age-of-empires-online posts

Age of Empires Online is in the middle of its closed beta test at the moment but the development team at Gas Powered Games is already revealing more about what players can get when the online free-to-play RTS game launches later in 2011. In the latest video blog, we learn about one of the game's Booster Packs, Defense of Crete

This new gameplay mode is basically a tower defense game where you have to build up your forces and structures to defend your Wonder from an invading horde. This is a mode that you can play by yourself or you can team up with a buddy online to have him help you defend your wonder.

Age of Empires Online is the upcoming reboot of the classic PC RTS series. The game from developer Gas Powered Games and publisher Microsoft will officially launch later this year as a persistent free-to-play RTS game with a cartoony art style.

The game is currently in closed beta testing and now Big Download has 500 beta keys to give out to fans. Simply email us at contests@bigdownload.com with the subject line "Age of Empires Online". We will send players beta keys until they are all given out on our end. Our thanks to Microsoft for providing the beta keys. Good luck.

Age of Empires Online's switchover in developers seems to be going smoothly enough. The upcoming free-to-play RTS game is now firming in developer Gas Powered Games' hands. In its second video blog for the game, its head man Chris Taylor and others are shown handling a brainstorming session.

While there's some info on the game itself, most notably its game balance features, there's also teleportation, air guitar playing on the conference table and some soccer (or futbol for your Europeans) playing with some interesting gameplay twists. We are not sure what this has to do with an historical RTS game but it's fun to watch anyway.

The game development world got a bit of a surprise late in February when it was revealed that Gas Powered Games was taking over as the primary developer of Age of Empires Online, the upcoming online free-to-play RTS game from Microsoft Games Studios.

So what does this mean for the game's development? Big Download went right to the source and got in touch with Gas Powered's founder and CEO Chris Taylor to find out more about how this switch came about, if the team will ever go back to its previously announced RTS game Kings and Castles and more.

When Gas Powered Games took over as the developer of Age of Empires Online we were happy that the upcoming free-to-play RTS game would be in good hands. At the same time we thought that this also meant that the entertaining video blogs that Gas Powered was making for their now "on hold" title Kings and Castles wouldn't be made anymore.

Thankfully we couldn't have been more wrong. Gas Powered and publisher Microsoft have started a new video blog that looks like it will be just as entertaining as those videos for Kings and Castles. It's got stufff just appearing out of nowhere, a funny confrontation and some gameplay from Age of Empires Online that ends in, well, just watch it yourself.

Age of Empires Online now has a new developer in Gas Powered Games. As revealed yesterday the team is taking over from Robot Entertainment to continue making the upcoming online and persistant RTS game from Microsoft. PC Gamer's web site has now posted an interview with Gas Powered's Chris Taylor on this suprising movie.

Taylor, who has been a huge fan of the original Age of Empires games, states that taking on this new project is a "tremendous responsibility, a scary responsibility in some regards because you've got a franchise that sold 25 million copies, so this is not something to take lightly." He also emphasised that Gas Powered is taking on this game for the long haul which is part of the reason why its previously announced RTS game Kings and Castles is now on hold. Taylor states, " ... we could come back to that game any time in the future, but right now it looks like we're going to be heavily invested in Age Online, and that's not a bad thing for anyone."

In a very suprising development, the official Age of Empires Online web site has announced that Gas Powered Games is now taking over as the developer of the upcoming free-to-play RTS game for publisher Microsoft Games Studios. Gas Powered Games takes over from Robot Entertainment who was announced as the developer for the game back in August 2010.

In a post on the game's official web site, Age of Empires Online's executive producer Danan Davis said that Gas Powered Games has been working on the title for some time to develop add-on packs for the game. He states that the switch over has been in the works for some time and Gas Powered and its leader Chris Taylor "share our long-term commitment to make this a success." The reasons for the switch from Robot Entertainment, which has a number of people who worked on the original Age of Empires RTS games, are pretty vague with Davis saying only, "Our previous development partner, Robot Entertainment, did amazing work on the game, and we wish them the best in their future projects."

You may remember that Taylor recently told us that Gas Powered's previously announced game, Kings and Castles, was now on hold and it's now clear that its takeover of Age of Empires Online's development was the reason. Davis states that even with this switch in developers the game is still scheduled to launch later in 2011.

Update: In a post on Robot Entertainment's message board, the developer's community manager assures fans that this switch was in the works for some time, saying, "This was always in the plan. We've even had some GPG guys down to the studio to get them trained up as far back as last fall. When we opened RE, our goal was to work on our own original games. We announced Orcs Must Die! this morning, and will have more info on future games relatively soon ;) "

There's one thing that has plagued Age of Empires since the series start, and that is the awfully muddy visuals. Even the move to 3D never helped, as both Age of Mythology and Age of Empires 3 suffer from too much detail, not enough composition. This trailer for Age of Empires Online, however, brings back our hope for the series. With clean, simple colors, striking unit outlines, and a beautifully minimal interface, it looks like all the visual problems of the previous entries have melted into the void. We love the new cartoonish direction, and the Egyptian faction is definitely the best to showcase this new change with.

Download Age of Empires Online 'Egyptians Reveal' Trailer
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In 2010, Microsoft announced that the company was getting back into publishing PC games after several years of not releasing any PC game titles. One of the titles that Microsoft is planning to publish is Age of Empires Online, a persistent online RTS game that takes the fan favorite game series in a new direction and in several different ways.

The game comes from developer Robot Entertainment (made up largely of former members of Age of Empires' creator Ensemble Studios). It's been in closed beta for some time now but today Microsoft officially announced a couple of major features in the game. One is that the previously announced Greek civilization will be joined by the Egyptian civilization when Age of Empires Online launches later this year. The other announcement is the first details on the business model for the game. Check out the details of that particular part of the game and more about Age of Empires Online after the jump:

While first person shooters, action games and role playing games can cross over from the PC to consoles, strategy games are still mostly on the PC side of things. 2010 brought us some big strategy game releases such as Civilization V and most notably StarCraft II Wings of Liberty. 2011 also has some major turn and RTS based strategy games on tap for release including the latest in a long line of historical RTSs, the return of a major turn based fantasy strategy series and even the latest attempt at an MMO RTS game.

Big Download has picked 10 upcoming strategy PC games that we can't wait to play (in order of their expected release dates) in the next year as part of our multi-part feature on the games of 2011. You can also go back and check out our previous entries on the first person shooter, action and RPG-MMO genres.