Age of Empires Online Season Pass offers all and future available content for one price

AoE Online offers a Season Pass on the first six months of content

Now that the free-to-play Age of Empires Online MMORTS is out (and it's not all bad, apparently), let's start talking about how you can pay for it, shall we? Of course, the game is free to download, and you get the game's two empires to play with right away. But developer Gas Powered Games are working on releasing new content all the time, of course, and Microsoft has announced at Gamescom that those really interested in the game will be able to pick up a "Season Pass" that will grant access to all premium content currently available. That pass will cost $99.99, and last for the first six months of the game.

At this point, we only know about a few different content packs, and there's a deal for a free Defense of Crete Booster Pack when you buy both Premium Civs, so everything on the market right now will set you back only about $60. But keep in mind that the Season Pass lasts until February of next year, so everything Gas Powered releases before then is yours to keep. If you like the game a lot, that will probably be worth the deal.

One note of warning: Gas Powered also says that buying the Season Pass won't keep you from rebuying content accidentally, so don't forget and buy more stuff when your Christmas cards come in. But hopefully if you spend $100 on a free-to-play game, you won't really be tempted to spend any more than that, right?

Reader Comments (24)

I will NEVER get into any interest in these online, micro-transaction based games.

The wallet raping is truly....EPIC.

It was the only word I could muster.

@CaptainProtonX

Some of us used to play games in the arcades. They were micro transactions; you needed to pay 25 cents every time you wanted to continue, or gain extra life, etc.

Yet I never heard anyone complain about "wallet raping" back then, even considering the content you paid for was completely disposable and you never even got a "license" with it and the entertainment value lasted you a couple of minutes per micro transaction.

Here, you have something that is free to play. You #1 don't have to play it in the first place and #2 don't have to buy the additional content if you don't want it. Yet all I see is a people complaining about it. I don't get it.

Portents such as these make me shiver, and my skin crawl, contemplating what is to come in video games.

Jesus Christ! That is Disneyland level of of admission fee!

So you're supposed to buy a season pass where it's not even spelled out everything you're getting? I can't imagine anyone dumb enough to do that.

@Cranky Penguin
6 month season pass? does that seem odd to anyone else? makes it sound like you won't be able to play during the spring/summer.

Really not that high if you consider a game is $50-60 + 6 months of sub($15) is $140-150. Though I myself wouldn't pay $99 on this and I really enjoyed the game.

It sounds bad, but what you are really paying for is the 3 races (1 of which isn't in yet), all the content that is currently in the game and extras that are available, and the extra pve/coop content that should be coming out. The price is basically 1 retail game + 1 expansion, but the actual game part isn't even finished yet, let alone the expansion.

The only problem is as far as I have been able to tell, I can't find out what else they are releasing. After you buy a race and bag expansion that will only set you back about $20, so if you just wanted to play ranked pvp all the time, then theoretically you wouldn't be missing out on that much extra stuff.

If there was a roadmap of just what else they were planning on adding to the game by next February, it might be a better deal if you aren't into SC2 since the mechanics are pretty much carbon copy AoE + a little city building/rpg mechanics (it's kind of like a more involved LoL summoner system).

However, End of Nations is still coming out so you might want to wait for that if you are looking for another f2p rts that isn't SC2.

You know, if they were planning to charge that much, I would have preferred they release the game as a normal $60 release.

I'm glad I didn't download it. Seems like pretty minimal content, and the full experience is apparently worth over $100. Sorry, but no.

I vastly prefer the try it first model, and then paying for what you want, than the current and past practice of shipping a $60 game that sucked right out of the box that you were now stuck with.

Either $99 is worth it to you or it's not. I have no interest in this game, but I can't fault them for offering an all-you-can-eat six month plan that's $99.

@(Unverified) Exactly. If you just buy what you want, it's somewhere in between $0-$100. No doubt, $100 pricing plans (esp. for "free" games) is bad publicity, and kind of alarming. However, it's hard to believe that people who have even the slightest inclination to play the latest AOE won't at least try it, for free.

So its like Tiny Towers but more clicking?

@Supino
It's Age of Empires, man. AGE OF EMPIRES. Game is very popular and if you haven't played it, play it. Seriously. You can buy Age of Empires III for cheap. Go do it.

Don't mean to be nitpicky or start an argument, but I played in the beta, and enjoyed it, but I don't consider the game to be an MMOG or MMORTS.

It doesn't take place in a persistent world. Each user has a city that exists in its own world independent of other users. You can visit their cities, kind of like in Animal Crossing, and you can play coop "quests" and even PVP but outside of that, I have trouble calling it massively multiplayer. You basically have a chatroom where you set up matches and trade items.

HOW MUCH!?

So when we paying $60 we got 13 civs in AoE 2 and 8 civs in AoE2 and the full set of content, yet now when the game is free we get 2 civs and if we want to bump that up to 5 we need to pay $100.

Free games have become very expensive.

People who pay this stuff are the real problem. I bought Civ 5 for $25 and it can be a game that will last you forever. This? Nope.

I'd pay 60 bucks for a real successor to AoE II instead of this micro-transaction garbage.

How to Ruin a Good Game 101

Chapter 1 - Charging Retail Value for Fractions of a Game

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh.

99 bucks? REALLY?

This is NOT two games' worth of content. It's maybe one. For real?

This shows how absurd their base pricing is now.

You guys are pissed about having a game that's free to play, charge you if you want to buy additional content? Why? If you don't want to pay it guess what, you don't have to. You can still play it and not pay one red cent.

Are you the children of those people 15 years ago that said charging a monthly fee like Meridian 59 and Ultima Online did was criminal?

@EazySCT

Are you playing or have you played it? Just curious, because I did and no way is this worth $99. Oh, and that just covers content, not all the cash shop stuff you'll end up buying.

Game publishers are in the business of making money, just like every other retailer. If you're willing to buy a T-shirt for $50, or in this case, $99, then you can find someone to sell it to you. Others, however, don't consider a T-shirt to be worth $99. But you go ahead and wear your $99 T-shirt proudly.

@OutThere So first you ask if I played the game and then assume I'm paying $99 for the premium pass. It's as if halfway through your post you realized you were agreeing with that I was saying and then had to say something condescending to try and make a point.

I have played the the game and I think it's fun. Is it $99 fun? Not to me. Is it $20 of fun? Not to me. But I am the kind of guy who will put a $10 in a girl's g-string at the club and have he shake her tiggo bitties in my face for 5 minutes so I'm probably not the best one to ask about the value of entertainment dollars.

Remember when Age of Empires came on a disc with plenty of content already, and you could buy expansion packs to make the game even better?

Well this seems like a total rip-off compared to those old games. I'll stick to playing my old AoE games. Heck, I've only just ordered Age of Empires III Complete Collection. I might try this for free, but otherwise... Meh.

Oh, and it's not made Ensemble Studios. Boo. Yes, I do know they were closed down.

Age of Empires Online

Age of Empires Online Season Pass offers all and future available content for one price

Reader Comments (24)

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 3:26PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 7:26PM EazySCT said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 3:41PM Courtney said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 3:42PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:01PM Cranky Penguin said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:10PM LexStewther said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:03PM Scin said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:08PM BuyAquafina said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:38PM FreakSheet said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:48PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 6:19PM OAKside said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:50PM Supino said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 9:58PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 4:55PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:11PM Exu said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:12PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:24PM sammo21 said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:51PM Marshillboy said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 5:55PM Nmaster64 said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 7:00PM MasterYogurt said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 7:19PM EazySCT said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 12:44AM OutThere said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 1:03AM EazySCT said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 7:51AM TCJJ said

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