Age of Empires 3

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Heinrich Lehnhardt of Gamestar talked also to Bruce Shelley about his plans for the future. Heres what Bruce said:

- Ensemble Studios will release four parts: Age of Empires, Age of Kings, Age of Discovery, and the last one has no name yet.
- Age of Discovery (Bruce Shelley's favourite period of history) will cover the epoch from 1492 to 1918 when World War 1 ended, letting players build wooden boats up to mighty battleships.
- there might be a brand new 3d engine for Age of Discovery
- the last part, which will be released in 2003 will cover the epoch from the end of WW1 to the near future, including all the WW2 units.

- Then Bruce said they might start over again, just to insert new design ideas and new technologies which have been developed since good old Age of Empires I.

- There are also rumours of a second, new formed Ensemble team, working on a role-playing game in the tradition of Diablo.

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We here at PlanetAOM don't like to post rumors, but we feel that this story is worth posting because it actually happened (giving the author the benefit of doubt). A forumer of Age of Kings Heaven, sonofthunder, posted about his experience with Age of Empires III through a field study test done by Microsoft. These field studies are done by Microsoft on most games and their purpose is to get general feedback from gamers to determine what's appealing and what's not in the game.

According to sonofthunder, Age of Empires III will be based on the discoveries of the Americas by the European countries (Spanish, English, French, etc.). His discription of the game makes Age of Empires III sound drastically different from previous Age games. The use of territories, the ability to create alliances with Native Americans, and to work with your country back home in Europe seems to mix in a lot of Civilization (the game) themes. The rest of sonofthunder's findings are posted below.

So what is ES saying about this? From the reply that community manager, Mike "Archangel" McCart, made to the thread, I am assuming that this information was not supposed to get out. Archangel questioned why a Non-Disclosure-Agreement (NDA) was not used and left the conversation at that. Just the fact that ES jumped on the thread so quickly and that the topic of an NDA came up leads me to believe that some, if not all, of this information is true. I would predict that Age of Empires III would indeed be the "Age of Discovery" from sonofthunder's findings, but I think the assumptions stop there. The post does not specify whether a single-player or multi-player demo was shown (I'd place a bet that it was single-player) and every gamer will emphasize different parts of the game that they feel describe the game. Thanks to sonofthunder for posting this information and we'll keep you updated on any more happenings.

I just got out of a market research study here in Chicago where we were given a preview of the upcoming AOE 3 game. They showed us screenshots and clips. They asked us what we liked about the game and what we didn't like, and what we would be interested in seeing implemented. It was pretty sweet, we got a sneak preview of an awesome game and were paid $125 each! Here are some specifics: The game will take place during the period of European settlement of the Americas. (Discovery of the Americas until just before the US civil war.)

It will feature 3D graphics and lots of detail. (Men getting blown across the battlefield by canons, trees falling on houses, etc.)

Currently, the civilizations are all European. You do not get to play as Native Americans, but you do get to interact with them through alliances. There are several different tribes you can ally with, all with their own units and abilities. We told them that they should make it so we actually get to play as the Native Americans, instead of only as the Europeans.

The game will have a much more global scope. A map of the Americas shows which specific territories you control, and you can attack from these territories to adjacent ones held by enemies. When you choose a territory to attack, it goes to that specific territory where you build buildings and control units just as in other RTS games.

You interact a lot with what is called your "Home City" back in Europe. You send resources back, and in return get better upgrades (like the ability to train new units). These upgrades carry over into subsequent games (i.e., when you go on to attack another territory). Basically, you don't have to research the whole tech tree each time you move to a different territory.

All of us critiquing the game agreed that it looks really good, but would be better with more civs and territories. The guy said the game will probably be released in about a year. He was not from Microsoft, but from a market research company that is doing field testing for Microsoft. Basically, they want gamers' opinions so they know what we want and how to make the games better.

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Op maandag 6 december 2004 18:10 schreef Grrrrrrrr het volgende:
Ik heb eigenlijk alleen AoE I gespeeld. De rest van de serie ken ik nauwelijks.