Things I'd forgotten about AoE1, based on playing it again recently:
- The campaign is really hard on the default setting! Enemies are merciless, and your objectives are often unclear to the point of requiring trial and error in order to get through the missions because you need to figure out what you're supposed to be doing first, then actually do it.
- As I said last post you can't queue unit production in buildings that make units, which is pretty annoying.
On the other hand though, what I'd remembered -- that AoE is a great, though slow-paced, RTS and one of the better games in the genre not from Blizzard -- is absolutely true. I actually played more of AoE1 than AoE2, and for the most part it still holds up pretty well. I would be looking forward to this, if it wasn't on the Windows Store only (for now).
It will sell badly.
A year later, MS will release it on Steam with Windows 7 support, just like Halo Wars, Quantum Break and Killer Instinct.
Then the people who bought it on the Windows store will complain about not being given the Steam version for free while Windows Store version craps itself and fails to install.
Yup.
The idea is that MS sees things like Android, iOS, and consoles, closed platforms where the platform holder makes money from every piece of software sold of their OS... and compares that to Windows, the OS so many people use, but Microsoft doesn't make a cent from software sales there because it's an open platform. Companies don't like missing out on possible profits, particularly not really successful ones like Microsoft.
So, what's the solution? Gradually try to push people onto a closed platform instead of an open one, naturally. That closed platform is Windows 8/10's Android/iOS-inspired tablet-style interface and its store, the Windows Store. Win10 dials back on the tablet element there, but the store is still a separate platform from normal Windows -- you don't have anywhere near as much customizablity in Windows Store applications as you do in regular Windows programs, for example, and Microsoft controls what is allowed to be sold there, the freedom of the open platform is gone. Initially a lot of the software here were things supporting touch, for Windows tablets and the like, but MS also puts its games in the Windows Store now as well.
Now again if MS was just running a normal storefront (like Ubisoft or EA have, for example, or like Steam or GOG or something), it would be entirely fine. The problem, and the danger, is in that walled-garden, particularly if MS tries to force it on people at some point. A PC with the traditional Windows mode disabled would indeed be the end of Windows as it has been... and maybe push gamers over to Linux or something? Anyway, the strong pushback MS have received makes this less likely, but it is still possible.
Age of Empires 3 released like a decade late on Steam.
And even if we restrict things to Digital Distribution, it was on a different version of the Windows Store well over a year before it moved to Steam. I got it for 10 cents during some promotion. Of course, Microsoft laughed all the way to the bank with my dime, since my access is lost in the ether.
Yeah, I got that cheap digital copy of the GfWL release of AoE III as well... that sure still is playable, huh. :S
