Profile of SturmtigerCobra

Notfaye
Company of heroes looks amazing, we’re talking 40 vehicles 1:120 scale and 150 soldier minis, real time or turn based with a solo and coop mode. But... they took three years to deliver their last box, and everything is poor renders. If they deliver it’s amazing

ncc1701jv
Company of Heroes looks great, all those glorious minis/vehicles. I just dont know that I would ever get it to the table (looking at you ALL of the rest of my wargames).

butters-chaos
Very interested in Company of Heroes, however the reputation of creator is not that good. The previous game was delayed 2-3 years. Still deciding whether to get CoH or Tide of Iron..

mellman99
I'm currently in on Company of Heroes. I love the video game but I don't see myself holding on to this one because I feel like it won't translate properly to a board game.

https://www.pcgamer.com/age-of-empires-4-is-making-good-progress-and-microsoft-will-talk-about-it-later-this-year/
https://twitter.com/pcgamer/status/1138430257235730433
Yesterday, I sat down with Microsoft's executive VP of gaming Phil Spencer to discuss Game Pass coming to Windows, the company's attitude towards Steam and a whole lot more. One subject I just had to ask about, given the opportunity, was the current status of Age of Empires 4. The Relic-developed sequel to Ensemble's historical strategy series was announced back at Gamescom 2017, and didn't feature in the Xbox E3 briefing on Sunday. The good news is, you'll be hearing more about it later this year.

"We'll talk about it more this year," Spencer says. "Relic's great as a studio, we're making good progress with it. One of the things I loved about our show [on Sunday] is the things that we didn't show. We had 60 games, 14 first-party games, with 12 shipping in the next year. And then I know, like okay, what's The Initiative working on? Where is Age 4, how's that going? I think Playground has a second team, what's going on with that? Where's Turn 10, they didn't show up?

"So it was cool for us to be able to have a such a full show, and have some things like Age 4 that have been announced but haven't been shown in a while, other things that maybe aren't announced, to still be able to have those continue to drive excitement both through the year and potentially even next year's E3. But we'll talk more about Age 4, yeah."

I asked Spencer if there was anything more he could say about the game. "No, I want us to make sure we're doing that in the right context. The thing I would say is, we've been incredibly impressed by Relic's capability. Obviously they're somewhat local to us being in Vancouver, and we know the studio. They did the best job of, 'here's what we think Age should go to'. And the other thing I'll say is, we are learning a lot revisiting Age 1, and Age 2. As those communities grow again, as those communities continue to exist, they have large player bases, and there's a lot of feedback. So we're really getting good insight. even here as we're putting Age 2: DE, which is playable on the floor, from those communities about things they'd like to see in Age 4, and that's important for us."

Age of Empires is being treated like a big deal again by Microsoft. Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is coming later this year, and the same treatment is on the horizon for the third entry in the series. It feels like one of Microsoft's priorities as it looks to attract PC players to its new Game Pass offering. Microsoft also announced a 'newly founded' Age of Empires studio on Sunday, too.

Look out for my full Phil Spencer interview later this week.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/46547/
In celebration of the 5th Anniversary, get Company of Heroes 2 for FREE starting now until December 10th at 10AM Pacific Time! Once you add the game it will remain in your account after the free period, so don't miss out!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompanyOfHeroes/comments/a53q4w/coh2_steamspy_1_million_new_ftp_players/
According to steamspy (API data):
0.5 - 1 million CoH copies were given away during FTP weekend.
Total Owners: went from 2.2M (7/12-18) to 3,211,000 (10/12/18)

This graph now displays the share of total owners of the game that played it in the last two weeks:

On 10/12/18; 21% active player base (out of 3,2M) is the highest in years.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/8006693/the-truth-behind-those-mysteriously-cheap-gray-market-game-codes
Gravity Ghost isn't the only title on sale at Kinguin, or at its competitor G2A. On these and similar marketplaces you can pick up just about any game you want, including triple-A titles, often at huge discounts. Steam keys, Origin keys, gift keys and even codes from the back of pre-purchased retail game cards — these storefronts have it all.
*SNIP*
R told us that he makes between 1,000 and 1,500 Euros in total revenue per month on his store, or between $1,100 and $1,700. During the holidays, he says, that can rise to more than $2,200 per month. We asked if this was his full-time job, to which he responded, "Something like that." We can't really be sure if his store on Kinguin is his primary source of income.

