DE is probably last chance for AOE3

Firstly, lets talk about how massive the release of DE was of Aoe2. Age2 already had a bigger audience than aoe3 but DE created even more huge gap between the games. More than 50k viewers for hidden cup, big e-sports orgs like secret,tempo and gamerlegion expanded to age2, redbull gaming sponsored 2 tourney with more to come and microsoft themselves funded 50k prizepool for 2 tournaments.

Now we come to Aoe3 de and hope it replicates the success but i have doubts. Most changes so far have been political and the game mechanics itself isn't friendly to new players. The changes will probably even more diversify the game but i don't think that's what the game needs right now. Age2 brought small quality of life changes to the game and that is what aoe3 needs. Age3 is too fast paced right from the start for new players and i was kinda hoping they would make it more accessible to new players. If de can't bring more players then microsoft will definitely turn their back on aoe3.

Lastly, Tantalus Media will probably handle aoe3 after de and i hope they are more closer to the community like forgotten empires who have been doing good jobs of listening to community and bringing necessary changes.

Sorry for the long post :P