- Obligatory Wall of Text warning -
I started playing Age of Empires 1 when I was nine years old, barely understanding the mechanics of the game and struggling to beat the first campaign for months (the one where you start with only a monk). A couple years later AOE2 was released and from then on my favorite time was playing on LAN with siblings and friends. Somehow it was incredible hard to set up and it was never guaranteed that you actually got a game. But if it finally worked – what a joy! One of my best memories during that time is walling in my king. Even though I do not have a photographic memory, I can still see that walled in king like a screenshot in front of my eyes.
Somewhere along the line puberty hit and with it came other interests, other games. But once a year or every second year the old squad came together and we played a game or two. It was always the same people, who had been there from the very beginning, because no one new wanted to try the game. Some people took a look at it but always said “too ugly, too complicated”.
When laptops came out, Age of Empires looked extremely small on those screens because AOE2 did not support widescreen resolution. I looked for a widescreen patch online and found the Forgotten Empires project. That was the first time I became aware that there is actually a community that is still playing this game.
I looked on Youtube and found a guy called Zero Empires with the loveliest British accent you can imagine. He casted a game between two players called TheViper and Jordan_23. In that game Viper or Jordan (cannot remember) placed an offensive tower in the Fog of War on the Woodline. I was absolutely mind blown. Towers could be used as an offensive weapon! After ten years of playing, I had never thought of that. For me it was a purely defensive structure.
It was also the first time that I saw someone using this weird “boar” and actually hunting it. No one that I knew of would ever do that because it seemed such a struggle and just not worth it for a little bit of food.
So I told my friends the next time we met up: “Guys, we need to get the boar”. And they we looking at me: “Bro. We played this game for 10 years. Don’t tell us how to play.” From then on, I was the weirdo, who always tried to hunt the boar, and every time I failed they were just shaking their heads, like parents would do when they see their kids not behaving properly.
I started watching all the Zero Empires Videos and became increasingly aware that there is actually a very active scene. After Forgotten Empires was released, HD came along the way and with it the first tournaments that I watched on twitch. Until then, I was only aware of Zero Empires as a kind of community manager (it seemed to me that way) and then there was another guy called BBQTurkman, but he seemed to be mainly on Youtube and not so much involved in the scene (kind of what SOTL is now).
Then there was a tournament where Zero Empires invited Cocasters each game. Two of them stood out for me. First there was a guy called T90official with a small Youtube channel. His casting style was highly enjoyable and there was something very likeable and relatable about him. And then there was an absolutely hilarious caster with an even better accent than Zero – Memb. There was a game for 3rd place and one player was villager rushing. The whole chat and Zero Empires – we were all just enjoying Membs reaction. Such passion!
From then on things only started to grow in ways that nobody could have foreseen. The success is great. Still, in my opinion, it does not add anything to the game. It is not new graphics or new civs or 10k viewers which make this game incredible, but the very basic, genius concept.
I wrote this down to show how Zero Empires for me was the key figure to get to know this community, Aoezone, Twitch, the scene, all the others casters and basically everything in this game that is online-related.
Nothing is forever and I think it is only natural to go away and come back from time to time. In that sense I hoped to see you @ZeroEmpires on RBW III, as it was the last event were you showed up. I guess that is not going to happen so I just want to say thank you for everything. Enjoy your life as you brought enjoyment to me and so many others. You have put in incredible work and your impact cannot be understated. Again, thank you!
I started playing Age of Empires 1 when I was nine years old, barely understanding the mechanics of the game and struggling to beat the first campaign for months (the one where you start with only a monk). A couple years later AOE2 was released and from then on my favorite time was playing on LAN with siblings and friends. Somehow it was incredible hard to set up and it was never guaranteed that you actually got a game. But if it finally worked – what a joy! One of my best memories during that time is walling in my king. Even though I do not have a photographic memory, I can still see that walled in king like a screenshot in front of my eyes.
Somewhere along the line puberty hit and with it came other interests, other games. But once a year or every second year the old squad came together and we played a game or two. It was always the same people, who had been there from the very beginning, because no one new wanted to try the game. Some people took a look at it but always said “too ugly, too complicated”.
When laptops came out, Age of Empires looked extremely small on those screens because AOE2 did not support widescreen resolution. I looked for a widescreen patch online and found the Forgotten Empires project. That was the first time I became aware that there is actually a community that is still playing this game.
I looked on Youtube and found a guy called Zero Empires with the loveliest British accent you can imagine. He casted a game between two players called TheViper and Jordan_23. In that game Viper or Jordan (cannot remember) placed an offensive tower in the Fog of War on the Woodline. I was absolutely mind blown. Towers could be used as an offensive weapon! After ten years of playing, I had never thought of that. For me it was a purely defensive structure.
It was also the first time that I saw someone using this weird “boar” and actually hunting it. No one that I knew of would ever do that because it seemed such a struggle and just not worth it for a little bit of food.
So I told my friends the next time we met up: “Guys, we need to get the boar”. And they we looking at me: “Bro. We played this game for 10 years. Don’t tell us how to play.” From then on, I was the weirdo, who always tried to hunt the boar, and every time I failed they were just shaking their heads, like parents would do when they see their kids not behaving properly.
I started watching all the Zero Empires Videos and became increasingly aware that there is actually a very active scene. After Forgotten Empires was released, HD came along the way and with it the first tournaments that I watched on twitch. Until then, I was only aware of Zero Empires as a kind of community manager (it seemed to me that way) and then there was another guy called BBQTurkman, but he seemed to be mainly on Youtube and not so much involved in the scene (kind of what SOTL is now).
Then there was a tournament where Zero Empires invited Cocasters each game. Two of them stood out for me. First there was a guy called T90official with a small Youtube channel. His casting style was highly enjoyable and there was something very likeable and relatable about him. And then there was an absolutely hilarious caster with an even better accent than Zero – Memb. There was a game for 3rd place and one player was villager rushing. The whole chat and Zero Empires – we were all just enjoying Membs reaction. Such passion!
From then on things only started to grow in ways that nobody could have foreseen. The success is great. Still, in my opinion, it does not add anything to the game. It is not new graphics or new civs or 10k viewers which make this game incredible, but the very basic, genius concept.
I wrote this down to show how Zero Empires for me was the key figure to get to know this community, Aoezone, Twitch, the scene, all the others casters and basically everything in this game that is online-related.
Nothing is forever and I think it is only natural to go away and come back from time to time. In that sense I hoped to see you @ZeroEmpires on RBW III, as it was the last event were you showed up. I guess that is not going to happen so I just want to say thank you for everything. Enjoy your life as you brought enjoyment to me and so many others. You have put in incredible work and your impact cannot be understated. Again, thank you!