Age of Empires 3 Demo is OUT!

[Qarth]

SUCKS. Earth 2160 FTW

[Raraku]

SUCKS. Earth 2160 FTW

Any other stellar contibutions to make?

[Gfunk4life]

158 kb/s for me about 35 mins

[kaffra]

Take the Age of Empires III Survey if you have some time, questions 14 onwards are about our opinion on the demo.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/age3/survey/

[a_witko]

ive already said this game sucks, but i guess i should state exactly why... i guess its not fair by just saying so.

* scrolling is awful - 'right-mouse-button-held + direction' is a much better idea and more user friendly

* some grass (autumn) has too many colours and it is hard to distinguish units.

* zoom in + out is very limited.. should have a far zoom out and close zoom in.

* user panel is MUCH too large and limits what you see... makes player feel claustrophobic (sp?)

* graphics look poor with everything on highest even on my 6600GT -they cant expect everyone to own 7800Ultras.

* 3d structure of buildings extremely poor - simple boxes with rooves and textures to cover. AOM standard.

* no saving

* graphics customization poor - no exact choice of AA etc.. (4x, 8x etc)

* no keyboard control options...

* NO CAMERA ROTATION/ANGLE CONTROL???

* population information display???

* NO LEARN TO PLAY IN DEMO!!!!!

* poor maps... in advertised screenshots, maps look complex and natural, but demo displays 'just water, grass and trees' maps... (compare here AOE3-SS and ss below)

* ++ many more things i cant remember..

* POOR GAMEPLAY - unit handling, smoothness of gameplay etc.

the only thing which passes my graphics test is maybe the sunset reflections on water. but even that is limited in a way.

[Sane404]

Why are people moaning so much? Be pleased with something for once.

I enjoyed the demo, the people who hate it obviously are the ones who never played AOEI&II.

[Qarth]

Actually I plaed AoM and liked it dearly. Like I said. SUCKS.

[a_witko]

never played AOEI&II... excuse me, im the BIGGEST FAN of AOEII and i think it superseeds AOEIII by 100x - no doubt in that.

AOEII is a timeless classic. AOEIII is AOEII on a poor 3d engine with outlaws instead of wolves and cows in addition to sheep.

[ahmz]

I haven't played it yet, still downloading.. I hope the sounds and gameplay are as good as AoE1, yes...... ONE, it owned AOK, imho ;)

[Kr0z]

Take the Age of Empires III Survey if you have some time, questions 14 onwards are about our opinion on the demo.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/age3/survey/

586498459[/snapback]

Thanks for the link. Filled out survey. Made it quite clear that AOEIII is [poop]

disgusting image edited out by moderator

[FudgeMonkey]

AT 1st GLANCE (it is a demo) it seems very very similar to AOEII. Just like when AOEII came out it seemed very very similar to AOEI and when AOM came out it seemed very very similar to AOEII.

I don't think this is a bad thing as I loved all 3 games prior to this one and enjoyed the demo in much the same way. If you were expecting some revolution in the game engine then poor you but from the screenies prior to the demo release i wasn't expecting much to be different as the same over-hype appeared when AOM was announced, high-res screenies and muchos excitement about how great it was gonna be. When it came out many people were disapointed.

RTS games have evolved, more so than ever in the last few years. Personally i preffer the old school such as AOEI & II and am enjoying the demo to it's fullest and will be buying the game on it's release as the demo has done it's job and shown me that they have not ditched their style to try and fit in with recent releases.

[blackice912 Veteran]

Anybody having mouse issues?

[wutang01]

I hope AOEIII won't be as laggy as Empire Earth 2 ...

I don't want to buy a new video card yet :no:

[georgevella]

Anybody having mouse issues?

586498774[/snapback]

nope no mouse issues.

oh and btw guys and gals ... this is just a demo, the game isn't finished yet. i hope they put that option from aom where u could remove the UI altogether tho :-)

oh and btw, for those who would want to zoom a lil more out (buildings are quite BIIG) should

1.) Find the game.cfg file - it should be in Age of Empires 3 Trial/StartUp/game.cfg:

2.) Select it, right click on it and select properties:

3.) Uncheck the "Read-Only" box, then click OK:

4.) Make a copy of the file for backup, just in case the file gets messed up

5.) Now, open the file in your favorite text editor. If you don't have one, use Notepad. Find the line that says "MaxZoom=60", and change it to read "MaxZoom=120" (the higher the number, the more you can zoom out... try not to go too high?

source: http://aoe3.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums...=1,23534,120,60

btw: here i am working on a gf4-ti4600, full settings and runs VERY smoothly at 1280x960 (even tho all those bells and whistles of HDR are not enabled)

[robertobaggio2k]

everytime i play the game it freezes on the screen it says played best on pentium 4 or soemthin....i got an amd 1800+xp ati radeon 128ddr latest drivers 256ddr ram...is it my comp that sux or somethin else?

[Matrix XII]

Why are people moaning so much? Be pleased with something for once.

I enjoyed the demo, the people who hate it obviously are the ones who never played AOEI&II.

586498530[/snapback]

"Moaning" is what differentiates good games from bad games. It's called, preference. It's also called, "I thought this game would be decent (and could at least run on an ATI card) after it getting pumped up by everyone and his dog."

I played it on my friends computer, and the game is just average, no where near as fun as i thought it would be. I'd just rather play AOM or AOEII:TC

[paperless]

"Why are people moaning so much? Be pleased with something for once.

I enjoyed the demo, the people who hate it obviously are the ones who never played AOEI&II."

Not exactly. I never played any AoE

Im a fan of AoM and i liked it too, kinda boring and the UI is huge the graphics sucks... etc.

But this is Demo 1.0 and things are gonna be fixed till retail version, of that im sure.

[Shannon]

Whenever I try to start it, it crashes my comp. :(

[WildFire]

I've only played it a little so far. I agree it's not exactly that different from previous games - and the HUD is way too big for my liking.

Those fragments being blown off buildings look really cool though, and the water reflections are not bad. :)

[MPH]

Thanks Timan. Downlading now. :woot:

[Matrix XII]

Whenever I try to start it, it crashes my comp. :(

586499018[/snapback]

everyone who has an ATI card has that problem, it's quite rediculous really

[Shannon]

everyone who has an ATI card has that problem, it's quite rediculous really

586499176[/snapback]

Damn, I was looking forward to trying it out too.

I loved AOE2. :(

[paperless]

I have played two games of 89 Minutes yeah quite curious they lasted the exact same time.

First i lost and in the second i owned them.

I only played the english tho gotta try the spanish.

Why dont they have Portuguese in the demo... damn it was the first conquering not England and Spain it should be on demo!!!11!1onehundredandeleven

[Shibby]

Played it again and i am just starting to like it.

But i f'ing hate the limit on how many bulidings i can have such as 7 guard towers. and 20 houses, This sucks i think.

Graphics aren't that bad but units look to much the same.

I haven't played AGE II many times because i never ahd it but a friend did.

But if it get improved i will buy it. Because it suck a fun game i can spend hours on

[Rigby]

The AI seems kind of simple minded; all they do is rush you in little groups again and again, right from the start of the game. I barely have time to get anything built before they wipe me out, but once I get defenses in place there is nothing to it. Goes from being too hard to being too easy. :no: