takes someone truly talented to make a task look effortless. Watching this video, it felt like you weren't even there! Truly, a masterwork of strategy, technique, and employees that just couldn't be assed to even pretend to care.
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Apr 2, 2023 03:28
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lol
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Apr 2, 2023 04:54
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SIGSEGV posted:I believe this victory respects the Tao of Programming. It certainly doesn't respect the expansion's programmers! Here's a more serious take on this chapter, wiping out the enemy bases. Perhaps the chapter's title of 'trapped' refers to them, rather than me. Tale of the Dragon 4: Trapped!
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Apr 2, 2023 18:58
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It's kind of incredible that they didn't even remove the option to build a Wonder in the first place. And that Vermilion Bird seems fun to use, but its animations are all sorts of busted. On a possibly more positive note, I came across a mod that replaces the Chinese faction with Aztecs and looks rather impressive. It's always nice when modders outdo the source material, though in this case the bar wasn't exactly the highest.
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Apr 4, 2023 00:17
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Carpator Diei posted:On a possibly more positive note, I came across a mod that replaces the Chinese faction with Aztecs and looks rather impressive. It's always nice when modders outdo the source material, though in this case the bar wasn't exactly the highest.
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Apr 4, 2023 00:24
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anilEhilated posted:This is looking really good. Maybe they'll do something like they did with Age of Empires 2 and turn some mods official in the remaster? I feel like that's a really risky road to take, though. Call this a controversial take, but I feel like the Forgotten Empires expansion started the road to AoE2's return to prominence not because it was good, but because it was a new official release for an old game that was high quality and fondly remembered. The new civilizations were neat, and continue to be part of the game to this day, but the campaigns were of... questionable quality, and ended up being completely rebuilt from the ground up when the Definitive Edition came out (and one of them was removed entirely), which I feel should be taken as a sign of how the official team felt about it in retrospect. Forgotten Empires was the only expansion to have its campaigns so heavily rebuilt. The fact that the same people went on to make this Chinese Expansion that we're all so thoroughly impressed with should be a warning sign in and of itself.
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Apr 4, 2023 01:04
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Vermillion birds, rising from the ashes of villager corpses in a great horde that will still lose to the powers of too much victory. Seriously though, not just missing the removal of the versus maps, but also the wonder, a building that exists only as a win condition for vs maps and maaaybe a single campaign mission?
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Apr 4, 2023 01:44
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BlazetheInferno posted:I feel like that's a really risky road to take, though. Call this a controversial take, but I feel like the Forgotten Empires expansion started the road to AoE2's return to prominence not because it was good, but because it was a new official release for an old game that was high quality and fondly remembered. The new civilizations were neat, and continue to be part of the game to this day, but the campaigns were of... questionable quality, and ended up being completely rebuilt from the ground up when the Definitive Edition came out (and one of them was removed entirely), which I feel should be taken as a sign of how the official team felt about it in retrospect. Forgotten Empires was the only expansion to have its campaigns so heavily rebuilt. Well, now you really have my interest piqued.
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Apr 4, 2023 03:00
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Carpator Diei posted:It's kind of incredible that they didn't even remove the option to build a Wonder in the first place. And that Vermilion Bird seems fun to use, but its animations are all sorts of busted. I think the Vermillion Bird's attacks have gone through several changes after release. If I understand correctly they used to have a 'special attack' that was the Fire Giant's bouncing AoE fireball. But due to a bug or something they did this on every single attack and it was stupidly overpowered rather than just wildly overpowered like most Chinese stuff around release. So that got patched and changed several times before they settled on the current form. All the changes to the fundamentals of the attack might well explain the weird animation. FoolyCharged posted:Vermillion birds, rising from the ashes of villager corpses in a great horde that will still lose to the powers of too much victory. I don't think they tested this on Mythic age to be honest. Several of their choices only make sense if you expect the player to be confined to heroic. For example, giving me access to flying units meant I could see parts of the map I'm not supposed to, revealing that cluster of buildings which is only supposed to exist for the cinematic. Or the extra hole that does only exist for the cinematic. On well-made campaign levels, either flyers are not available if such things exist, or there's some sort of blocker in place that even a flyer can't cross. Furthermore, whereas in heroic age the ultra towers will slaughter Fire Lances and thus there's no real way to break the enemy bases and notice that troops spawn from thin air, Sitting Tigers completely negate those super defenses. And then of course yeah they forgot to disable building wonders. To be fair I don't think they're the only ones who forgot about that. I never heard anyone else mention building them and didn't see a warning when I read the wiki for that mission or anything. It's not something one would normally think to check. BlazetheInferno posted:I feel like that's a really risky road to take, though. Call this a controversial take, but I feel like the Forgotten Empires expansion started the road to AoE2's return to prominence not because it was good, but because it was a new official release for an old game that was high quality and fondly remembered. The new civilizations were neat, and continue to be part of the game to this day, but the campaigns were of... questionable quality, and ended up being completely rebuilt from the ground up when the Definitive Edition came out (and one of them was removed entirely), which I feel should be taken as a sign of how the official team felt about it in retrospect. Forgotten Empires was the only expansion to have its campaigns so heavily rebuilt. Since I never played AoE2 I think I got a bit lost here. It sounds like the expansion was mostly good except for a bad campaign? My impression of AoE2 has always been that it was more about random maps/multiplayer than campaigns anyway. Is that wrong?
