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Microsoft released the AoE III Complete Edition on the 15th of September. The pack contains both the expansions (TWC and TAD) bundled with Vanilla for a decent price of $50. Definitely worth a buy if you still wanna have a go at ES's last Age game. The game continues to get online support from Robot Entertainment, a studio made up of mostly ex-ES employees.
According to a GS News Artcile, at the end of 1Up.com's latest podcast, Bettenhausen (EGM executive editor) tossed a rumor with little background or explanation. Telling his fellow podcasters that he'd heard the rumor "from all over" and saying they had "a 97 percent chance of being true," Bettenhausen teased audiences with the information that he knows of "a big Microsoft first-party title that's been in the works for a very long time that people are very excited for sounds like it's being cancelled." He refused to go into any more detail on what he had heard. Given an unsubstantiated and unsourced rumor, the Internet did what it is does best and began speculating wildly about Microsoft-published games that could conceivably fit the given criteria.
Developers of such X360 titles as Banjo Kazooie, Too Human, Alan Wake & Fable 2 clearly debunked the review whereas an Ensemble Studios poster on the official Halo Wars forums didn't specifically deny that the high-profile real-time strategy spin-off of Microsoft's Halo Series was canceled. However, he did post a picture of a man in a tinfoil hat in the thread on the subject, showing exactly what was thought of the suggestion. Microsoft representatives have refused to comment for the time being. Rumour Control verdict: "Bogus that Banjo Kazooie, Too Human, Alan Wake, Fable 2, or Halo Wars has already been canceled. Abstain on whether or not they (or any other Microsoft projects) will stay that way."
ES has released some basic tips for making sure that no one else can log in or steal your ESO account. First and foremost, they emphasize not to share your account information with anyone or use your ESO password on websites or forums. They also caution that Ensemble Studios employees will not ask for your password. If you are logged on to ESO and someone is asking for your account password or account information, please immediately take a screenshot of the chat messages by pressing the "Print Screen" button. Then open MS paint (or other image program) and paste the screenshot. Save it and attach it to an e-mail to age3.abuse@ensemblestudios.com. In addition to that the ES guys want you to make sure that your password and secret question/answer are not easy for someone to guess. If you wish to update your password or secret question/answer, you can do so by logging in to the ESO account management page. Have a happy ESO experience!!
ESO Account Management | Making Strong Passwords | View Source
With a record of 744 Wins and 130 Losses, iamgrunt, who hasn't even played a match in over a month, is still leading The WarChiefs Supremacy Power Ratings. Sioux player GlamourCars4Hire is still in the Second in the Ladder with a record of 207 Wins and 40 Losses whereas Spain favoring Flooky, is now in the Third spot with a record of 1416 Wins and 654 Losses. Here are the current Top 10 from the Supremacy Power Ratings:
The very first update on the TAD Supremacy Ratings reveals a very intense competition for the top spot. And it seems that the top players have taken to the Asian Civilizations very favorably with each of them having either the Japanese or Chinese as their favorite civ. There aren't too many takers for the Indians yet though. Here are the current Top 10 of the TAD Supremacy Power Ratings:
The Supremacy Power Ratings are currently led by GlamourCars4Hire who has a record of 55 Wins and 7 Losses. In second place with a record of 167 Wins and 33 Losses is _H2O whereas WCG Bronze Medalist NaturePhoenix is currently ranked third with 31 Wins and 15 Losses. WCG Silver Medalist Parfait is currently ranked 6th whereas the WCG Champ iamgrunt is yet to make a debut in the Power Ratings.
Mr.Milo has put together a summary of his trip to this year's World Cyber Games finals in Seattle, complete with some of his photographs. You can read his write-up at the Age Community forum. The write-up provides an in-depth review of the feel of the event in general and also covers some details of the final TWC games. Our thanks to Milo for sharing his experiences with us all. In additon to that, if you'd like to see AoE III included in next year's WCG as well, head over to their website and vote in the poll to select the games for 2008.
