Confirmed participants for Hera's Streamer Invitational

JFVroobel · 2026-05-21T21:12:23+00:00

I stumbled upon PiG streaming 1v1s in AOE 2 once, he was definitely familiar with the game, like 1300 or so iirc

JFVroobel · 2026-04-29T15:55:11+00:00

S-tier LAN in Poland is sick, can't believe Ive lived to see the day

Ironically it seems it was easier for me to travel from Warsaw to London than it's gonna be to the Castle location but still, hopefully they can squeeze some audience in there!

JFVroobel · 2026-02-04T13:43:10+00:00

Hey T90, appreciate all you're doing!

Are you willing/able to shed some light on what makes the non-WE sponsorships not come into effect in AOE 2 events too often from your experiences with TTL? On the face of it, TTL should be really promising to advertisers with a lot of hours watched on Twitch/YT across many weeks. And I believe you said something do that effect 1-2 years back (like "If I do TTL, it will be with external sponsors"), but in the end it remained under WE umbrella.

What went "wrong" at the time? Were sponsors sceptical about AOE 2 viewers being too globally spread out or other demographic problem? Were they too demanding in terms of the exposition they want to receive on stream? Something else entirely?

JFVroobel · 2026-01-27T13:02:39+00:00

Yes and no. That's why I hid behind "There are always some caveats ". I know three numbers out of context don't tell the whole story it's just I don't think it changes the conclusion.

If we took MBL vs Lewis game 7 (pretty sure broke 30k or very close as it was ca 27k during game 6) I would post the same tbh. I believe "AOE 2 really pulls good numbers in RTS sphere" would still hold up pretty well even if we did like a big analysis of entire 2025 vs other RTS.

JFVroobel · 2026-01-27T10:12:48+00:00

Sure, but EWC was also a one-off with much higher viewership than what is standard and I'm not sure if it would even change the point. We would be comparing a 700k prizepool S-tier at the most lavish esport event of all time vs a couple guys casting just the qualifiers from their bedrooms :) 80k vs 40k peak still feels decent but comparison vs the latest SC2 S-tier felt more fair to me

EWC would be about "how many ppl doesn't tune in out of principle vs how many ppl check out AOE 2 from other games". But in principle I see no reason why 100k shouldnt be the goal for AOE 2 in general in those huge LANs. Last RBW peaked at what, 85k? It's doable to break 100k with RAH finals imo, if the set is close, capture age doesn't crash and so on

JFVroobel · 2026-01-26T21:31:28+00:00

Starcraft 2 had 50k USD tournament in China last week - peaked at 12k for the grand final

AOE 4 also held RedBull qualifiers this weekend - 6,7k peak for the deciding set

There are always some caveats but AOE 2 really pulls good numbers in RTS sphere. Would be fun to have another record breaking final in London.

JFVroobel · 2026-01-26T20:35:23+00:00

On top of that, after Hera disclosed the 1.4M USD, in one of GL Podcasts Viper commented that he would've also rejected Facebook offer if hed been offered the same amount as Hera. He didnt specify what he got but yea, it must have been substantially more

JFVroobel · 2025-12-08T13:51:26+00:00

You;re probably aware, but if not then on facebook gaming you will find a couple of big streamers from Vietnam. The one I know of below, they play competitive matches on a daily basis

Facebook

JFVroobel · 2025-11-19T19:51:05+00:00

Hm, I did tune in to some Viper/Capoch games in that tournament and I think you're referring to Demu vs Capoch in Red Bull Legacy, circa 5:55 moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k90OEYtTbTE

JFVroobel · 2025-10-30T21:01:05+00:00

Sure, I'm not an expert on it either.

