The first Age of Empires was always my favourite, and when I first loaded it up the nostalgia was flowing like the Yangtze during monsoon season. You have four resource types to collect, four ages to advance through, and objectives that range from “collect 250 food” to “advance to the Silver age and defeat two opposing armies while spinning ten plates and entertaining a difficult child.” Personally I’m very glad for the return to the franchise’s roots.
Quests are just like the missions in the first Age of Empire. It is in these quests where the second game of Age of Empires: Online comes into play. Historical characters such as King Agamemnon send you on extensive plot-based quests such as the Siege of Troy, others like the Scout and Dockmaster offer repeatable quests themed around their vocation.
Your capital city also acts as a quest hub, with major characters from your city assuming the role of quest-givers. It’s where you communicate with other players, trade with them, and arrange PvP scenarios and cooperative quests with them. It’s also the first of those two games I mentioned and the focus of the “Online” aspect of AOE Online. Thinking about it in MMO terms, your Capital City is essentially your character, growing and evolving as you play. Once you’ve named your capital city, the game begins. I spent most of my time with the Greeks, though I also dabbled with the Egyptians. AOE Online has returned to the classical historical period of the first game, and at present two factions are playable, the Egyptians and the Greeks. You start the game by picking the empire of your choice. It’s more like two separate games which mutually benefit each-other through a shared tunnel of experience points, upgrades, unlocks and so forth.Įnough introductory preamble here’s the bit where I tell you how it all works. In fact, the more I think about it, the more difficult I find it to consider Age of Empires Online as a single game. The developers have concentrated on fitting the online aspects around Age of Empires rather than forcing Age of Empires into an online model. The core mechanics of Age of Empires are almost religiously recreated in the online version. But how has it changed itself in order to compete with other online behemoths?īattles are still a sharper version of a mosh pit Only this time it has emerged as contender in the viciously unforgiving realm of the MMO, as its strategic competitor Warcraft did in 2004. Now, after a lengthy hiatus, Age of Empires is back to compel a new generation to undertake absurdly expensive and massively undervalued degree courses. There are even tales of Age of Empires influencing people to study history at university. It’s one of those games that introduced a generation of young non-gamers to our beloved virtual hobby. Yet upon its release it was more popular than that video of Rupert Murdoch being hit with a pie. The first game was released way back in 1997, and it’s been six years since the robust but unspectacular Age of Empires III. It’s easy to forget the stature of Age of Empires as a gaming franchise.