Relic working on Age of Empires 4

https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-4/dlc-expansions
Age of Empires 4 will be arriving with a new business model, giving players the option to either outright purchase the game or play it as part of Microsoft’s subscription-based Game Pass service. But one thing it won’t have is microtransactions or in-app purchases.

“The idea of microtransactions in a real-time strategy game isn’t a thing,” said Age of Empires creative director Adam Isgreen at XO19 in London. “DLC, expansions – all of that is things that we’re going to be exploring for Age 4.”

In fact, Isgreen said Microsoft’s new dedicated Age of Empires studio World’s Edge is looking into expansion content for all the Age of Empires games, which includes Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, which launched this past week.

As far as what that expansion content will look like, Isgreen says that’s in many ways down to the games’ player communities. As an example, he said, new civilisations probably won’t be coming to Age of Empires II, since it already has 35.

“Our pro players are even like, please don’t add more civilisations, please do other things,” he said.

“But we want to have those conversations with the community, to figure out what we can add,” he said. “What are the things they want to see in the game? Things like game modes.”

Isgreen says they’ll be starting those conversations up with fans as the team shifts its focus to Age of Empires III, and that the approach for Age of Empires 4 will be no different.

“While we definitely already have ideas in terms of where we want to go past Age 4, in terms of expansions and stuff, a lot of that is going to be driven by the community and the players, where they want to see the game going,” Isgreen explained.

Age of Empires – Franchise Narrative Lead

For over 20 years, Age of Empires has delighted fans of all ages with its celebratory approach to history and ageless game mechanics that have delivered a large, diverse, and world-wide gaming audience of millions of dedicated fans. Age of Empires IV marks a return to this highly anticipated and critically acclaimed Franchise.

Your role will be to shepherd the strategic view of the narrative of the Age of Empires franchise at Relic Entertainment, working with our fantastic partners at Microsoft to define the narrative goals and focus of the franchise. In addition, you will work to ensure narrative consistency in the game, and explore and drive the delivery of narrative within the Age of Empires brand at large.

You and your team will deliver an amazing experience for our players and community by mining our shared world history for great stories to present in unique and fulfilling ways.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-4/time-period
“Our time period is the Middle Ages, but it’s slightly bigger – on both ends – than the time period from Age II,” creative director Adam Isgreen tells us. “So we start a little bit earlier than Age II’s time and we go a little bit further, kind of bumping up against the early Renaissance. We’re not going to give you specific dates, because then people would be like ‘ohmygod the campaigns must be this if the dates are this’, and we’re not talking about campaigns. I’d love to, and I could, but I’m not allowed to.”

Age of Empires II’s four ‘ages’ were the Dark, Feudal, Medieval, and finally Imperial Ages.
*SNIP*

https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-4/ages
We got the chance to ask creative director Adam Isgreen about exactly that at X019 yesterday. When it comes to Age of Empires IV civilisations, it sounds like we can expect a mix of the familiar and the radical – the English will feel familiar to the Britons from Age of Empires II, while the Mongols will be very different, with Isgreen implying that Age’s traditional “unique units and differences in tech” might be among the systems revised.

We probed further on such points as resources and progressing through different ages in time. “We deviate a little, but we really love the model from Age II,” Isgreen says. “So yes, there are four resources [in Age IV], and all the civilisations use them – but do they use them in the same way? Do they use them in the same order? Hmm, don’t know. You’ll have to find out.”

So what he means there, but isn’t allowed to say, is that some civs will use resources differently than we’re used to. It sounds like it’s a similar deal when it comes to the actual ages:

“We love the idea of moving through ages, and we’ve actually taken it even further in this game. Not in terms of the number of ages, although there are civilisations that don’t necessarily play by the four-age rule, I will say that. But there are also new aspects to ageing up from a presentation point of view that no one has ever seen in an RTS game before.”
*SNIP*

https://www.altchar.com/game-news/age-of-empires-iv-is-currently-aiming-to-release-in-2021-apEJH9V4ePwp
*SNIP*
In the post, FairlyEmpire revealed a couple of bits of info, which the devs revealed at XO19 event in London and the release window is one of the information that they've mentioned. "Age Of Empires IV is currently aiming a 2021 release. It's been in active development for about 3 years," ResetEra user wrote in the post

FairyEmpire said:
Couple fun bits of info I gathered by talking to devs and such at X019. Some of this is probably known but here you go:
Age Of Empires IV is currently aiming a 2021 release. It's been in active development for about 3 years. The Age Of Empires 3 remake is currently planned for mid-2020.

https://stevivor.com/features/interviews/age-of-empires-4-console-release-hasnt-been-ruled-out/
Speaking with Microsoft’s Shannon Loftis and Adam Isgreen at X019 in London, Stevivor asked if Age of Empires 4 will release on console as well, mirroring cross-platform development of other first-party titles like Halo Infinite.

