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AoEII HD


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I think they should have made it available for free for people who already own the original Age of Empires 2.

That way all fans would have been happy and they still earned money because new players can buy it from steam.

Just recently I've red an article that making old successful games compatible with Windows 7/8 and selling them on steam is generally quite successful and profitable.

Age of Empires HD was ranked 4th in the top sellers on steam, yesterday :)

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I think I might get the 4 pack. Getting AoK to play is a bit more work than some of my friends can manage, and it would be nice being able to just download and play it. No messing about with patches/cracks/etc. Plus, my old discs are increasingly un-reliable and the software is showing it's age too.

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my old discs are increasingly un-reliable

I don't have any originals that still work... (are RTS CDs bad quality? or do I play them too much? or do I treat them so badly ...)

For AoE:RoR I'm using the copy of a copy of my friends game ... (funny fact: my friend realized he was addicted to AoE and threw the CD behind a heavy desk so he could no longer play the game ... he asked me to come over to move the desk not so long after xD he later destroyed the CD ... and then bought a new one)

For AoK I'm using a copy of my original CD

For AoM:TGE I'm using a crack because my original cd got an error in it before I made a copy of it.

I never bought AoE III because I've got 0 A.D. ... So why would I want it? (I played with my friends game for a while, but it just isn't as good as AoK) (btw: the natives expansion CD of my friend doesn't install anymore)

I never installed AoEO because it looks like crap

My conclusion:

CDs are crap, and 0 A.D. won't have any problem with them xD

I see the thing about Steam, no CD trouble anymore, but I don't like it.

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Might also use updated libraries and things like that make it run faster and better on modern hardware, though.

I highly doubt they went to the trouble. Even so, I don't think 2D sprites would have trouble running on modern hardware.

The problem I've had with AoK is that I can't host a multiplayer game on Windows 7, and in fact I don't think I can even reliably connect to a host using XP. My friend and I use the free GameRanger service if we want to get around this. I never found a working solution for that problem, is there one? (other than going through some sort of proxy like GameRanger which is perhaps what the new HD version does as well)

Yes, the built in MP service in the game hasn't been supported for a while. Most, if not all, old games are like this. You will need something like Gamespy to use as a lobby/host system.

Steam could also be used if they patched it into the game - which I doubt would be hard to do. This is exactly what they have done with this "HD" version.

I think they should have made it available for free for people who already own the original Age of Empires 2.

That way all fans would have been happy and they still earned money because new players can buy it from steam.

Just recently I've red an article that making old successful games compatible with Windows 7/8 and selling them on steam is generally quite successful and profitable.

They should have just released it as a patch, and then also released a fully patched version of the game on steam.

What they have done is just release a fully patched version of the game on steam and neglected the people who still own, and still play the game even today. All done in the hopes that people will rebuy the game, when they don't need to, and SHOULDN'T need to. In the end it all comes down to greed - hoping to increase sales by making people rebuy the game just so they can get this (and possibly future) patches.

I don't have any originals that still work... (are RTS CDs bad quality? or do I play them too much? or do I treat them so badly ...)

I think it's just you, and people like you. No offense or anything. I'm just saying.

I still have plenty of original copies of my games that work perfecfly fine. AoEII is one of them. I was playing it the other week, un-patched, and un-modded. And I had no problems what-so-ever. Yes, it wasn't in a high resolution or in widerscreen - but that didn't effect the game in anyway.

Also, why was this moved out of the Off-topic forum?

Edited by Khopesh
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I think they should have made it available for free for people who already own the original Age of Empires 2.

That way all fans would have been happy and they still earned money because new players can buy it from steam.

Just recently I've red an article that making old successful games compatible with Windows 7/8 and selling them on steam is generally quite successful and profitable.

Actually giving it for free to those who already own the old AoK wouldn't be a great option. It might not look like a big remaster, but with nothing else but the old sprites to work with it's not that easy to improve on them without spending some good time on it. Also, the old games could still be found in certain stores for $5,- those $5 would go to the store, not the studio that actually worked on this re-release. Not to mention, the work that would need to be done to see if anyone has a real old AoK with the cd-keys all over the web. It would cost them more then they could make on the Steam sales. And games simply are being sold above their price at release, that's just how today's market works. Probably this summer it will go for $10 at the steam summer sale. If it's to expensive for you, just wait it out.
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Also, why was this moved out of the Off-topic forum?

Most likely because the topic it was merged with was in this forum and the person merging them didn't look at the forums :) I'll move it there now though as it doesn't have anything to do with 0 A.D. itself :)
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Most likely because the topic it was merged with was in this forum and the person merging them didn't look at the forums :) I'll move it there now though as it doesn't have anything to do with 0 A.D. itself :)

Thanks, I was worried it was deleted when I couldn't find it. :P

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There are already free patches that allow the game to run in 1920x1080 (it uses the whole screen) and to get rid of the graphical glitches. They are not even hard to install... ^^

What about having it out-of-the-bo? I don't want to hack into my game with unofficial patches.

I seriously don't mind the lil' stretching of my widescreen and the graphic glitches i solved by simply using a .cmd file with this written:


taskkill /F /IM Explorer.exe
age2_x1.exe
Start explorer.exe

Well, not sure if by only terminating the explorer solves every glitch, but at least i didn't notice any.

I did it exactly the same, but seriously: It's still a very ugly hack!

And what about playing multiplayer (WITHOUT a hackaround, just starting the game and playing)?

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Still stuff that could be updated in a patch.

I like the package they are offering, including these small enhancements. I don't like the price tag, which is a bit too high.

What amazes me most is that the work of this guy (who made an unofficial patch) was not incorporated in AOE 2 HD.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The cliffs look better, too

Hmm, the cliffs almost look too good. Maybe they should have done cliffs that looked similar to the old ones, but just in different colors for the different biomes. That's what I would have done.

It looks nice, but I don't want to buy it again just for multiplayer and I don't like Steam.

I bought the game way back in 1999. And the disks are all damaged beyond repair... So, now that I think about it, it may be worth it for me to pick it up, if only for inspiration. AOK is pretty much the reason 0 A.D. even exists. I should have it installed and playable. :)
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