Experiencing Age of Empires Online Part 01
By Sean Booker
September 5, 2011 - 08:08
Studios: Robot Entertainment and Gas Powered Games
Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Platform: Digital Distribution on PC
Players: 1-4
To begin I decided to shelve the retail copy I had and jump into the game as a fresh and free player. The copy I have - Age of Empires Online: The Greeks - gives me access to the Premium Greek Civilization as well as an Exclusive In-Game Store. I chose to ignore these for now. Instead, I downloaded the game itself and jumped into it, transaction free. I wanted to see how the standard player can enjoy this game, and just how limited it might end up being. After I feel enough time has been spent, I will start up a new account and use the download codes and see just how much more I get access to.
Everything about this instantly screamed social-game structure to me. Instead of a standard campaign, it seemed that I would just be able to scroll around and accept whichever quests I preferred, a decision that makes the game seem quite light. As opposed to having to jump into a several hour long story mode, I found myself casually starting and completing standard tutorial quests that slowly raised my (in-game) cash and experience. Everything seemed almost “pick up and play” like. I quickly found myself hooked, constantly thinking “just one more quest then I’ll stop” several times before actually doing so. The missions were short enough and simple enough that I could easily justify jumping in for one more. And the idea that with all this I was gaining experience points for a generalised level made each quest seem relevant and worth playing.
An hour in or so I was then told to travel to a different city (as opposed to my current hub town) to accept more quests. Doing this was achieved by going into the map (where I would normally chose a quest to head out on) and select a city in a different part of Egypt all together. This was quite interesting as it opened a new area up to me. The look of the town was much different. It actually looked well thought out and not just thrown together like my crappy hub town. The unfortunate part to this was that after a couple quests, I was back in my first city since the other was empty already. In fact, the majority of the world map was completely empty but viewable. I am quite hoping that more quests will open up in different areas of Egypt for me to look into. I really want to be able to have a huge list of available quests going at one single time.
With that, I’ll sign off on this first installment. I was able to get a feel for how to play the core game. I was taught how to engage in combat, use items and basically how the structure of my economy should be laid out when in a mission. At this point I am very interested in Age of Empires Online and enjoying my time with it immensely. As I continue on I am hoping to learn some important hot keys, as well as get access to more than one or two quests at a given time. Stayed tuned for my next article in a couple days.
Related Articles:
Experiencing Age of Empires Online Part 02
Experiencing Age of Empires Online Part 01
Experiencing Age of Empires Online
Sable and Azaceta Return to Image with "Graveyard of Empires"