over 1 year ago - Age of Empires - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


5s Hi I'm Eric Wrobel, Lead Balance Designer on Age of Empires IV,
9s and I'd like to tell you about my story of how I got into Age of Empires.
13s As a kid, I was not the best student.
17s Being in a classroom with a teacher lecturing to me
20s was kinda like the Peanuts like, "womp womp womp womp."
23s And so, when I could play Age of Empires,
27s and get to experience the story,
31s and play with these famous historical characters,
34s I really remembered them and connected with them,
36s like William Wallace and Joan of Arc.
39s And when I got the opportunity to then come to Relic Entertainment,
44s it was a bit scary going 4,000 miles away from my home,
48s leaving my family and my friends.
50s But I really wanted to be able to share that joy that I experienced with the world,
53s and allow people to be learning
56s and getting educated while they're playing video games
59s and having a great time with an immersive, fun experience.
63s My name is Guerric Haché and I'm a mission designer on Age of Empires IV.
67s I have a long history with the Age of Empires franchise,
70s when I was a kid I discovered the shareware demo for Age of Empires 1 on...
75s somewhere on the internet.
76s And played a ton of that and really loved it
79s and managed to convince my parents to buy me Age of Empires II.
82s And I spent a lot of hours in all the encyclopedic elements of that game,
87s all the little history references that were tucked away,
91s just in all the various pages and stuff.
93s So learning about the Aztecs
94s and learning about the Byzantine empire and things like that,
97s which was really fascinating for me as a kid.
98s I also spent a ton of time playing with the level editor.
101s Which was maybe my first foray
103s into actually designing games which was really cool.
106s That's a really fun tool to have.
108s Just when you're a kid and you're experimenting with computers and stuff,
111s so I think that was definitely really formative
113s and kind of set me on the path toward working in games later.
115s And then later on in life
117s when I decided to move to Vancouver to study game design
120s I learned that the Vancouver film school
123s has an internship program with Relic
125s and I immediately kind of was very excited
128s because Relic makes some other games that I've really enjoyed.
132s And when I heard that Relic was going to be working on Age of Empires IV
135s I was extremely excited because I mean
136s this is a thing I grew up playing with my dad and my sister
139s and just spending hours and hours and hours with,
141s and I'd get to work on it as a grown up?
144s That was really cool.
146s So I was very excited with that,
147s very excited to join that project
150s and just getting to dive into working on the campaign of Age of Empires IV
154s was really validating and was kind of an experience of coming full circle,
160s because I got to research some of the history that gets put into games like that.
164s And I got to be on the other side of that equation,
166s where like maybe there are kids out there
168s who are playing these campaigns
169s and learning about that history for the first time,
171s in the same way I was learning
173s when I was that age with Age of Empires I and II.
176s It just feels really cool to be kind of giving back
179s to that same community and that same experience.
184s I really enjoy that part of it.
186s And I'm excited to keep working on this game
188s and keep seeing where it goes and where the franchise goes in the future.
191s So my name, Cloé Veilleux, Senior Technical Designer here at Relic.
196s So, my story about Age of Empires...
199s When I started working after I finished college, like 23 years ago,
206s it was a computer science degree that I did
208s because computer game design classes were not a thing.
213s And my first job was not in games.
216s But it so happens that the game we would play
219s during lunch break in that place,
221s was Age of Empires II.
223s So it was really something special
226s because the entire team of people
228s who were not actual gamers or people who wanted to work in the game industry,
233s would play this game together every lunch break.
235s And then 17 years later or thereabouts, I moved to Vancouver,
242s I joined Relic, and it so happens that I work on Age of Empires IV.
247s So I think it's very fitting that this game
251s is essentially at the beginning of my career,
253s and also it's right there with me after such a big move.
258s And hopefully I'm going to be here again with the franchise for a long time.
266s Hi everyone, my name is Zak Robinson,
268s and I'm a designer here at Relic Entertainment.
270s You probably know me better as ZeroEmpires online.
273s And I think like most people out there my earliest memories of Age of Empires
277s are as a very young boy playing with my family.
281s I really enjoyed the game so much, it enchanted me.
285s And I have here a book from Grade 7 when I was 11 years old
290s and it is just full of Age of Empires references,
293s medieval history, and drawings of Age of Empires units.