“It’s hard, as a PC game,” Loftis said in reply. “We want to make it great on PC. But then, I think the whole concept of platform is about to change with Xbox.

“We are working hard to make sure to visualize all the different ways that people are going to want to experience Age [of Empires]. But our number one priority is to make it work great with keyboard and mouse.”

I pointed out that the recent release of 2K’s Civilization 6 on Xbox One and PS4 shows there’s an obvious demand for RTS games on console. Isgreen nodded in agreement.

“We’re going to explore our options,” he replied. “Once we have our wonderful PC game, then we’ll start looking at other ways that we can show up.”

Age of Empires 4 is expected by many strategy fans and we already know that it will gain more information and gameplay in November. But by then, the best player in the world wants to see one thing just for the continuation of the franchise: make it as epic as Age of Empires 2.

In an exclusive interview with Voxel, the Norwegian Team Secret pro Ørjan "TheViper" Larsen explained his concerns and wishes for Age of Empires 4. "I want to see a worthy successor of Age of Empires 2", explains the player. "Similar gametype, similar time period, similar mechanics, just improved in every aspect and modernized".

Although his desire is to improve what we already have in Age of Empires 2, the Norwegian mentions that there is room to bring unpublished things. "I think they would have to go for new mechanics. RTS is a genre that isn't as popular as it used to be, maybe they would have to be creative and reinvent the genre a little bit. But if it would go too far from AOE2, it would be a disappointment again", says the pro, recalling the community that left Age of Empires 3 to re-compete in the previous game in the series.

Going back in time, TheViper recalls that Age of Empires 3 has had its problems, but the genre needs to strike the balance even more for pros and audiences to enjoy themselves in the process of deepening the game. "I think RTS is too complicated and demanding in terms of effort and skill set, that it can't compete with the less complicated, yet competitive games anymore."

"Those games simply appeal to more people as it's easier to play, yet competitive with a high skill ceiling. Maybe sometime in the future this will change again, but I don't see it happening any time soon", he explains.

The success, for TheViper, will also depend on how Microsoft will conduct the game along with the sports competitions. "I think the best would be if Microsoft laid down the law in terms of rules and settings for most tournaments. Then maybe there could be a cooperation between tournament hosts and Microsoft in order to make some tournaments that can be used in forms of a league/cups that score points with maybe a grand final somewhere? That would be incredible! But I hope Microsoft invests more and more into the competitive scene and makes it super interesting with AOE2E", he concludes.

A bit of The Viper's career in Age of Empires

TheViper is not an unfamiliar name for a fan of Age of Empires: he has been touted directly as the best in the world since 2012. The community knows and even jokes about it.

"Who's #2?" was one of the community championships in August this year and brought together four of the best players in the world. And guess what: TheViper wasn't there. Obvious reasons: He is the #1.

During the interview, TheViper also praised the Brazilians who are still present at Age of Empires international competitions. "Brazil has always had some of the best Age2 players in the world, and they're obviously very hard to beat. When I came through and started playing competitively, there was RiuT, dogao, Alive and Wrath to mention a few. Then there were also other players getting better all the time, such as F1Re, FeAge, miguel, St4rk, GoKu, etc. There are plenty more, but Brazil must be one of the countries with higher percentages of really good players", he recalls.

He himself has had the opportunity to almost lift the cup alongside two of them, Daniel "RiuT" Lima and Helenês "F1re" Romano, at the grand final of the Clan Masters: The Final Showdown in China in 2016. But on that occasion in specific, he ended up playing very badly.

"I remember [in this event] it being really rough on us, as all the players on our team had a pretty heavy night before. For myself it has to be one of my worst performances in a tournament. I remember throwing up 3 times before the final begun from being hungover, after 3 hours of sleep. It was just a really hard day, and it showed in my gameplay. It was still really heartwarming to see the Chinese audience and our opponents get so happy and excited. I would still prefer to have lifted the trophy myself though!", he jokes.

And yet, he almost won that championship against the Chineses [and Brazilian, because dogao was in SY and played until the semifinal].