GameReplays.org is hosting a 1v1 tournament Asian Dynasties, open to a whopping 128 players. And the opening will be extended up to 256 players if there are more than 200 signups!! There is $250 in prize money up for grabs with $175 to the awarded to the Winner. Each round will be in the Best of Three format and you'll need to use an Asian civilization at least once in each round. So get practicing and make sure that you sign-up for the event before the deadline of November 17th. All the best to everyone who participates.
Ensemble Studios has launched an AoE Image Contest to mark the 10th anniversary of the Series. All you have to do to enter is send to ES a photo of your favorite Age moment, a screenshot of your greatest victory, an Age inspired cartoon, an Age themed desktop wallpaper, or some other kind of image that you've created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Age of Empires. ES will then choose a winner and some honorable mentions to share with Age fans on AgeCommunity and shower the image creators in AoE prizes.
Prizes include signed copies of Age of Empires III, The WarChiefs, The Asian Dynasties, the Age of Empires III board game and more! Entries are due by the November 23rd deadline and the winners will be announced on December 10th on AgeCommunity.com. No purchase is necessary to enter or win the contest, but it will definitely help if you have a working copy of atleast one Age title!! All the best to everyone who enters!!
In a recent post on the official AgeCommunity forums, ES_Thunder announced that there is going to be a major change to the way new Home Cities are created on Ensemble Studios Online starting tomorrow, October 30. Apparently new Home Cities that are created will start at a level based on that player's highest home city level. For example, if someone's highest Home City is at level 50, then all of their new Home Cities will start at Level 40. Also starting tomorrow, the amount of all bonus experience in every game will be increased by 25%, making Home Cities level up even quicker.
GameSpy has posted a review of the Asian Dynasties Y-Pack, giving it a glowing score of 4.5 Stars out of 5. The review, written by Ton Chick, gives an in-depth analysis of all the new features that have been added to the game. The description of the history meets fantasy theme of the game is especially well done. In addition to that, the reviewer has taken into account the multiplayer potential of the game and has separately rated it as 'Great'. All in all, its a fantastic review, so don't forget to check it out!! Here's an excerpt:
"No self-respecting Age III fan would want to miss out on all the East meets West fun, not to mention the new artwork: such gorgeous pagodas, arches, minarets and colors that those musty old Europeans could scarcely imagine in their new worlds. This expansion pack is a rare and generous package of new visuals, new gameplay, and absolutely crucial improvements to the core game. If you weren't an Age III fan before Asian Dynasties, get ready to be one now."
AoE III Heaven forummer joelrodrigues has posted a package in their General Discussion forums which contains the records of all 40 Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs games played at the World Cyber Games 2007. The package is a Zip archive of size 17 MBs. Go ahead and check out the thread if you wanna see some records of the best TWC players around!!
MrMilo has recently joined the Age Community moderation team to help answer player questions and keep peace in the forums. You may recognize him as one of the Warriors Path tournament finalists who came to Ensemble Studios to test the WarChiefs expansion pack. In addition to that, he was the one who supplemented the WCG finale between iamgrunt and parfait with his brilliant commentary. Kudos to you dude! Keep up the good work!!
The Asian Dynasties - the latest expansion to Age of Empires III - was shipped to North American retailers today and should be available on store shelves very soon for approximately $30 USD. The expansion brings three new playable Asian civilizations and several new maps and game modes, expanding Age of Empires III from the New World to the Orient. Keep watch at your local retailer for details on when you can get the expansion yourself.
Bruce Shelley has posted another entry in his blog, this time focusing entirely on Age of Empires. He begins the post by announcing that the trial version for The Asian Dynasties expansion had been downloaded over 26,000 times from AgeCommunity alone in its first four days! He then goes on to talk about the WarChiefs at the World Cyber Games tournament, congratulating iamgrunt on his win and posting a link to the recorded game of one of the final matches between iamgrunt and parfait for download from HeavenGames. He finishes off the entry by going into detail on the development of Age of Empires III and the many challenges it went through before the final version. Here is an excerpt:
"Greg mentioned examples of other innovations that did not stand up once they got into our design by playing process. These included changing the first 15 minutes of play, which had been comparable in all previous Age games. Changing this moved the game too far from being an Age game. Having players start on a ship and then land/explore/start was too risky and made losing early too easy. Allowing fighting early also meant losing early was too large a possibility. Building cities on a grid may have resulted in prettier cities, but was confusing, hard to implement, and less personal/fun for the players. Innovations that did stick included allowing the training of soldiers in batches (appealed to hard core but casual gamers could ignore it), no drop sites for resources (less micromanagement), passable forests, story based campaign (more interesting), and personalities for the computer players."
