So. Let's take a deeeeep breathe here. What we, or at least I have been waiting for several months now is some news regarding Age of Mythology and a potential re-release of the game. It's not a secret that Microsoft have given a go to support an already active steam-release of Age of Empires, and it would be silly for them to not take this opportunity further and release other best-sellers. In this case Age of Mythology.

In a recent official live-stream, shown here, it is clear that Microsoft Studios, or at least the PC section, is indeed working on a "Extended Version" of Age of Mythology.

It glads me greatly at the same time as it seems obvious to me. People have been crying for months for a AoM re-release. And it always seemed obvious for Microsoft to re-release it as a natural step after AOE2HD as their new "we-accept-GFWL-did-not-go-as-planned-and-would-love-to-be-a-part-of-PC-Gaming-anways" step. I say, welcome them with open arms and embrace the greatness of yet another legendary Ensemble Studios title: Age of Mythology: Extended Edition[i.imgur.com].

What this "Extended Edition" is to include is far to be announced. So far, the only thing to go on is a flimsy lhama (?) and we better take it's word for it. Personally I don't care for an HD, or an "Extended" edition - The main AoM looks perfect as it is (with a few minor tweaks of course).

Please feel free to follow my newly created AoM:EE group over here.

These news are a bit late, and I am sorry for this. I figured I should post these now, better late than never. The goal of this group has always been to approach Age of Empires II HD from the perspective of the commuity, and do skip the PR talk of the officials.

First of all, Patck 2.7 was released last week, with a bunchful of improvements and fixes. Complete patch notes are found here. This patch is meant to kind of lead up to the bigger content addition coming this fall, namely The Forgotten Expansion.

Announced about a month ago, The Forgotten is the first Expansion since The Conquerors which was released 13 years ago (!) for Age of Empires II. Obviously the whole re-release of the game could count as an expansion in a lot of ways. Still, the HD remake did not include any changes to the game mechanics. The Forgotten will change the mechanics a lot. Biggest addition is probably the 5 new Civilizations: Italians, Indians, Slavs, Magyars and Incas. The new Quadruple map size, which is a whopping 4x bigger than the current biggest - Giant. The Expansion also adds new game-modes, observer mode and new single-player campaigns.

No doubt these are BIG news (if I had not been so late) for the AOEIIHD community. This is pretty much what people have been wanting for years, but also thing people have thought was impossible to add. It will be nice to see if the guys from the Forgotten Empires (which works on the expansion) will be able to balance everything nicely. Especially for the competetive scene.

Seeing as so many thing have been possible to add, that seemed impossible at first - We should be seeing more content for the game in the future. Maybe not continuous releases of Expansion Packs, but at least stuff like 10-player multiplayer.

I am very much excited and I am looking forward to playing this the day it comes out. Read more over at the official announcement.

Currently two age of empires guys, Ryzon and MSIamPREZSTEVE are streaming over at the twitch.tv/ageofempires channel. They are talking about the newly added Steam Deal (50%!) as well as the newly 2.5 beta patch.

A few weeks back we recieved the news about a new developing team has taken over the work on AOEIIHD from Hidden Path Entertainment, SkyBox Labs. As well as some future partnering with the Forgotten Empires guys. Looks like they have actually gotten somewhere since then.

A few things they are talking about on the Stream is the max unit selection cap has increased from 40 to 60. The 200 cap seemed to be a bit overkill from the 2.4 beta patch, makes sense really. They are also talking alot about the Leaderbaords, Scroll speed, Language patches, rage quitting and the lag issues.

Read about the complete patch notes over here. There's seem to be a lot of happening. Really good news.

Ryz0n answered my question on the Stream about Steam Trading Cards. He didn't announce anything, but was pretty clear that they are looking into it and are interested in getting it for AOEIIHD.

So go pick the game up at 50% off :)

So there's been few dead months for the Age of Empires II HD development. Personally I have enjoyed the game A Lot, I have rarely had any lag issues only due to high ping between players. I know a lot of people have had issues to the point of unplayable, which is sad and unacceptable. But to my understanding, the guys behind Hidden Path Entertainment have been doing a lot of work to improve it.

One recent article (here[www.ageofempires.com]) revealed that Hidden Path was only hired with AOE2HD until the end of May, which kind of explains the lack of support from anyone lately. Why they were only hired to that point is rather unclear, and makes me wonder. Surely they didn't think the game would be bug free?

In any case, Hidden Path will be replace with a team by the name of SkyBox Labs, which is a very fresh gathering of video game makers. Personally I only see a bunch of ninjas[www.skyboxlabs.com]. The official announcement quotes:

"The SkyBox Labs team is comprised of industry veterans that have worked on hit RTS games in the past, including the Command & Conquer series. They are excited to be involved with the next chapter of the Age of Empires franchise and build off the great work from Hidden Path. "

So, these guys supposedly knows what they are doing. Well... It's good that Microsoft has decided to actually bring in a new team, rather than abandoning the project completely. Although switching between teams are generally a bad thing, it takes time and resources to do it, and a lot of things might be undone and redone.

Also the announcement revealed that SkyBox will be working together with the guys who brought us the Forgotten Empires mod! This is a very good piece of news, because FE sure knows everything there is about Age of Empires II . As well as being very close to what fans actually wants, rather than want Microsoft wants. This means that we might be seeing a lot of features from the FE modification of AOE2. Maybe not the extra civs, but minor things like "mirror civilizations" etc.

I can also announce that I will start being a bit more active than the last months, these news have totally made me very involved in this. So please invite friends and we'll keep being the biggest fan-made AOE2HD steam group! I will try and make some exciting things for this group as well, probably a giveaway of some sort!

Discussion Thread
Source/Official Notes[www.ageofempires.com]

I will end this by saying farwell to Hidden Path Entertainment, and really thank them for the contribution to the community and for bringing this awesome game back to life. Hopefully they helped open the eyes for people to show that old games and remakes can be very profitable. I also wish them good luck on their new project - Defense Grid 2.

Just minutes ago, over at the official Age of Empires twitch.tv channel, the community manager (or whatever position he's got) MSIamPREZSTEVE kind of hinted something that I found interesting.

Screenshot

Now, there's no reason to believe that something's at work here. This guy is very much cool when it comes to listening to the fans, and there's a lot of steps going from that to an actual production. However, being so in touch with the community, you kind of know what kind of things you can say and not - hinting a AOMHD remake without there actually being any truth to it is a bad move.

First thing happening is people spreading the "rumours", like I am doing right now :) So don't get any hopes up, just some minor ones.

On some other notes - The same guy, Steve, hinted in his last AOE2HD stream that that the game might be on sale on the Summer sale, which is expected to arrive June 27th. So if you don't have the game already, you might get to pick it up at -33% to -66%? Who knows.

I am gonna create a discussion about a possible AOMHD remake over here.