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Age of Empires

[edit]

Passed GA a while back. I would like to get this featured at some stage (as part of very slowly working on an FT for the series!). All advice is appreciated. Cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: After a quick glance, I have a couple small suggestions
  • I would add in a section titled "Overview", "Common elements", or "Common gameplay elements" that would describe the various gameplay mechanics and recurring items/themes in the series.
  • I would remove most of the subheadings in the "Games" section and just have "Original series" and "Spin-off games".
  • In the "Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and The Conquerors" section, there's a single sentence that should be combined to the preceding paragraph.
  • Rename the subsection heading "Big Huge Games collaboration" to simply "Collaboration"
  • Rename the "Success and legacy" section to "Reception and legacy"
It's not much, but I hope it helps point you in the right direction. I'll see if I have time to do a more in-depth review later. (Guyinblack25 talk 20:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC))[reply]
Thanks for the comments. A more in-depth one would be great if you have time. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 03:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Jappalang

[edit]

Here are my comments after looking through the article (I did not thoroughly check every reference but read a bit of those whose statements gave me pause)

  • Logo
Umm, the logo is a wee bit small... heck, it is small. Is it possible to find a larger logo (around 200px in width)?
I'll try. No promises! dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead
  • Do we need all the titles in the series spelt out here? The second paragraph overloaded my senses a bit. It could instead describe what cultures have been adapted into the games, and what periods of times the games span across.
  • also earned Ensemble Studios a reputation which has enabled them to work with other developers — A contentious statement which unfortunately proved half-correct. Only Bungie Studios explicitly stated the series was reason to let Ensemble handle Halo Wars. The other developer was just roped in for an expansion because Ensemble was too busy.
  • Part of the series' success has been put down to its consistent historical focus — "Consistent" might be incorrect. AoE campaigns stretches the truth and are pure WP:OR :-P. If the sentence is trying to say the games consistently follow a historical theme, then "put down to its historical theme" might be better.
  • revolutionary use of non-cheating artificial intelligence — How revolutionary was it? Revolutionary would imply it affected or changed the way the game industry codes its AI. If AoE did do that, then it would be better to sum up those achievement. As for "non-cheating", a non-gamer might wonder how can a computer cheat? Perhaps "a game system which treats both player and non-players fairly" or something to that effect.
  • Games
  • Would changing "Original series" to "Main series" be better?
  • I think the section needs a summarized history of the releases (perhaps the second paragraph of the lead would be better here).
  • highly buggy — Non-gamers might not understand "buggy". Give a few examples, plus a piped Wikilink to software bug.
  • The amount of Reception-type material here could be problematic. I suggest focusing on the appeal of each game here, with summaries of concepts introduced in each game, or significant events/gameplay issues such as bugs, features.
  • Why is Age of Mythology in the Age of Empires series? Aside from the similar titling, and it coming from the same developers, there is nothing in the article to suggest it is an AoE game.
  • Putting aside similar titling and developers, the gameplay is still based a lot around on the AoE style gameplay. And the developers have referred to it as an AoE game on numerous occasions. I personally consider it as much part of the series as the AoE2 remake for the DS. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Development
  • aim was for the game's players to have fun, "not the designers or researchers." — I found it slightly awkward, perhaps aim was for the game's players, and "not [its] designers or researchers" to have the fun".
  • were not about history in itself, but rather "about the human experience" — A rather fuzzy quote. What experience? It is slightly clearer with the rest of the quote: "which is not just what we've done and what we are doing, but what we might do". As such, it seems the quote is sort of talking about "not recreating the past, but what we can create", or is it... Not the best of quotes.
  • was developed in a different way to the previous games, as Ensemble Studios were concerned they "couldn't get away with" a third historical game — It brings us back to the question: "Is AoM an AoE game?"
  • development team spent over a year on the game's AI, and gave it a very high priority — The clauses appear to be reversed, "development team gave the AI a very high priority and spent over a year on it".
  • AI had an emphasis on tactics and strategies, rather than on cheating — Explain how and what cheating the typical AI does.
  • Elaborate a bit on the "smart villager".
  • by unlocking the game's AI debugger — A little bit of explanation on what an AI debugger can do would be good.
  • This came as a result of extensive research. — State what did they research on for their music.
  • Reception and legacy
  • Shelley's claims of what constitutes AoE's success is harder to accept than from third parties (a principle of WP:SPS and WP:RS), since he designed AoE.
  • A personal thought: shipped numbers are not really "notable", it is the number sold which counts.

Other notes: AS per WP:PUNC, partial quotes should have ending punctuations outside quotation marks.