OUR SELLER SEES MONTHLY REVENUE OF $1,100 TO $2,200 PER MONTH

From the perspective of consumers, the sale of gray market games makes sense. Sometimes people receive games as gifts, or as promotional offers and either do not want them or do not need them. Promotions like Steam discounts and Humble Bundle sales are timed offers, and invite those with the means to make speculative purchases, investments of a sort, where game keys are farmed with the intention of selling them later for a profit.

Jump back to quoted post11 Jun 2019, 09:13 AMelchino7

This year: Age of empires 2 DE

Next year: Age of empires 3 DE/HD

Maybe following year: Age of Mythology/Trailer for AoE4

@loksunl said:
The beta just too late for making needed changes before release.
Why relic not make a alpha or included more old player as test group?
Do you think relic need to rethink the decision process of game direction?
Did the relic team learn enough to make a good AOE4?
I am a AOE fans too(not much as a DOW fan), I only have more doubt for RELIC's ability after today.

r_benb said:
Your points about betas and players as part of our process have been a huge point of discussion in the studio. I can't get into much detail here but even before the launch of DOW, the AOE team has been working very differently to make user research, early play-testing, and community consultation a much bigger part of how we make games.

As the producer for our Beta program, you are a key link between the players and the development team. You will be responsible for the day to day management and execution of our Age of Empires Franchise Beta program, an important initiative where early and prototype builds of our Age of Empires titles are provided to players for feedback and extended test opportunities.

Among many of the privileges I have as a game designer at Relic is being able to travel for research on the games I've worked on. I visited St. Petersburg in winter, and the battle sites around the harrowing Siege of Leningrad; the Sinyavino heights, Shlisselburg, the banks of the Neva river, Kronshtadt, the Siege Museum in Leningrad, Piskarevskoye.

We overlooked the Oder River at the escarpment at Seelow, saw the narrative of battle left written in the physical damage on many street corners in Berlin, experienced the deeply powerful Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, saw where the final armistice was signed at Karlshorst.

In January of 2018 I finally had an opportunity to visit Normandy, France. We centered our visit in Caen, and traveling around the area was a tour of history I’d been reading about since childhood; Mike-Green to Nan-Red, Cruelly, Authie, Buron, Place des 37 Canadiens, Arromanches, Omaha, Pointe du Hoc, Carentan, Villers-Bocage, Verrieres, where the Black Watch bled itself dry, Bourguebus, Falaise.

Nothing, however, prepared me for the raw emotion I experienced at Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery. South of Caen near Cintheaux, where almost 3000 allied dead lie, casualties of Goodwood, Spring, Totalize and Tractable. You see little of the cemetery as you approach the stone portico at the entrance, but as you pass through those columns, the simple shape of the almost white Portland stone grave markers appear arranged with utter exactness so that in every direction you look, the lines are perfect. The design alone illustrates deep respect and reverence – grief manifested physically with military precision.

Seeing it for the first time brought a catch to my throat. Battles became instantly less abstract because the cost of those terrible moments was visible and tangible, touchable. As I wandered the rows in the fading light of a cool Calvados winter, many stories emerged – there were soldiers from all over Canada and the Commonwealth, there were great clusters of marker dates that signified the big battles and terrible casualties, personal inscriptions memorialized the fallen, tiny flags and fresh flowers showed that many were still visited, and remembered, and loved. I thought of my grandfather and my great uncles, all of whom, blessedly, survived the war.

The men buried in Bretteville-sur-laize were mostly young. A 22 year old from the Calgary Highlanders, a 19 year old from the British Columbia Regiment, but that also made me think of the war memorial I had visited at Tiergarten in Berlin where many of the Russian soldiers there seemed surprisingly old – I guessed that the flower of youth had long since been spent in the horror of the Eastern Front before the final battles in Berlin, and older and older soldiers had replaced the young. Fathers fighting after their sons had died. There’s a lesson there on the cost of war if what I think is true.

The 75th anniversary of the D-day landings has passed. Soon we will reach the 75th anniversary of the end of the war. These milestones certainly make one remember in a more focused way. I feel however, we’re one more year from understanding real sacrifice, one more year removed from knowing how to band together and tackle existential threats, one more year from the cost of lessons learned about the willingness, and need, to put the collective good before self.

And that’s something we should never, ever forget.

Bonnie Jean Mah‏ @BonnieJeanMah
Such a great thread, @QuinnDuffy . Visiting those sites was incredibly moving and struck home, imagining what those soldiers and civilians went through. Juno Beach affected me deeply, thinking of the Canadians who stormed the beach. Thank you so much for writing this.