Age of Empires Online beta download public until Saturday morning

omg first thing I'll do when I get home!

that motorstorm apocalypse trailer sure is nice imo

I have to admit I was put off by the cartoony nature of the game when I first saw it, but I'll be sure to try this beta out regardless.

I log into GFW and this is the first and only change I've seen to the main page since I installed the program on March 20th...

Thos game runs extremely smooth despite the crappy condition of my computer. After playing, I gotta say. The game really is a great online version of AOE. I definetly recommend it.

I've been playing this some time now... It's actually pretty enjoyable and pretty addictive, if rather different to the previous games. The visuals may give the impression that this is something more akin to Farmville, but it's really very similar to AoE/AoK. You have a customisable hub world and quests, but the quests take place on their own map, and each one is like starting a new game in the previous games.

Most importantly, it runs like a dream, which is a huge credit to them.

I got an email from the devs stating that anyone who plays the game Friday 3 PM - 6 PM PST and Saturday 11 AM - 2 PM PST and completes 10 quests or 20 PvP matches during the time period and emails the devs at community@ageofempiresonline.com with the subject "Credits RSVP*" and their gamertag in the body of the messagecan get their Live gamertag in the credits. Just thought some people would like to know that.

I'm surprised how many gamers are put off by styling and color graphics. I'm very surprised with how beautiful the game looks. On top of that, I'm really enjoying the beta quite a bit.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay, GFWL...

How will people know wether the game is messing up or GFWL is messing up? Cant be the best platform for a beta.

Why Does it ask me for the Product Key??
What do I do now?

I was pleasantly surprised by this. I only played about 20 minutes but it's very fast on the loading, the UI is clean and tight, and the "quests" (read: scenarios) are addictive.

Come to think of it, this game has all the looks (gameplay-wise, not aesthetically :P) of any other Age of Empires game except with a connected hub/skill trees that affect what you do in said scenarios, etc. When you get down to the nitty gritty details it's actually not that much different from the classic AoE gameplay, which is always great in my book. I find it a refreshing MMO that has very little if any of the MMO downfalls.

Though the chatbox has spammers out the ass, which is a bummer since it kind of ruins the whole "talk to other people aspect" considering you can't.

i wanted to play this for a while. Should i give it a try or stick with starcraft 2?

Is it me or are the patches you have to download taking forever?

Well that's great, considering my computer died last weekend and it's going to take another week to get the motherboard replaced. I guess I'll have to take my anger out on people in a different online game. Oh wait, PSN is still down, and Microsoft thinks I should pay them to play online. I'll just go sulk in a corner somewhere.