That is it. Jappalang (talk) 07:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks heaps! dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments by Guyinblack25

[edit]

It's starting to really shape up now. The only thing that looks like it'll be an issue is the dreaded FA criteria 1(a). Hopefully these comments will help some. Please keep in mind I've never played the games before, so any tweaks to sentence structure I suggest may not convey the proper idea you intended them to.

The lead
  • The first paragraph in the lead is only two sentences long. I would either combine it to the proceeding paragraph, or expand it with more info.
  • I noticed a lot of information in the lead is repeated later on almost word for word. Repeating it is ok, but I would reword the content.
  • The following sentences seems a bit awkward, I would tweak them some. "The initial games focused on the time period from the Stone Age to Classical antiquity in Europe and Asia Minor from the Stone Age to Classical antiquity, as well as the formation and expansion of the Roman Empire. These were followed by a trio of games centering around Europe in the Middle Ages, also addressingas well as the Spanish colonization of Mexico. Newer games in the series discussedfocused on the European colonization of the Americas, and the rise of Asian civilizations during this time period."
  • unhistorical elements --> fictional or fictional historic elements
  • Minor tweaks: "The popularity and quality of the games has also earned Ensemble Studios a reputation which has enabledlead them to work with developer Bungie Studios on Halo Wars."
  • Minor tweak: "Part of the series' success has been attributedput down to its historical..."
Common gameplay elements
  • A brief introductory statement could be inserted after the first sentence. Like something to list the recurring modes. The following sentences will make a bit more sense after first being set up. Something like this maybe: "The series features several recurring modes of play; "random map", "death match", and"campaigns".
  • Consistency of spelling civilisation --> civilization: "..."random map"—the player selects a civiliszation, and most..."
  • Minor tweak, missing hyphen: "In-game campaigns and..."
  • "According to Shelley..." Who is Shelley. I would use a persons role in the series and full name the first instance in the article. For example, "director Tetsuya Nomura", or "game designer Will Wright".
  • Split up lengthy sentence: "The attention to detail on units and characters in games varies, f. For instance, in Age of Empires III, players noted the German church design was Catholic, rather than Protestant, but on the other hand. Conversely, the design..."
  • Minor tweak, comma not needed: "...deliberately include a "strange or exotic military unit", to make the..."
Games section
  • Content mentioned in the introductory section is repeated almost word for word. Rewording things will reduce redundancy in the article. Maybe go into little more detail also.
  • Minor tweak to add a frame of reference: "Age of Empires, released October 26, 1997, was the first game in the series, and one of the first history based..."
  • The flow of these sentences seems a bit off. I think its how they are combined with conjunctions. "The game was Ensemble Studio's first major release, and utilized the Genie game engine, and. It was touted as a mixture of Civilization and Warcraft. In tThe game, allows athe player chosesto develop a tribe of one offrom 12 civilizations, and develops itadvancing from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Age of Empires was Ensemble Studio's first major release, and the.The first version contained multiple software bugswas highly buggy, however, though many of these issues were resolved by subsequent patches."
  • Minor tweak to make the sentence more concise. "The game introduced several new features, and several new and civilizations..."
  • Minor tweak, comma not needed: "...similar to Age of Empires in its historical based gameplay, and use of the Genie game engine."
  • This sentence seem kind of tacked on, I would try to integrate it into the rest of the prose. "Over 2 million copies were sold."
  • This phrase uses slang, I would stick with "released" even though it is repetitive. The flow seems a bit off too. "The expansion to The Age of Kings, The Conquerors, hit shelveswas released on August 24, 2000, and introducinged five new civilizations, including..."
  • Minor tweak, comma not needed: "The game also introduced several new units, and the concept of 'unique technologies'."
  • This sentence reads more like a critique/review of the game rather than an informative statement. I'm not sure how to reword it though. Try this: "OnlyThe game includes eight civilizations were included, however this was compromised by the, and introductioned of a large number of features, including home cities."
  • Same tweak as one above, hit selves --> released: "...The WarChiefs, hit shelveswas released on..."
  • In the "Spin-off games" section, I would mention what connects Age of Mythology to the rest of the series. I assume it's gameplay.
  • Minor tweak: "The campaign in The Titans is a shorter than previous expansions,one in which and focuses on Kastor, son of Arkantos, who is tricked into unleashing several titans from Erebus."
  • I would remove the metacritic/game ranking scores from the prose. Though the citations can probably stay as it supports most of the remaining info in the sentences.
  • I would combine some of the paragraphs together in the "Main series" section. Specifically, I would add the paragraphs about the expansions to the paragraph about the game it is an expansion to. That way, it consolidates the focus onto the the three main games.
