hahah, yeah watched the Drongo vid too, this tourney's odd for sure, I wonder if some kinda updates are gonna happen within the next few months to EW or something? Rebalance? New options??? Won't hold my breath, lol
For the next tournament I humbly suggest the final is a custom game with 100 Great Bombards VS 100 Great Bombards. Still wayyy more fun than Empries Wars.
If the players wanted fast paced, DM would dominate RM, and I say that as a player who actually was a DM player on MSN gaming zone, over 2 decades ago, almost never played RM
This is BAD............. like game killing bad. The top AOE tournament pushes it aside as a side gig... Well this is one way to kill your own game... push it aside like a red headed step child... They should be marketing and pushing it hard.. especially now with Xbox gamers and shit involved... typical microsoft dropping the ball.. everything they touch since the 360 days turns to shit. on the bright side modern blizzard is already shit so they cant make that any worse.
They tried pushing it hard for 2 years. Aoe4 tournaments have been given bigger prize pool's than any. Last redbull for instance. It didn't work. Fact is aoe2 pulls in more viewers and has a larger following. It makes business sense to give the objectively bigger game the bigger priority. Inviting marinelort directly to the final was a bad call though. Totally unfair to everyone else.
maybe, but still, in aoe4 nobody cares about that. it's so clear that there was no aoe4 organizer worked on that. I would like to see it in aoe2 and watch some aoe2 games of this tournament while mainly watch aoe4, like the last one and i had fun watching aoe2, even i don't play it. But i am so angry right now. Even i want to support the aoe4 players, i dont know if i can activly watch this cringe fest. I fell bad for the players :(
@@VittamarFasuthAkbin In AoE 2, you're locked on the island as it's surrounded by rocks. You have some hunt in the middle of the map, so it's basically a laming fest. I think there was a tournament hosted on it two years ago called "Masters of Socotra"
"One true challenger to go against MarineLord" I really really hope I'm reading this wrong, but this sounds like ML is seeded straight into finals? So he's literally guaranteed second place and $10k even if he shows up and loses all games? Who tf seeds straight into grand finals?
@@spcsandbag6517 Was thinking you were over exaggerating but looking at the rules and Socotra, lmao, you may be right. Beastyqt was wondering what would happen if RTS communities didn't get split by each new release right? Well maybe the AoE2 organizers are also wondering that and acting on it.
On reflection I think this may be a legacy of WOLO policy of always giving a free entry to last years winner to the main event which they do for all the games. They likely confirmed as much when he won WOLO last time. The difference is aoe 4 main event is literally just a 1 v 1 Final so doing so automatically qualify's him for this final. I honestly think this 1 v 1 Final was a mistake and it should have been at least 4 people or 8 people without empire wars and a larger prize pool but more opinions have zero weight.
I’m not an AOE 4 player but I do watch streams (beasty, demu, etc). I don’t understand why all these tournaments use crazy formats and rules. SC2 would never have done tournaments with all these random rules. Am I missing something? I want to see real strats that the best players in the world use, not custom game settings. Am I crazy?
For AoE2, the history that RedBull approached Nili for the tournament format, and he suggest Empire Wars because it is not as long and if you have a live production, you want to have somewhat predictable lengths. It seems like they just run with it in AoE4.
I 100% agree with you! I don't understand this "too long games" at all. Most of the games aren't much longer than the average sc2 games. Also with some good maps you can automaticly have less longer games. Also in sc2 we had some absurd long games back in the times with zergs. It is like it is, but not that big of a deal in aoe4. Also the last tournaments showed, that it isnt a big problem as well
@@sokarash I mean that's like putting on an SC2 tournament and using CO-OP commander as the format instead of 1v1 because its faster. I don't know if empire wars is a popular format in AoE2, but no one in the AoE4 scene wants to play Empire Wars and the fans don't want to watch it. Just weird.
I was thinking of buying a ticket and fly there from germany. I love castles, i love aoe4, i love the aoe4 pro's, i love the game and play it almost every day. I will not, after what i saw there. I am so disapointed ... Let's try to get MonsterEnergy to make a countertournament >.< Damn fuck. I never hated aoe2 players and tournaments and the game, and never will, but it seems like, that they really want to bring this hate up. Also, if aoe2 ppl really organized the aoe4 tournament what they maybe really did (because no actual aoe4 connaisseur, would have done it like that ... ) why the fuck they don't get help and opinions about that than? Really too bad ...
Redbull are making this tournament, not the aoe2 scene... From their perspective, aoe2 brings in the most viewership, so it gets priority. It is purely a business decision. It's not about hate or favouritism.
Empire Wars on aoe2 is barely played; its ranked ladder is empty when there is no RedBull event upcoming. People dont mind watching it, but it is far from widely played. If there are 10 Games played on EW in aoe4 in an hour, that might not be too far off from aoe2. Its maybe like 30-40 an hour for aoe2.