298s And it just really amazed me at the time
300s and it's something that stuck with me and I don't know why
303s but as I continued to grow older I continued to stick with Age.
307s And in 2011 I started my YouTube channel, ZeroEmpires,
311s and with the goal really just to spread the awareness of the game,
315s share my excitement and passion about the game with other people.
318s At the time I didn't expect it to reach as many people as it did,
322s hundreds of thousands, or if not a million or more.
325s And many of the comments on those videos were the same,
328s like "Hey I didn't know Age of Empires was still a thing."
331s "I didn't know Age of Empires was still around. This is awesome!"
334s But when I think back to the most memorable things about Age,
338s it wasn't just the game or the gameplay,
340s it was really all the people that I met
343s and had the great opportunity of spending time with
346s in the community through various community meatups,
349s have amazing memories of singing Titanic on stage with Memb in a German karaoke bar,
355s and spending some awesome time with other Age community members.
359s I even met my partner,
360s and we're coming up on our four year anniversary this year,
362s through Age of Empires.
364s I also remember in 2017 getting a call from Joe Homes,
368s the franchise community manager at the time,
370s and he told me that they were going to be making Age of Empires IV.
375s And I couldn't believe the news,
376s I think I cried tears of joy and happiness at the time,
379s and not just because Age of Empires was continuing to get love and support,
384s but just because it was recognition that Age of Empires
387s was here to stay and continue growing and doing so well.
390s And since then it has.
391s And I'm really proud and I'm humbled to be working
395s on Age of Empires IV as a developer,
397s and I work with so many talented developers
400s and people who are so passionate about the game.
403s To them, and everybody else who's had a hand
406s in making Age of Empires and the franchise what it is today:
409s thank you so much,
411s for keeping the excitement of this 11 year old boy alive.
414s So, for that, thank you.
416s And here's to the next 25 years.
419s Hi I'm David Phan, I am the Executive Producer on Age of Empires IV.
423s I'm here to share my Age of Empires story with everybody.
427s And it's one that's not necessarily a happy one.
429s It doesn't have a happy ending, but it's still a great story.
433s It was the summer of 1998,
435s Age of Empires I had come out the year prior in 1997,
438s I was hooked on the game,
440s I was playing it on Microsoft Zone, if anyone remembers that.
445s I was playing a match with friends one evening
448s and we had played several matches together, it was great, we were having fun.
452s And then we realized it was around midnight and I was like
455s "Hey guys, I gotta log off, I got classes tomorrow, I got an exam to do."
458s They're like "Hey, Dave, one more game! One more game, please!"
462s And I said "Cool, one more game, and that's it."
464s So we played a 2v2 game on a very big map.
468s It went back and forth, it was a great game.
470s And then we had, it was down to just me and my friend Peter,
473s we were doing a 1v1, the other two players got wiped off the map,
477s they were done, they quit for the night, went to sleep.
479s Me and Peter continued playing,
481s it was 2 or 3am, and I'm like
483s "Peter, just give it up." Just constantly taunting each other.
487s "Just let it go! Like, let me win!"
489s And he's like "Nope, nope." He was super stubborn.
492s We played back and forth and
494s basically it got to the point where I had the upper hand.
497s I basically won the game.
499s But we had setup the settings so that it was Conquest
502s and you had to kind of defeat all the units in order to win the game.
506s So, Peter being the difficult person that he was,
509s he hid his last few villagers into a boat
511s and kind of moved them into a far corner of the map
513s and just spent the next few hours taunting me
516s while I tried to look for his last few units,
518s 'cause I just couldn't let it go.
520s I had to win.
521s I couldn't just give him that free win, just out of spite.
526s So, I finally found his units, destroyed them, won the game,
531s but by that point the sun was starting to kind of pop out outside my window.
536s The birds were chirping.
537s And I started panicking because I realized it was about 8 o'clock.
541s And my class and exam was about an hour away.
545s So, I didn't do too well on that exam,
547s I ended up kind of failing the course.
550s But, I took the victory, so I'm super happy about that!
553s But I learned the lesson the hard way,
555s make sure you always have your game settings
557s so that a Wonder Victory is possible,
559s so you never get into this situation again.
562s Thank you Peter for helping me fail that course,
564s but it definitely showed how much love I had for the game.
568s And I feel so honored to be working on Age of Empires IV today
572s and making such a great game for our players.