Zaxx, on 22 August 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:
Relic is working with and under Microsoft Studios now (MS actually develops their own games too, they are not acting merely as publisher here) and they get the budget from MS which chances are means a proper AAA development budget. A lot is riding on the success of AoE4 for Microsoft, this game will make or break the Windows Store and MS as a PC developer / publisher + if this game is shit then AoE, the most important PC IP of Microsoft is dead. These are the situations when usually great games appear at the end because there's simply so much at stake that there is no other option.
Are you saying that DoW3 is their only bad game? Did you forget about DoW2 already? Don't blame you though, it deserved to be forgotten. CoH2 wasn't that great either, it was a big disappointment for CoH fans too (CoH is way better than the sequel). DoW3 isn't the first fuck up of Relic.
Is there any actual data if DoW3 was actually profitable anyway? No speculation but hard data, because I can't find any and that's why I'm skeptical and don't trust them at all, as I said, this is not their first fuck up anyway. However, even with small budget Relic could put some more efforts and make it at least decent RTS game on the level of first DoW. They could make at least good core mechanics with low budget, majority of DoW fans basically asked for a reskin of the first game, but instead they decided to be "innovate" and fucked up the core mechanics too, they didn't even try to make it at least decent, it felt like they just didn't give a shit about the game at all. Even if the budget was actually small it all went to waste, they pretty much wanted to make DoW3 the way it is if you read their interviews and this is the main problem about this game and why I don't trust Relic.
I mean, I can easily name ton of high budget games which are pure shit, so this is weak excuse. I can also name you some restaurants where food tastes like shit and has high price if necessary, in the end, if cook has no talent his food won't taste any good no matter how high the price for his food is. And actually I feel like if I tried to do some digging I would definitely find out that majority of old Relic talent left the company and I bet this is the reason why Relic isn't as good anymore. I have no doubt that DoW3 is shit because the people behind its development just don't know how to make a proper RTS game.
Also, AoE is hardly MS most important IP, this title belongs to Halo which they can't let go to this day and keep making shittier and shittier. Speaking of which, judging by Halo Wars 2 they aren't really competent when it comes to making RTS games too. AoE stopped being relevant for MS since the release of that shitty mobile version and that was ton of years ago, I'm actually surprised why they decided to bring it back given that RTS is a niche genre, nearly dead. Even when CoD on Windows Store can't make any money, I don't see how RTS can become more successful. Maybe they run out of ideas or something, Microsoft isn't wise when it comes to making good decisions nowadays.
So, as people say "I'll believe when I see it", if the game will turn out to be good it would be a huge miracle, although I'm not going to bother with Windows Store no matter how good it's going to be. Killer Instinct didn't make me and neither will this game. It have to be a huge masterpiece to convince me to install Windows 10 again.