The team at Big Huge Games has posted the final installment in their development blog for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties. This entry, written by John Hawkins (Multiplayer Design Lead), focuses on what it was like to balance the game for the final edition. He says that after most of the content for the game was finished, he and his balance teams at both Big Huge Games and Ensemble Studios had three major issues: the Consulate, Chinese Banner Armies, and Wonders (which are the three most radical new features in the expansion). Here is an excerpt from the entry:
"We played one entire day without ever using the Consulate. The Asians, who had been winning a fair amount of games, were suddenly losing all of them. When we looked at the results for the games when the Asians had been using a Consulate, we noticed something - while the Asians were good, the Japanese specifically were awesome. The thing that made them stand out was the fact that they started out with a Consulate, while the other Asians didn't. This allowed them to immediately acquire an ally and take advantage of the bonus. So we took the starting Consulate away from the Japanese. Another problem we were noticing was that the Consulate was too useful in the late game, but hard to take advantage of early. So to even things out, we slowed down how fast the Asians were getting Export, but we gave them a little bit to start."
A cinematic trailer for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties has been posted at IGN's VE3D site. The short movie, which uses an Asian-themed spinoff of the original Age of Empires III music, is made up of clips which describe the three new campaigns included in the expansion pack as well as a few clips from the original introduction movie. Check it out here if you're interested!
MosheLevi's Strategic Objectives Challenge (SOC) has come to a conclusion, and the names of the 22 lucky winners, who won a game in the drawing, have been announced!! But the Strategic Objectives challenge doesn't end here. The 1v1 Online Tournament is still underway and a lot of games have already been played. The tournament kicked off a week ago and will continue until the end of the month, so if you haven't started yet, now is a great time to do so. There are a total of 15 prizes in the tournament, which includes 5 copies of The Asian Dynasties expansion, which will be released on the 23rd of this month. Also please make sure that when you play the available custom scenarios, do give the designers feedback in some form. This will keep the Custom Scenario scene going by encouraging the development of more quality scenarios.
The expert Age Player from South Korea has done it yet again!! The WarChiefs Event at WCG 2007 was won by none other than the legendary Byeong Geon Kang (aka iamgrunt). And he won the entire tournament without losing a single game!! The contender from the USA, parfait, won the Silver after being bested 2 games to 0 by iamgrunt in the final. Germany's SkWzZ_Phoenix, who lost out to parfait in the Semis ended up in the third place after beating the Colombia's kivenkantaja. The WCG Championship was won by the USA with an overall tally of 3 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze Medals.
According to recent reports and confirmations by Microsoft, Bungie Studios, the developers of the Halo franchise, are to embark on a path to become an independent company. As most of you may alrready know, Bungie is one of the game development companies, like Ensemble Studios, that existed under the Microsoft Game Studios. Following the 'split', Microsoft will retain an equity interest in Bungie and will continue its long standing publishing agreement for the Halo franchise (an intellectual property of Microsoft) as well as other future properties developed by Bungie. Bungie Studios will remain in its current location in Kirkland, Wash. It remains to be seen how (and if) this effects the future of the Halo franchise or even the development of Halo Wars itself.
A new set of screens have been posted at GameSpot and at the AoE III Heaven Forums. While the GS screens show some new shots of the Indian Civilization's architecture, the guys at the Heaven Forums found some screens of the Indian and Chinese HomeCities. They also included some shots of the various cards available to the two civilizations. From the looks of everything so far, we're up for some very interesting and exciting gameplay in just a few weeks time!! Full credit to HG forumer lipstick_cn for his awesome find!!