  • Same thing with the "Spin-off games" section, I would combine the paragraph about The Titans into the paragraph before it.
  • With the paragraphs combined more, I would rearrange the content some. Like have the reception content for Age of Empires and The Rise of Rome together and the content for The Age of Kings and The Conquerors together.
Development
  • Trim down redundant wording in "Historical elements"
    "The games in the Age of Empires series were often developed in similar ways. Due to the common theme of historical events, the development of games in the series often required large amounts of research. Age of Empires designer Bruce Shelley noted that the game's research was not in depth, because Ensemble Studios found that 'Extensive, detailed research is not...a good idea for most entertainment products.' He also stated that most of the reference material used for the game was taken from the children's section of libraries, explaining that the aim was for the game's players to have fun, and 'not [its] the designers or researchers.' Later, in 2007, Shelley continued with this idea, explaining to a Games Convention Developers Conference that the success of the series lay in "making a game which appealed to both the casual and hardcore gamer". Shelley also remarked that the Age of Empires games were not about history in itself, but rather 'about the human experience', focusing not just on what humans had done..."
  • Trim down redundant wording and minor tweaks in "Artificial intelligence"
    "The Age of Empires series has often been praised for the artificial intelligence (AI) used in the games. In developing Age of Empires, AI specialist Dave Pottinger noted that the development team gave the AI a very high priority and spent over a year on it. He said the game's AI had an emphasis on tactics and strategies, rather than on 'cheating' by being automatically granteding bonus resources or stronger units. Pottinger notinged that the Age of Empires series team took great pride in their AI playing 'fair game'. The AI for The Conquerors was also given a high priority, the result being the 'smart villager' feature which was a highly popular feature in all subsequent games in the series. Upon building a granary or similar building, smart villagers would automatically beinggin gathering resources from the nearest relevant resource site, such as a farm or forage bush. The Titans again followed in the tradition of making major AI adjustments in expansions, by unlocking the game's AI debugger for use in scenario design, thus. This allowedallowing designers to customize and control the personalities of computer players in custom scenarios."
  • The first sentence in "Music" seems a bit awkward. I would try "Stephen Rippy has been the series' [art director or what ever his title is] since the first game. His brother David Rippy, has occasionally assisted him, and Kevin McMullan has assisted since The Conquerors."
  • Minor tweak: "...and of actual instruments used in the times being discussedportrayed."
  • Minor punctuation tweak, comma --> semicolon: "...collaborated with Big Huge Games in the development of the game,; a first for both teams."
  • Minor tweak: "This came as athe result of Ensemble Studios being..."
  • Trimming: "...designers Greg Street and Sandy Petersen had a significant impact in brainstorming, and also had control..."
Reception and legacy
  • I have a few ideas to split this up some, but the section flows very well as it is. If you're looking for an alternative, I have some ideas, but don't think they really need to be implemented.
  • I would start the section with an introductory statement. Something like "Overall, the series has been well received by critics, and been commercially successful."
  • Reword/tweak: "In 2003, Microsoft also announced the sale s of one million copies offor Age of Mythology in 2003. In the announcement for The Asian Dynasties, Ensemble Studios announced that two million copies of Age of Empires III had been sold two million copies in [Insert date of announcement]. InBy 2004,—prior to the release of Age of Empires III,—it was announced that the Age of Empires franchise had sold in excess of 15 million copies."
  • Trim: "...although it was often argued that none could equal it in..."
  • More trimming: "...interview, Shelley told GameSpy that the series had also influenced gamers, to the point where parents would contact Ensemble Studios to "tell us that their kid is reading books about ancient Greece because they enjoy playing with the triremes so much, or that they want to check out books about medieval..."
  • Wikilink trireme
  • Trim: "Shelley has said that the key to the game's success was its innovativeness, rather than imitation of its peers. He also claimed that the execution of the game's unique elements "helped establish the reputation of Ensemble Studios as masters of the real-time strategy genre". IGN agreed - in hisIn an IGN review of The Age of Kings, Mark Bozon wrote that "The Age of Empires series..."
  • Minor trim: "Shelley has acknowledged that the success and innovation..."

I hope this helps, I'll go through the rest of the article hopefully later tonight. (Guyinblack25 talk 00:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC))[reply]
Finshed reviewing, added comments for "Develop" and "Reception". The article is a pretty good candidate for FA. I hope these comments help. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Thank you so much for everything. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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