Huh, that’s very interesting. I’m genuinely curious to know what it was that you didn’t like about it.
Because the truth is that you’re seemingly in the extreme minority. While 2013’s HD edition seemed to split the community and received a bit of a mixed reaction, since 2019’s DE has been an unmitigated success in terms of both finances for the devs, and in terms of unifying and growing the size of the community.
I’m still unhappy about them initially locking content behind time-limited challenges. Didn’t buy the game early enough or just didn’t happen to play at the right time? No 256x tech mode for you!
It’s blatantly coercive design and even though it appears they’ve since unlocked the content for everyone I still have a negative opinion of the game because of it.
Yeah that’s not great. To be honest for the most part I really like it. Most of the stuff you unlock is pure cosmetics (profile pictures or alternate looks for units—which only display as different for you, not your opponent). They’re just some good fun, and I find my completionist nature enjoys jumping into the game to get them.
But there have been a few of the things unlocked as part of the challenges—that 256x mod is one of them, and there have also been a couple of cheat codes more recently—that did feel like more substantial things to miss out on if you happened not to be able to play while they were on offer. I wasn’t playing when the 256x mod was around, but when the cheat codes first appeared I recall thinking it was pretty disappointing for anyone who might have wanted them that would miss out for whatever reason.
I was expecting they wouldn’t change the visuals and feel of the game so much, I guess. Don’t know if it was the idea but I tried for a few hours and ended up refunding it because I was expecting the same “feel” I had from the original/hd version and everything felt so… different. Maybe I need to give it another try but I remember at the time I decide to stick with the HD Version because it was what felt more familiar for me.
Yeah fair enough. That sort of thing is definitely subjective and it would be impossible for anyone to say you’re wrong.
Personally, I find the new QOL features impossible to live without now. Shift-queueing absolutely any task, being able to queue multiple techs or techs and units, villagers keeping one resource until they actually start gathering—rather than losing all the gold they’re carrying just because you accidentally clicked a tree—farm autoreseeding. To me, none of these really change the fundamental way the game feels, they just make it feel like a smoother, more polished version of the original game.
I personally hated the Definitive Edition for AoE2 :(
Huh, that’s very interesting. I’m genuinely curious to know what it was that you didn’t like about it.
Because the truth is that you’re seemingly in the extreme minority. While 2013’s HD edition seemed to split the community and received a bit of a mixed reaction, since 2019’s DE has been an unmitigated success in terms of both finances for the devs, and in terms of unifying and growing the size of the community.
I’m still unhappy about them initially locking content behind time-limited challenges. Didn’t buy the game early enough or just didn’t happen to play at the right time? No 256x tech mode for you!
It’s blatantly coercive design and even though it appears they’ve since unlocked the content for everyone I still have a negative opinion of the game because of it.
Yeah that’s not great. To be honest for the most part I really like it. Most of the stuff you unlock is pure cosmetics (profile pictures or alternate looks for units—which only display as different for you, not your opponent). They’re just some good fun, and I find my completionist nature enjoys jumping into the game to get them.
But there have been a few of the things unlocked as part of the challenges—that 256x mod is one of them, and there have also been a couple of cheat codes more recently—that did feel like more substantial things to miss out on if you happened not to be able to play while they were on offer. I wasn’t playing when the 256x mod was around, but when the cheat codes first appeared I recall thinking it was pretty disappointing for anyone who might have wanted them that would miss out for whatever reason.
I was expecting they wouldn’t change the visuals and feel of the game so much, I guess. Don’t know if it was the idea but I tried for a few hours and ended up refunding it because I was expecting the same “feel” I had from the original/hd version and everything felt so… different. Maybe I need to give it another try but I remember at the time I decide to stick with the HD Version because it was what felt more familiar for me.
Yeah fair enough. That sort of thing is definitely subjective and it would be impossible for anyone to say you’re wrong.
Personally, I find the new QOL features impossible to live without now. Shift-queueing absolutely any task, being able to queue multiple techs or techs and units, villagers keeping one resource until they actually start gathering—rather than losing all the gold they’re carrying just because you accidentally clicked a tree—farm autoreseeding. To me, none of these really change the fundamental way the game feels, they just make it feel like a smoother, more polished version of the original game.