RedBull Wololo Announced Age Of Empires IV! But it's rough.. 

I wanted to get this out in a timely fashion so I'll clarify something in the comments here as I dont't want people to view this video as me being completely negative (hoping it didn't come across that way). I really do appreciate RedBull including AoE4 as part of their event, my heartbreak and frustration kinda leaks out in this one, but its really not aimed at RB. Age of Empires 4 is in a great place, I just wish Microsoft was able to do more to flaunt and market what continues to evolve into a great RTS.

im convinced that any RTS that solely relies on devs to do the tournaments and prize pools will at best have the fate of starcraft... imo the casters/streamers should understand that its in their interest to do tournaments, fundthem with the help of their audience... and that's why t90 is super important to do this, you need people like him for any rts to keep going...

Ty

To give context as to why AoE 2 uses Empire Wars for Red Bull: back in 2019/20, when the first RBW was about to the hosted, Red Bull approached Nili as they were looking for a fast paced game mode. As Deathmatch is just too hectic for the average viewer, Empire Wars was eventually born after many tweaks to its format. MS apparently liked that mode so much that they integrated it in AoE 3 and now in AoE 4. As an alternative, the 9 villager start became a lot more popular in the last couple of years as it doesn't cut out Dark Age. Deathmatch is btw one of the oldest game modes in AoE 2. You start Post Imperial (= everything researched) with High Resources, so you immediately start throwing units at each other. The mode is also played at 2x speed. This was actually very popular back on the CD version.

I love AOE4. I want it to last forever and want big gaming events for 1v1 and 2v2 etc. I've been playing since release and want to keep playing as long as the game is supported. I have 1200 hours in it and want way more.,, As soon as Microsoft stops supporting the game though, I'm gone. I know many pros will leave if the rug is pulled out from under them, as it seems is happening now. Seems like AOE4 just has never gotten the support it deserves.

seems to me like some SOLID community-led tournaments for AoE 4 aree inevitable? pros don't sink 3-4 yrs into a game just to bounce that easily, I would hope???

What can the community do to change the payouts, format, etc to get more respect from Microsoft and Redbull? What can we do to show support for aoe4 at the Redbull Wololo? Just show up and watch?

RedBull only raising 50.000 prize pool and MarineLord auto in. Players should just say they don't take part and boycott this (including MarineLord).

TBH, I suspect it's MS who might be pushing to include AoE4 in Red Bull. RBW already knows it gets more viewers with AoE2 and AoE4 is no longer a new game. It has stabilized at what it is right now. They pushed it hard with RBWL but it still didn't perform better than its older brother. So be nice when asking for a change in Empire Wars. The prize pool probably won't change. It's the rules we can help change.

It's empire wars, EVEN THOUGH IT'S ONE FUCKING MATCH! I mean, come on. It's like they're trying to squeeze it into a piss break.

The good news for Beastyqt is that he won't be flamed for being disrespectful towards a tournament since Drongo and you have also said this is non optimal.

also....what happens if ML, although incredibly unlikely lol, just says, nah bro....I'm not gonna showcase $10k into my pockets...he could turn around and springboard that into a legit AoE 4 (community-led) tourney. I'd throw $50 bucks at it...just sayin yall.

#freebeeforwololo

This is great news actually. I REALLY like this! I understand why they did it. Here are the reasons: 1. Empire Wars creates unpredictability. - If I were Redbull Exec, I could see me wanting that. FFA just came out, so "too new". Normal games, we see that all the time in with you(drongo) and other Twitch/YT casters. In normal solo ranked, we already know who are best and can probably guess with decent probability who would win. Y'all have automated the build orders to the tee, where first x minutes is almost robotic. Now with Empire Wars, it's unknown/unpredictable. Case point: if you go look at 1v1 ranking and FFA ranking, they are 'completely different' with just some overlaps. Empire wars can do the same(meaning new names in top 8). I can also see why Empires Wars. We don't know RB future plans, but just like how Outback Octagon is FFA, Wololo can be Empire Wars only in their heads. It distinguishes Wololo from other competitions(yes I know Wololo is biggest). 2. They are rewarding stability, AoE4's time will come. - Looking quickly at steam charts data, AoE II is stable but it's not growing with young generation. Only people that play AoE II are "old" people that play it because of nostalgia. That's about it. You can clearly see this in the Steam charts data that AoE II's peak and average players data are stable(average it out). It's like that legacy system like gameboy, flip phone etc etc in 2024. There is no growth but stable demand. - AoE IV however, you can see in steam charts that it's growing. Hasn't reached AoE II avg players numbers yet, but it's growing. With each DLC, it's like as if AoE4 gets a injection energy boost, then it slows down, but the overall average is trending up. This means that AoE IV is normal growth video game and targets all demographics(aka kids playing). So overtime(years), it should take over AoE II numbers. So AoE IV(aka latest game) is fine. So right now they are just rewarding stability (legacy system). Given that AoE II is flat(no growth), and $150k is their "value", then that's their value. Period. However, for AoE IV, as it grows, the Wololo prize pool will have to grow, or someone else will take over(it's business after all). Only questionable decision is why AoE IV is not $75k(doing rough math on $ to player average ratio), to this I just think they're rewarding stability.

Pros should just boycott the whole event, you guys 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.

Its not Microsoft that we angry but redbull they should make good event the map and mode its clear that this should redbull to be blame