Original Post: August 26, 2011 (GameSpy)
Free-to-play, social, online — these three terms have, for me, defined a slew of insipid, frustrating experiences that resemble reinstalling Windows or downloading a series of patches as much as anything I’d call a “game.” The core mechanic is of setting a series of timers, then waiting. And waiting. The end result of waiting is the ability to set yet more timers. For me, not only were the wait times interminable, but the payoff never came. I began to wonder, though, about what the play experience would be like if I actually paid some money for these games. I realized that comparing the experience of a game I’ve paid for upfront to one I was playing for free was a terribly unfair contest.
Within a couple days of this realization, Age of Empires Online was due to be released. I decided that I would use Age of Empires Online as my test case for a pair of reasons: firstly, I had a benchmark to measure the “game” aspect of Age of Empires against its previous installments. Would the symptoms of some free-to-play, online, and social disease transform this real-time strategy war game into a collection of egg timers? Secondly, in my entirely unscientific way, I had a generally optimistic view of Age of Empires, I had reason to believe I would have a good time with it. So I gave this free-to-play thing its best chance of succeeding by stacking the deck a little, and started my little experiment. I decided to budget for this game, rather than just spending willy-nilly. I aimed for about $40 (in Australian dollars, but we’re still close enough to parity), since that was what Tropico 4 was going to cost me. A mid-sized game, not a blockbuster, but one whose predecessor I’ve had a tremendous amount of fun with.
I went into this Age of Empires Online experiment largely ignorant. For example, I didn’t even realize it wasn’t a browser game. Well, I thought to myself as I installed the client, I wasn’t sure how the real-time aspect of the game was going to work in the browser, so maybe this is a good thing. It was.
As I went through the download and installation process, I reflected on what I expected of this game. To sidestep my major frustrations with other free-to-play games, Age of Empires Online would have to provide an actual real-time game, with units moving around on a battlefield, not a series of progress bars. It should provide playable content anytime I wanted to play; I was not looking forward to paying money to sit around waiting. The game should also let me continue to play inside the free area for as long as I want, rather than interrupt what I was doing to offer paid content. Even if that free area was limited, it should be self-sufficient.
So I started on my journey.
On founding my capital city, I was immediately greeted by the FarmVille-like interface and a Dreamworks Studios aesthetic. I became apprehensive. There was very little in the way of interaction available in my capital city, and I could sense the underlying structure of slowly acquiring different buildings and vanity features. Clicking on the floating yellow exclamation point quickly altered my perception. I accepted my first quest, and genuinely embarked on a mission. I left my slow-moving capital city and found myself in command of a real-time outpost, instantly recognizable as an Age of Empires battle. I could point-and-click, select soldiers, build houses, and watch my small army of villagers scurry about. I led my troops into the fog of war and did battle. In short, I was playing a real-time strategy game, online and for free, with a social chat window in the lower left-hand corner.
So Age of Empires Online had already somewhat flummoxed my original intentions by being fun even before I paid any money! I kept having fun for a good six or seven hours before I really started to think about paying for the pleasure. I mentioned earlier that the capital city screen reminded me of the FarmVille-like games I was seeking to escape, and it still does. Although certain resource-producing buildings that tick over slowly in real-world time do make an appearance, this is not the sole game experience. As should now be clear, Age of Empires Online has two very distinct, complementary game modes. The Empire view is one, and the real-time quest mode is the other. Where clicking timers in other games serve only to unlock more timers to click, in Age of Empires Online the tending to one’s capital city enables better units and technologies on the battlefield. Performing well on the battlefield, meanwhile, furnishes one’s capital city with resources, currency, and upgrades.
The paid content is geared toward improving one’s capital city directly, but this has the repercussions of creating a stronger army on the real-time map. Age of Empires Online utilizes a massively multiplayer online role-playing game-like architecture based around quests, rewards, and loot — even breaking that loot into familiar grey, green, blue, and purple tiers. These rewards are used to improve the buildings in the capital city. While playing prior to paying, I received a couple of blue rewards which would bolster my infantry and villagers’ abilities. But alas, only by upgrading to the premium content could I actually equip these rare rewards! Subtle, if insidious, incentive to upgrade. I respect the subtlety, though, as I was never offered a brigade of spearman for a mere 500 Microsoft points that would turn the tide of a real-time battle. The money-spinning seems limited to the Empire screen, allowing an unencumbered concentration on tactics during real-time warfare. When I finally cracked and bought the launch offer pack (Greece and Egypt civilizations with the Defense of Crete booster pack), I spent $49.50AU so I could equip the blue shinies sitting in my inventory.
So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed Age of Empires Online. The most telling factor is that I actually want to go back and play more. Its novel combination of MMO architecture with RTS action is a much-needed antidote to the frustrations I had with other free-to-play games. The free content is generous, and does not feel like half a game. Age of Empires Online clearly demonstrates that free-to-play does not immediately require a FarmVille-like experience, and that an MMO can end with “RTS” just as comfortably as “RPG.” I feel that my eyes have been opened somewhat, my jaded assumptions challenged, and a little faith restored. “Going free-to-play” or “online” or “social” doesn’t necessarily spell disaster for a video game, even by the offline, paid, single-player focused standards I hold.