"I remember we lost by a difference of one game. I was very angry. I remember that I was playing very well and precisely the Viper, who was the best in the world, did not play very well that day. And he was decisive. he's fine, we win, if not screwed", commented Brazilian RiuT on this occasion in an interview with Mais Esports.

We have one certainty: TheViper will be one of the names to be beaten in Age of Empires 4. It remains to be seen if it will last as long as the fans' love for Age of Empires 2.

---

TheViper answered more questions that were left out of the story but are worth getting published.

The competitive scene didn't stand long on Age 3 like Age 2. What do you think Age 4 should have to attract pro players?

TheViper: First of all it needs to be fun to play and feel competetive. Secondly, it must be fun for an audience to watch if it's going to become a proper e-sport. Thirdly, it needs investment in terms of tournaments and competitions, from Microsoft or other parties, or both!

We have Age 2 DE, Age 4 and Warcraft 3 Reforged coming up after such a long time without competitive RTS on the mainstream. Do you think that RTS could make a comeback and attract new players?

TheViper: I think RTS is too complicated and demanding in terms of effort and skill set, that it can't compete with the less complicated, yet competitive games anymore. Those games simply appeal to more people as it's easier to play, yet competitive with a high skill ceiling. Maybe sometime in the future this will change again, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

What was the best moment in your entire career?

TheViper: I've had so many great moments, it's really hard to choose. Competitively I can't really decide between winning some tournaments, such as NAC1, NAC2, ECL and World Championship in Maldives. LAN events are just something special, and being able to lift the trophy there is an incredible feeling, as you're able to celebrate and share the victory with friends and fans at the same time. I think even losing events like that is still an amazing experience.

And the hardest match you ever played?

TheViper: It has to be either the World Championship vs Yo in the Maldives or the KOTD1 vs Liereyy. Versus Mr_Yo I was down 0-2 in a Best of 5 in the Grand Final, and couldn't afford to lose another game. I was able to comeback and win. In the KOTD1 Grand Final, I was facing Liereyy, and after having a comfortable lead, he was able to fight his way back to a 4-4 score in a Best of 9. I was able to win that one as well, but both of them were very challenging in skill, but especially mentally, which is why I value them more.

The community is still playing Age 2 for such a long time. What do you think that keep all these players playing the game?

TheViper: I think Ensemble Studios simply made an amazing game that was way before its time. The gameplay never gets old, the civs are incredible well balanced considering the amount of civs, and also fun to play. Different map generations constantly make new games so that no game is ever the same. The new expansions has also freshened everything up a bit.

On top of that there is an amazing community behind this game. Players, fans, everyone is contributing in their own way. We have some amazing people as well that help keep the game alive with their contributions. Noone mentioned, noone forgotten, but we have a lot of people to thank for keeping this game alive.

Jump back to quoted post24 Nov 2019, 18:28 PMBasilone

What is Relic's role in development? They doing gameplay design or just art assets?

Working in cooperation for over a year, Sperasoft provides art services for Relic and is regarded as a trustworthy and flexible partner.

"Generally speaking, the longer a genre exists, the games that are responsible for taking it forward tend to make it more complicated. With Age of Empires 4, it was important for us to be like, 'okay, how do we back away from that?'. We do not want to take on all of the complexity that we see in RTS games today," Isgreen explains. "This is a fresh start for us. We want to modernise the series and that means we are going to do things differently."
*SNIP*

https://www.pixelmatic.com/news
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/354852/Age_of_Empires_IV_Art_Director_Joins_Pixelmatic.php
NOVEMBER 29, 2019
Pixelmatic is proud to announce the hiring of our new Director of Art, Wayne Wong-Chong, from Relic Entertainment. Wayne joins Pixelmatic’s existing ex-Relic design team of Jason Lee and Damon Gauthier, bringing fresh ideas and decades of AAA experience at some of Canada’s top game studios.

Wayne makes the leap to Pixelmatic after having spent nearly 12 years as a Technical Artist and Technical Art Director at Relic Entertainment. He worked as a Principal Technical Artist on both the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War franchises, before leading technical art direction on the highly anticipated upcoming blockbuster, Age of Empires IV.

Wayne’s journey into game art actually started in the AutoCAD labs of the Vancouver Lower Mainland, where he studied CAD architecture. Following his passion for gaming and feature films, he soon decided to switch from architecture to 3D animation, graduating from the famed Vancouver Film School. After cutting his teeth working on numerous 3D animated TV series, Wayne took on more art supervision roles in TV and film, before finally entering the game industry in 2005 as a Technical Artist on FIFA at EA Sports. Enticed by his love for Homeworld, Wayne took the opportunity to join Relic when it came along, and went on to spend a very productive decade there.