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Apr 4, 2023 04:00
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Melth posted:Since I never played AoE2 I think I got a bit lost here. It sounds like the expansion was mostly good except for a bad campaign? My impression of AoE2 has always been that it was more about random maps/multiplayer than campaigns anyway. Is that wrong? While there is significant attention focused on the multiplayer aspect, which was well-received, the historical campaigns are something of an iconic feature of the game. The AI included with the mod/expansion was considered to be dumbed down, and worse than the Conquerors' expansion's AI. The Campaigns meanwhile, were attacked for a number of reasons. Most featured a strong departure from the Build and Destroy gameplay, with more of a focus on Limited Forces scenarios, or other strange, unusually gimmicky scenarios that feel like a strong departure from the official campaigns' style. Along with other issues like units getting stuck in terrain eyecandy, poorly balanced difficulty, and far too many unskippable in-map cutscenes that take far too long, and since it was a fan-mod that was picked up and given official support rather than a professionally-made product, there wasn't any voice-acting to accompany those cutscenes either, which does a lot to make longer cutscenes bearable. Of the 7 campaigns included (one of which is the "assorted collection of historical one-off battles" sort), four were completely rebuilt from the ground up, one was removed entirely, and the other two still received heavy alterations. There was also a more minor criticism of the included civilizations being too broad - to the point where the most recent expansion for the Definitive Edition actually straight up split one of the civilizations added by the mod/expansion into four different civilizations, with the very broad "Indian" civilization split into Bengalis, Dravidians, Gurjaras, and Hindustanis, the last of which being the closest to the original Indian civilization. BlazetheInferno fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Apr 4, 2023 |
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Apr 4, 2023 05:29
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The road to Age series revival was a long one with many actors, like AoE2 lead programmer Matt Pritchard, who knocked on Microsoft's doors for years petitioning for a "final official patch"; and xOmnicron a.k.a. Scripter16, who led the creation of UserPatch, bringing massive amounts of modern OS compatibilities, fixes & new features to AoE2, keeping the AoE2 scene not only alive but healthy and thriving without official support, and laying the scripting toolset foundation for AoE2DE. The Forgotten Empires team ("FE") alone did not a revival make; they weren't even its most important contributor. BlazetheInferno posted:The AI included with the mod/expansion was considered to be dumbed down, and worse than the Conquerors' expansion's AI. The initial development of AoE2HD in 2013 was done by Hidden Path. After its launch, its maintenance was handed over to Skybox Labs. Their first job was the version 2.0 update, which in addition to addressing some of its numerous problems, was intended to introduced ambitious AI and pathfinding improvements. [CORRECTION: Version 2.0 might be developed by another team, and Skybox Labs only took over after that. Pending investigation. Result: the AI is deeply messed up, and units tasked to a simple short walk almost always move backwards and take a U-turn. What's more, all future AoE2 versions are iterations on this build, meaning that even as the AI continues to be worked on over the next decade on macro and micro levels, you still see units exhibit the same trouble with simple straight movements that's not in the original game. In AoE2DE, the AI is capable of pulling a lot of tricks befitting a good player, but it nonetheless bears scars carved by HD 2.0. This was a preview of both: * Skybox Labs' competence as the tech team on AoE2HD, AoM Extended, and Rise of Nations Extended in the next few years; and * The more long-term tripartite structure of Age series development. And this structure is: * Microsoft management, who gives ample creative freedom to dev teams on how to make new content, but keeps a tight leash on the purse, ensuring devs only work on high-priority tasks. * FE, consisting largely of ex-modders working remotely over the world, focuses on the creative side. * And a contract studio for further artworks & engine tech, which was Skybox in the pre-DE period, and Tantalus in the DE era. When working on AoE2HD and Tale of the Dragon, FE had no technical capability beyond that of the modders, and everything engine-side was handled by Skybox. In the DE era, FE have recruited more engine programmers, but still does not have anything like total control over the code. (The structure also applies to Relic's AoE4, since FE is contributing significantly to its balancing & game design.) Of course, being modern development, lots of specific art & programming tasks are further farmed out to remote contractors, resulting in