Yes, I played demo specifically designed for the convention. You played as Greek, with a Full Tech Tree in Post-Iron and with lots of resources and buildings to start with.
It was in a small Mediterranean map designed for you to test the different units and strategies. Even in Post-Iron, the Jihad tech was not automatically researched, but was left as your choice to research it or not. Also with the Full Tech tree, both Siege Ships and Fire Galleys were available
I really liked how it felt, just like the original games, but with revamped graphics. Also, I am not 100% sure of this, I felt the siege units were nerfed (which is a great thing). The Helepolii and H. Cats seemed to fire slower and not so accurately. I admit I welcome these changes. I also noticed that some building icons reminded me of AoM's. I don't mind it. I really liked AoM.
The game is still fast paced and the destruction, when you are aggressive occurs quite rapidly, again, like in the originals, different from the relative slowness and much more defensive game mode of AoK.
People seemed quite interested as there was quite the queue waiting to play it. Also I was surprised to see several females playing the demo. Back in my day, I could count them with the fingers of one hand.
I was able to share some moments with part of the Staff of Forgotten Empires, some of which come here sometimes. Maybe they will say hi. They were all a cool bunch, same to Joe Homes, the community manager at the official site.
I was able to ask some questions and get some answers, I wanted to write them down, but I forgot to, so I'll try to make a transcription but I am afraid I may not necessarily be 100% accurate. My bad :b
Also many of these questions have been answered elsewhere, but eh, I hope you don't mind.
Q: I thought this game didn't exist for Microsoft anymore, How did you keep all of this secret? I mean before E3 no one but you knew about this, you could work for the CIA or the KGB
A: *Laughs* Yeah we did a good job not leaking it.
Q: Why is the demo set in post-Iron and with Full tech tree?
A: We wanted people to try as many different units and strategies as possible, and we feel FTT in P-I is a good way to do so.
Q: I it true that all the original campaigns will be there?
A: Yes that's right, we also corrected some of the inaccuracies in the map and historical parts of the campaign instructions. We have two historians as consultants in our team, they have been doing lots of research to try to get history accurate.
Q: What about Age of Empires IV? Do you know the historical setting for it?
A: Sorry we are not involved in that.
Q: Are there plans for an Age of Mythology 2?
A: Right now we need to focus on getting AoE DE out, and after that we will focus on the DEs of AoE II and III. But maybe there would be something in the future.
Q: I am fond of the arrows flying in a straight line, like in the original game and not in arcs like in AoK.
A: Yes we are using the same engine as the original games. We wanted it to remain as close as possible as AoE, and not to make it a mod of AoK.
Q: The animations of the buildings collapsing and the details in terrain textures and cloud shadows look neat.
A: Thanks, yet we feel they still need to be tweaked a bit more. The buildings collapsing seems to happen too fast, we need to slow them down a little bit.
In some moment I have ran out of compliments, in my opinion the game is as great as it could be, asking for more would be greedy.
Finally some pictures Sorry for the picture quality, my camera isn't good in darker environments :/
This is embarrassing but here I am, with the fellas. I got other picture, but for some reason it was overwwritten D:
It was in a small Mediterranean map designed for you to test the different units and strategies. Even in Post-Iron, the Jihad tech was not automatically researched, but was left as your choice to research it or not. Also with the Full Tech tree, both Siege Ships and Fire Galleys were available
I really liked how it felt, just like the original games, but with revamped graphics. Also, I am not 100% sure of this, I felt the siege units were nerfed (which is a great thing). The Helepolii and H. Cats seemed to fire slower and not so accurately. I admit I welcome these changes. I also noticed that some building icons reminded me of AoM's. I don't mind it. I really liked AoM.
The game is still fast paced and the destruction, when you are aggressive occurs quite rapidly, again, like in the originals, different from the relative slowness and much more defensive game mode of AoK.
People seemed quite interested as there was quite the queue waiting to play it. Also I was surprised to see several females playing the demo. Back in my day, I could count them with the fingers of one hand.
I was able to share some moments with part of the Staff of Forgotten Empires, some of which come here sometimes. Maybe they will say hi. They were all a cool bunch, same to Joe Homes, the community manager at the official site.
I was able to ask some questions and get some answers, I wanted to write them down, but I forgot to, so I'll try to make a transcription but I am afraid I may not necessarily be 100% accurate. My bad :b
Also many of these questions have been answered elsewhere, but eh, I hope you don't mind.
Q: I thought this game didn't exist for Microsoft anymore, How did you keep all of this secret? I mean before E3 no one but you knew about this, you could work for the CIA or the KGB
A: *Laughs* Yeah we did a good job not leaking it.
Q: Why is the demo set in post-Iron and with Full tech tree?
A: We wanted people to try as many different units and strategies as possible, and we feel FTT in P-I is a good way to do so.
Q: I it true that all the original campaigns will be there?
A: Yes that's right, we also corrected some of the inaccuracies in the map and historical parts of the campaign instructions. We have two historians as consultants in our team, they have been doing lots of research to try to get history accurate.
Q: What about Age of Empires IV? Do you know the historical setting for it?
A: Sorry we are not involved in that.
Q: Are there plans for an Age of Mythology 2?
A: Right now we need to focus on getting AoE DE out, and after that we will focus on the DEs of AoE II and III. But maybe there would be something in the future.
Q: I am fond of the arrows flying in a straight line, like in the original game and not in arcs like in AoK.
A: Yes we are using the same engine as the original games. We wanted it to remain as close as possible as AoE, and not to make it a mod of AoK.
Q: The animations of the buildings collapsing and the details in terrain textures and cloud shadows look neat.
A: Thanks, yet we feel they still need to be tweaked a bit more. The buildings collapsing seems to happen too fast, we need to slow them down a little bit.
In some moment I have ran out of compliments, in my opinion the game is as great as it could be, asking for more would be greedy.
Finally some pictures Sorry for the picture quality, my camera isn't good in darker environments :/
This is embarrassing but here I am, with the fellas. I got other picture, but for some reason it was overwwritten D:
[This message has been edited by PhatFish (edited 08-26-2017 @ 09:19 AM).]