Having had shipped multiple AAA titles at Relic, why was Wayne attracted to an up-and-coming studio such as Pixelmatic? In his own words, Wayne claims that, “games are evolving and need to evolve to effectively compete for players’ precious spare time. Longevity and success of large games need the support of tech carefully planned into the game design. The core creative team on Infinite Fleet, led by Jason Lee and Damon Gauthier, understand this and it's our number one focus to create a game where the marriage between game design and tech is meaningful, not to mention achievable.”

Pixelmatic, being the nimble and innovative studio that it is, is well positioned to be adaptive and address the changing landscape of games. It is exactly this willingness to be flexible and embrace innovation that has attracted a talent like Wayne who brings with him his unique art vision as well as his immense pedigree.

On his vision for Infinite Fleet, Wayne said, “Pixelmatic and myself, we love both fictional and non-fictional science. We also love anime. My vision for Infinite Fleet is to create a colorful nostalgic universe where players can engage in over the top anime-esk battles, or friends can simply explore beautiful vistas together while they forge their fleets. Infinite Fleet will have a deep lore rooted in the goals and challenges that the human race are faced with today. We want the world we are creating to spark conversation about technology and what the future holds for us as a species. I’ll be referencing and imbuing the franchise with shapes, colors, and motion familiar to anime fans, and I’m excited to share this vision in the coming months with Infinite Fleet’s growing community.”

Besides the new ideas Wayne is bringing to Infinite Fleet, he is also excited about existing innovations that the Pixelmatic team is already implementing. “The cryptographic game money of Infinite Fleet, INF, is cutting edge and is designed to power player agency both in and out of session by being portable and easily fungible with other cryptocurrencies. We are also exploring machine learning, leveraging HDRP in Unity, and experimenting with Houdini FX. The art team is taking full advantage of all the latest techniques in Substance Painter/Designer, harnessing the power of Blender 2.8, and much more. It's an exciting time at Pixelmatic.”

The entire Pixelmatic team is excited to officially have Wayne Wong-Chong onboard, and we look forward to accomplishing great things with Infinite Fleet.

https://www.pixelmatic.com/news/jason-damon-hired
2019 is going to be a big year, and Pixelmatic is excited to announce the expansion of its team with two major hires to spearhead the development of Infinite Fleet.

The company’s new Chief Creative Officer, Jason Lee, joins as an acclaimed game systems designer from Relic Entertainment. Having spent 13 productive years at Relic, Jason most recently led game design on the Age of Empires 4 project -- a major upcoming title in the monumental Age of Empires series published by Microsoft. Previously, he had worked on the highly acclaimed strategy game Company of Heroes 2, as well as having been part of the game balance team of the original Company of Heroes game.

Looking back on what he learned through his time at Relic, Jason mentions the importance of synergizing good gameplay mechanics with a rich game story/lore. “Building gameplay that helps tell the narrative,” Jason said, “this is probably the greatest lesson I take from Relic and bring to Infinite Fleet -- to have gameplay and story support each other to lead the player through a truly immersive, epic sci-fi adventure.”

Another specialty that Jason brings is his expertise on the art of gameplay balance -- a tricky yet crucial component of any multiplayer game. For any game to be successful, it is absolutely vital that a fine balance is achieved in terms of game dynamics and win rates between different characters and factions.

Pixelmatic also brought in veteran game designer Damon Gauthier, who joins from famed Canadian games studio BioWare, the company behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. Previously, Damon was a member of the original Homeworld team at Relic -- Homeworld being one of the most innovative and highly acclaimed titles of all time in the real-time strategy (RTS) game genre. In his career, Damon has worked on over 10 shipped titles, with most of them being huge successes.

Damon brings with him a wealth of experience in multiplayer gameplay and 3D RTS combat game design. He takes particular pride in his work on Homeworld 2, where he was able to work with lead designer Josh Mosqueira on the complex multiplayer 3D space battles associated with a game like Homeworld.

On how he plans to translate his experience from Homeworld to Infinite Fleet, Damon said, “from a players perspective managing a fleet in 3D space, sending out scouts, planning where to attack and micromanaging your units in full 3D isn’t simple. The experience of working on Homeworld 2 has made me look carefully at the barrier to entry on a full 3D RTS. I have a lot of ideas on how to tackle these problems and I will be using that knowledge here on Infinite Fleet.”