things like the same bug broken & fixed 3 times, each time fixed a different way. This three-way separation of bureaucratic power, creative & engineering faculties and lack of unifying cohesion (let alone the original Ensemble & BHG's collective decisionmaking which empowered every member) explains a lot about the  QUALITY that washes over you if you dig slightly deeper into any official Age revival title: individual pieces may be good, but the system as a whole is set up to screw things up, repeatedly.quote:The Campaigns meanwhile, were attacked for a number of reasons. Most featured a strong departure from the Build and Destroy gameplay, with more of a focus on Limited Forces scenarios, or other strange, unusually gimmicky scenarios that feel like a strong departure from the official campaigns' style. Along with other issues like units getting stuck in terrain eyecandy, poorly balanced difficulty, and far too many unskippable in-map cutscenes that take far too long Ironically, the inspiration of AoE2HD and DE has reversed the trend: a new generation of mappers had grown whose style is real history scenarios with polished RTS gameplay, and their best works have a higher quality standard than official campaigns. quote:and since it was a fan-mod that was picked up and given official support rather than a professionally-made product, there wasn't any voice-acting to accompany those cutscenes either, which does a lot to make longer cutscenes bearable. Same for the upcoming AoM Retold: in 2013, it was Microsoft managers that accepted FE's proposal to work on Tale of the Dragon and AoE2 African Kingdoms simultaneously, and demanded FE to treat the former as a side project. Today's FE is long past the days of being one mod team; it's managing multiple teams of talents scouted from the upper crust of each Age community. If Microsoft felt Retold is worth investing in, experienced AoM mappers should by all means have the skill to deliver a campaign better than Ensemble's. But that is an if... cuc fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Apr 4, 2023 18:49
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A disgracefully broken Chinese campaign mission as we break Danzhu's giant army! Tale of the Dragon 5: Confrontation
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May 28, 2023 19:07
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What a disaster of a campaign. It does go UP from here, but this is a hell of a low point. By this stage of the campaign they should really be mixing in more varied enemies and more complex scenarios! This is absolutely pathetic.
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May 28, 2023 19:31
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Chronische posted:What a disaster of a campaign. It does go UP from here, but this is a hell of a low point. By this stage of the campaign they should really be mixing in more varied enemies and more complex scenarios! This is absolutely pathetic. I remembered it getting worse from here rather than better? But admittedly I haven't played it in years. I don't actually mind that for this particular battle the enemy just has a large number of highly upgraded human soldiers. That's a change of pace compared to 90% of the rest of the game where if the enemy has a big army, it's mostly myth units or we annihilate them with meteors and lightning and whatnot. I like the idea of needing to win this big battle with superior tactics and whatnot because we both have armies of human soldiers rather than myth units, since it's a change of pace. And in order to make that work, it does make design sense I think to just give the enemy infantry and archers because it's crucial that we be able to maneuver and outrun them. At most they could have a small complement of cavalry, because if they had a lot of strong cavalry we couldn't really move around and maneuver without getting run down and forced to fight a straightforward battle. I just think they needed to add a few more features to the battlefield, like making the high ground useful, giving alternate victory/defeat conditions, and above all make the enemy AI functional!
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May 28, 2023 19:57
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I always liked the idea of this mission on paper, but the execution is abysmal - this is where I always quit the Chinese campaign.
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May 28, 2023 20:13
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Just wow. Even moreso than the other missions, this one seems like a feature test for the stone pillar traps and the enemy regiments that they never ended up turning into an actual mission. In fact, I'd bet that the reason why the enemy units don't just attack-move is that the devs wanted them to remain bunched up in neat squares, perhaps so that something could happen to them when the player kills their general. Also, killing Danzhu actually increases the kill counter, so with a lot of micro and even more patience you could probably win the mission by killing him 180 times. Admittedly, at that point I would retreat too.
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May 28, 2023 21:06
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Carpator Diei posted:Just wow. Even moreso than the other missions, this one seems like a feature test for the stone pillar traps and the enemy regiments that they never ended up turning into an actual mission. In fact, I'd bet that the reason why the enemy units don't just attack-move is that the devs wanted them to remain bunched up in neat squares, perhaps so that something could happen to them when the player kills their general. That's a great idea! I hadn't noticed that. Killing Danzhu a gajillion times to win the mission would be hilarious. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a Danzhu face- for ever!" I already have plans for him on the final battle though.
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May 28, 2023 23:32
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Melth posted:"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a Danzhu face- for ever!"
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May 29, 2023 01:34
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Today I found out that the editing software I use for most of my videos, Da Vinci Resolve, decided to store more than 300 GB of cached files overnight, eating up all available storage space on the entire computer with a hidden folder of useless cached stuff, and causing all sorts of crashes that were hard to figure out the cause of. Adventures in video editing!
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May 29, 2023 06:14
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One thing I never noticed before - the gate to the underworld in the intro looks rather Egyptian. They couldn't even be bothered to update the model.
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May 29, 2023 09:23
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anilEhilated posted:One thing I never noticed before - the gate to the underworld in the intro looks rather Egyptian. They couldn't even be bothered to update the model. Yep! And it's not even the first thing to default to Egyptian-style in this campaign!
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May 29, 2023 18:17
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Tale of the Dragon 6: The Realm of the Dead Every time I play this campaign I find new broken things about it!
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Jul 9, 2023 22:49
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Another mission that is lazy as hell. You know, reviews of even the original AoM complained about 'base-build-itis' ruining otherwise interesting and good levels. Cierce's level being the one expressly pointed out, in that case. It is an issue that RTS level designers suffered, where what is supposed to be limited troops and reinforcements becomes establishing a colony/foothold over an area. In HELL, of all places, that really should not be! At least we got to see a griffon, so it wasn't a complete waste.
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Jul 9, 2023 23:17
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Chronische posted:Another mission that is lazy as hell. You know, reviews of even the original AoM complained about 'base-build-itis' ruining otherwise interesting and good levels. Cierce's level being the one expressly pointed out, in that case. It is an issue that RTS level designers suffered, where what is supposed to be limited troops and reinforcements becomes establishing a colony/foothold over an area. In HELL, of all places, that really should not be! To play Yama's advocate here- I think a lot of the original underworld missions are complete garbage in terms of gameplay. Breaking the ram mostly feels like a cinematic where they just hand you all the free units you need to crush the enemy as long as you play at a basic level. The first underworld 'adventure' mission is an unlosable cinematic. The second one is also mostly a cinematic and mostly unlosable except for the one part where... you build a base and fight a fun and memorable battle in a dream sequence. And they give you lots of cool and unique toys. Kind of like they do here with Gryphons, recruitable shades (I didn't do that sidequest but it exists), and all the stealable myth units. The Norse underworld missions are similarly terrible. Maybe even worse because the novelty has worn off. These disguised cinematics which pretend to be levels might be fun the first time before you catch on, but I don't enjoy them at all now. And they take up a TON of the campaign. Worse yet, they are several of what should be the climactic chapters of the campaigns. Egypt gets an epic final battle, but Greece doesn't because it gets underworld nonsense instead. The Norse only get one because thankfully there's more campaign after the 'last' gate is sealed. This game does base-building missions pretty well. But it's almost completely terrible at adventure missions. The developers of this campaign just gave us a weird, unique, creative mission (which they sucked at, but the point is they just tried to do one), so it makes sense to then do a conventional level next. This level is an unpolished, slipshod mess with a decent idea underneath. But the underworld missions in the original campaign were shiny garbage, so this is actually better. Melth fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 10, 2023 06:47
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| # ? May 3, 2024 19:49 |
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I started a reply to the recent episode when it came out, but never finished it! Short version: - China originally had no concept of "hell" or Naraka where the dead is punished for their transgressions in life, the idea was wholly imported from India via Buddhism, and Diyu meaning "earthly prison" was a new word coined to translate the concept. - During the Han dynasty when Buddhism first arrived, the Chinese imagined dead people living ordinary, peaceful lives underground inside a bureaucracy working exactly the same as aboveground. - Though they also imagined loose, haunting ghosts as a general-purpose monster that can do anything the story needs. Meanwhile, Nakamura from my last post has made a new video talking about the DLC's development, some of the plans for the Chinese culture that they couldn't implement, and how he thinks the Chinese can be fixed. The entire video is from the multiplayer perspective and doesn't cover the campaign, however. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCMmvzZe52g cuc fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jul 30, 2023 |
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Jul 30, 2023 21:49
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