For an RTS on the upswing and one of the better watchable ones ever (plus the best FFA mode) Its laughable Redbull decided this format. Its just crazy. Kinda wish one of the Saudi princes fell in love with aoe 4
In AoE2 Empire Wars makes sense, as Dark Age is pretty boring, especially for a viewer. AoE4 does not have that problem, therefore the mode does not solve a problem (the same goes for AoE3, where Empires Wars is even more bonkers...): It also says a lot if AoE4 despite the BEST SELLING DLC OF ALL TIME still gets a lot less prizemoney than AoE2. AoE1 playing on the DLC that vietnamese players hate and excluding international players is also kinda stupid. I remember in Broodwar the challenges between Koreans and non-korean players was exciting - why not have it split 50/50 for vietnam/china and rest of the world? Some of the older AoE2 players like Tatoh are pretty good at AoE1RoR.
Aoe2 brings in more viewership than aoe4. Prize pool split is purely representing that. Sucks that marine lord gets an automatic invite to the finals and a guaranteed chunk of that prize pool without having to do a thing, while the rest of the community claws at each other to get a chance to go.
As relatively new player to AoE4 and RTSs in general, this whole thing really baffles me… I grew up on FPS games. I moved from mostly Halo on console to CSGO on PC when I was a teenager. I had a ton of friends tell me they used to play AoE as a kid so I decided to try out “the new one” about a year ago and completely fell in love. It has its problems but it seems like a well built game now with a nice clean ascetic. Why do so many people still play the old one? And who are these people? I’ve never been a big Reddit/forum guy but I know about a dozen people personally that hop on AoE4 for team games all the time, some play 1v1 too. I don’t know, nor have I ever met ANYONE who has played AoE2 in the last 10 years. I’m not shitting on the game for being old, plenty of old games are good and I certainly don’t know enough to have an informed opinion, but it genuinely blows my mind how the game can stay supported with that much prize money for how seemingly played out, visually outdated, and hard to watch for new fans it is compared to AoE4. Would love to hear thoughts from a LONG time fan of the franchise that knows a bit more.
Aoe2 is a classic, timeless game. Many play it for its competitive scene because it's so well ballanced since its had 20 years to be tweaked that way. but theres a huge chunk that play it for its numerous nostalgic campaigns. Something aoe4 lacks. The viewership is much bigger than aoe4 second only to aoe1 which has a colossal following in vietnam. Aoe2 has a rich history going back to 1999, and its community is the sole reason the scene around age of empires as a whole has lasted this long. You could say its the reason they decided to make aoe4. They tried to push aoe4 hard on release and pumped a lot of money into tournaments, including the last redbull, which it had much more prize pool than 2. The viewership just wasn't there for 4 the way it is for 2. That's why it gets priority now.
Great and valid criticism of the rules I play AoE2 only, (I am casual player Elo 850+ Under 1000) I had never played Empire Wars before in AoE2 and I found interesting and the the maps fun, and I was very excited to play it last week I wish they invite you to cast or play on AoE4 or to design this better for the next one. I think they will realize they put down their own creation of AoE4 What the player base and how to check on that data? What are by the thousands of monthly players of each game.
Saw that it was only 2 people for a championship style match. I had to double check. Came to a video looking it all up. I don't even follow this scene enough and have seen so many other tournaments for other games and this just seems odd. At least have like 8 people or something.
I hate EW game mode. But i will watch it, cause the players. Good to get a tournament with price pool.... but i think they all dont know our community and dont see, that it is growing. ... or... Maybe i dont see it...
I'm 5 minutes into this video and MAN, they are literally unscrewing the head and shit down the neck on this one. Of course it's never going to happen (because why would the community actually work together for something greater?) but my hope is that a lot of good players boycott the shit out of this and show their displeasure so there CAN be a CHANGE towards the attitude towards this game from sponsors. EGCTV should also, for the sake of the players and community, withdraw from participating in this bullshit. To clarify what I mean by boycott: Ignore the damn thing. I also am against any type of harrasment towards developers, organizers, game companies etc.
If players boycott it, maybe. But if people just don't watch in protest and viewership it terrible, then they will just axe it all together next time they do another tournament, since they don't see a return on investment.
Price money is neat, but they are in no way obligated to announce write out prices you can win in the first place. It's all PR and stuff with how high your price money is and how much an event can "afford to give out". All prestige. Only to lure participants and viewers in. Through that lense I can see that Relic sees AOEII as the generally more popular game. I'm not really suprised, as the community was bigger the whole time. Now the steam player charts still indicate a light tilt towards AOEII but IV is only 5k players behind rn in 24h peak. So I'd say we AOEIV enjoyers get close to become relevant. But regarding the money I'd say take it or leave it. As long as it pays the travel expenses for the event it's fine in my opinion. First thing I stumbled over was the "Only Vietnamese Community can qualify for AOE I", that was rather unexpected. Not that I care in particular as I never had the intention to participate, but its weird without context nevertheless.