Jason, Damon, and Pixelmatic CEO Samson Mow were all previously colleagues at Relic. This close relationship and chemistry of having worked together bodes well for the development of Infinite Fleet, as the three friends seek to create a masterpiece out of their dream project.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-ii-definitive-edition/spirit-of-the-law
*SNIP*
What do you think AoE2: Definitive will bring to the table in terms of AoE2’s future?

I’m optimistic about Definitive Edition. I’m not involved with the beta, so I don’t have any inside knowledge about it, but my hope is that it’s either amazing or terrible. If it’s just okay, I think it runs the risk of fracturing the community between those who prefer the current versions available. So far everything looks really promising to me from the screenshots and gameplay that’s been teased. It has a lot of quality of life improvements, while keeping the core experience intact.

For me, the bigger change that’s happened over the last few years in the community has been the rise of YouTube and Twitch. When I started my YouTube channel five years ago, the biggest channel at the time had 30,000 subscribers, and now there are a handful of Age of Empires-specific channels with over 100,000. I know of several Twitch streamers who stream AoE2 for a living. The game has transitioned from being something that’s exclusively played to something that is watched a lot. I see comments all the time from people telling me they’ve never even played the game, but just enjoy the theory crafting and watching others play. It seems to be something Microsoft is aware of and supporting with the upcoming Definitive Edition.

AI: The entire multiplayer back end, in all the definitive editions, is all from Relic from Age IV. We’ve taken the entire technology stack of multiplayer, its security, anti-cheat, and all that, and put it all into the old Age games. So technology from the future is now helping the older games be more stable and have people all over the world be able to connect with play

*snip*
Last month, in April, the games’ combined average player count was over 50,000 players. April 12 was the definitive edition’s all-time player peak, and the combined total of the games was 59,995 players. That’s well into the top 150 all-time peak player counts on Steam… for a 21-year-old game.
*snip*
To give you an idea of the scale at work here, Age of Empires 2 sold some 1.5 million copies in the three years surrounding its North American release. Last year, the studio behind the game said that a million people per month were still playing Age of Empires games… and that’s before the huge spike in players this year has seen.

*snip*
As developer World's Edge wrote, "We are proud to officially announce the partnership between World's Edge and Capture Age. Capture Age is a ground-breaking spectating tool that completely changed how you can watch, enjoy, and analyze Age of Empires: II. Today we can confirm that Capture Age will be coming to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition."

https://www.ageofempires.com/news/welcome_robo_boro/
The Age of Empires team is pleased to introduce our new Tournaments Producer for the entire Age franchise! Known to many as “Robo,” Robert has long been a pillar of the community: dedicating countless hours to the biggest and best events in Age of Empires. If you’ve watched a major tournament in recent years, you’ve likely seen the result of his tireless efforts and dedication to making as amazing as possible!

Robo has written a small introduction for you to get to know him—if you haven’t had the pleasure already—so please join us in extending a warm welcome as he joins the Age of Empires team!

G’day! I’m robo_boro or robo, otherwise known as “Robert” out in the real world. You may have heard my name mentioned before in Twitch streams or on various Age of Empires forums and Discords as being the admin of this tournament, the organizer of that event, and so on. I have been a part of the Age of Empires II community since 2013, when I rekindled my love for the game with the release of the HD edition.

I quickly realized that I wanted to be involved with the amazing community that had formed around the game. Unfortunately, living in Australia meant I had a pretty atrocious internet connection, so streaming wasn’t really an option. However, after a brief entry into the world of YouTube, I started organizing tournaments—first for my clan and close friends, then expanding over time until I was working with some of the biggest personalities and largest events!

I was fortunate enough to work with ZeroEmpires and Escape Gaming, organizing many tournaments and even moving halfway across the world to produce Age of Empires content and manage the Escape Champions League. At the time, I was also introduced to Age of Empires III and met some of the amazing people from that community at their first LAN event in a decade.

Now, I have the incredible privilege of joining the Age of Empires team to help make the esports scene prosper while also giving the community all kinds of awesome tournaments to look forward to in the years to come!

I am honored to have met so many awesome people, become the best of friends, traveled the world to attend events, and meet up with people who you would normally only interact with with lines of texts and many repeated “11’s.” I can honestly say that Age of Empires has changed my life, and I have no idea where I would be or what I would be doing if it wasn’t for this fantastic franchise and the people who support it!

—Robo