The worst thing about this is that it will be taking up resources from EGCTV, which mean probably there will be no normal good tournament to watch while this joke of an event is going on...
Pros should just boycott the whole event, you barely get any money from it anyway. If they don't respect you and treat you like an afterthought, walk away, let them humiliate themselves.
Beasty when you win (or whoever wins), needs to talk and show the discontent of you pro players and of the community as well. Not fair of the minuscule prize pool and because we eant to watch games that are played how the game is supposed to play, not in empire wars. Ridiculous for the newest entry in aoe. Such a big dissappintment.
A better answer.. It's a test to see if you guys would say no to participating. It just seems super deliberate they'd make the situation this bananas..
Is Aoe2 viewership much higher than Aoe4 ? It could all summed up with this point : Red Bull wants the biggest viewership with smallest investment MarineLord just signed up a contract with a big esport team in France so there will be thousand of viewers for sure whatever the format The team will hype it because they are new, created by big name of RU-vid and twitch in France, and they want trophies
Yes, aoe2 is bigger in player numbers and viewership by a big margin. I like both games, but this is purely a business decision from redbull. Give the bigger game priority.
AoE1 has a huge community in vietnam, the top players haven < 1mio followers and streams with regularly more than 50k viewers - more than all other age games combinded. That is probably the reason they limit the tournament to vietnam. AoE3 is the game that suffered the most from AoE4 release, player base is close to non existing.
Its funny, your Battle Royale fortnite example istn far off. They introduced a Battle Royale mode for aoe2 with an "S-Tier Event" in which you cant build a Town Center and move some random units around... There even is a quickplay ladder for it with probably 0 - yes, zero - games played in all of 2023.
@@tomashavrlant2494 That's what they did in 2022 when AoE 4 was still the new kid in town as it had a 300k price pool. Idk what exactly triggered AoE 4 to have less screentime this year though I guess it was because Red Bull Wololo was historically always an AoE 2 tournament for its first 5 editions as well as having the lowest viewer numbers. In fact, we wouldn't be here at all with AoE 4 if AoE 2 didn't help reviving the franchise with HD Edition, its DLCs and Definitive Edition. :D It's just too popular to ever die out.
@@tomashavrlant2494 Already happened two years ago when AoE 4 got the larger price pool iwth 300k compared to AoE 2's 200k but I guess as AoE 4 had lower numbers, Red Bull reconsidered that for this year. Also, Red Bull was historically always an AoE 2 event before being joined by AoE 4 in 2022.
You need to anounce the streamings through youtube more so all youtube gamers can tune in. Some of us are not very used to Twitch. I personally don't have the app installed but would tune in regardless.
I have instantly sold my microsoft shares. Wow, this Socrata map is really shocking. How can they do this? It's unbelievable! We should better wait for the game of uncapped games.
It makes no sense to invite ML. ML fans have no investment in the qualification stages and its a new mode, ML has not proven himself. There is a real risk, albeit small, that ML is not a top 4 or even top 8 player in this game mode, the finals could be a complete wash. The real finals could be between 2nd and 3rd
I mean, just look at the viewership of the last couple of S-Tiers. Trust me, even AoE 2 players hate EW but just play it because it's the trademark mode of Red Bull. 9 vill starts turned out to be more popular
I will Not Watch any aoe e sports content from their official Channels Till this shit gets fixed. Wtf were they thinking still giving aoe2 so much content if they would have a Brain they should make a Slow transition into aoe4 and let aoe2 die slowly. Otherwise they could just Focus on aoe2 and Never released new a Game after aoe3. That makes 0 Sense to me
AoE 2 won't go anywhere, it's too popular to die. Should DE die, people can still play the old version on Voobly and there are already mods that bring in DE's civs, features and balance. I also highly doubt Microsoft will do a Rockstar-like move and remove all games prior to AoE 4. I'm kinda certain the decision to minimize AoE 4's screentime for this year's wololo came due to the figures from 2022 where AoE 4 pulled off the lowest numbers which could also explain why AoE 1 is featured again as it had the highest numbers just with its final.
Aoe2 is by far the more popular game (excluding aoe1 but that's a purely vietnam thing). They tried to pump money into aoe4 to push it the lastb2 years but it just doesnt get the players or viewers aoe2 gets.
You know how to get interest in aoe4 after our BEST SELLING AOE EXPANSION/DLC ? worst game mode for 2 ppl... RedBull is a joke. We cant rely on RB to host any good tournaments for AoE4 anymore :// EGCTV, Rising Empires, SteelSeries, Whamens League, Energy Slapfest.... and More.... :// AoE2 doomers made this shit, to prioritize aoe2. congrats, u dumpstered the aoe4 tourney scene. How to Kill A Game.......
Well, Red Bull Wololo started as an AoE 2 only series and was exclusively hosted as such for its first five editions before being joined by AoE 4 back in 2022.