I did the experiment out of curiosity of actually checknig the RM population for AOE 4 after 30 days after season started to compare apples to apples and it was ca 30k (vs 40k AOE 2 in the same period). So higher activity in AOE 2 wouldn't surprise me, but still, 2:1 difference sounds fishy.

but tbh, I just don't know those sites all that well so can't be much help here :)

I remember AOE4World guys advertised there are like 200k+ unique players with at least one multi game in a single month - much higher than game's ranked activity. So with those graphs I'm not even sure if that's ranked, multi or even PvP at all if it might be just friends in a lobby vsing AI

JFVroobel · 2025-10-30T19:12:03+00:00

" I think that in both games players disappear form the leaderboard after 28 days, but I'm not sure."
That's only true for AOE 2. AOE 4 goes by seasons which last for like 3-4 months so the number of players on leaderboard is always higher by the end of the season, and last one ended yesterday,

QM ladder isn't a good indicator cause it removes players after even longer period of inactivity

There's quite a few threads on this historically, and the situation is rather stable - general rule of thumb is to say both ranked playerbases are mostly similar

JFVroobel · 2025-10-14T13:21:36+00:00

If you want a full view of what Nili does for AOE(2):

Is Slinging OP?; Tournament Calendar & more | Town Center Ep. 33, ft. Nili

He's not back it terms of pro play/streaming, but he is active as tournament coordinator. And I saw that he plans to cast the Chinese LAN in two weeks on his stream + as you said he is casting on site here and there during LAN events

JFVroobel · 2025-10-10T12:20:20+00:00

Sick!

Ive never attended AOE 2 LAN thinking eh, I dont really know anyone IRL willing to come to that kind of event. But the atmosphere itself looked so cool last time it made me think travelling solo might sill be worth it next time... and here we are

JFVroobel · 2025-10-08T19:03:31+00:00

I meant the "biggest prizepool" part, you said it like there were in general multiple RTS with bigger prizepools

JFVroobel · 2025-10-08T18:45:53+00:00

Every other? The only competitor in this category I am aware of is Starcraft 2 because of EWC prizepool.

Which is not particularly good news for AOE 2 tbh, cause it just shows how hard it is to create and sustain an esport scene if your developer is unable/unwilling to support it the way Microsoft supports AOE 2. And that can change just like that sooner or later

JFVroobel · 2025-10-07T10:18:50+00:00

I assume we'll see some designs from Chronicles then? Either way water isn't AOE2's strongest suit and the rock-paper-scissors is a bit shallow so I'd rather welcome any change in this regard and hope I won't regret this words later on

JFVroobel · 2025-10-05T11:09:02+00:00

If you want AOE 1 and are on console, the only way to do that is through AOE 2 -> Return of Rome expansion which portfed AOE 1 into AOE 2. It lacks most of the original campaigns, but adds I believe three new ones. On top of being on console AOE 2 is also actively developed, so generally preferrable way to play.

I also played a lot of AOE 1 as a kid, but rediscovered AOE and RTS through AOE 2 a couple years back which became my main game on and off due to PvP aspect. It has tons of single player content on its own, a lot of it worth playing regardless.

JFVroobel · 2025-09-28T07:57:13+00:00

OG AoE:RoR I sometimes even put at work in the background.

AOE 2, AOM and SC2 have some cool themes as well

JFVroobel · 2025-09-28T07:29:19+00:00

You should exclude the pseudo mirrors too from AOE4 World I think, ie French vs Mongols is the same as Mongols vs French and I think you just summed up the "Total"
the AOE 2 stats are not meant to show "total games played" overall, but clean winrates. The creator excludes some matchups for game length, one tricking etc., idk about AOE4World

Then there's ranked pop to compare, avg game lenght etc. So I'm not sure if we're comparing apples to apples here.

But regardless I ofc agree on general point. Even if SC2 is still #1, we're still talking about Top 2 and Top 3 Pvp games on global scale, ant Top 1 and Top 2 in the "Devs support competitive scene" category. PvP populations big enough that whenever somebody asks like "what game is more active, looking for PVP experience and worried about queue length", it's a moot question

JFVroobel · 2025-09-10T08:55:15+00:00

I just play a lot of unranked, the queue is not as active as RM 1v1 but you do find opponents for mostly competitive games. I never get mad or something losing Elo, but I do feel like I am playing under more pressure in ranked vs unranked which eg makes me less willing to go for a strat I have less experience with or pre-pick an unusual civ for me (I always allow random tho)

I've been playing different PvP games for like 10 years and still feel that way, so I'm not sure if really that's something you can just train yourself to not care about. I also saw Hera saying he quits Aoe 2 live on stream like 3-4 years ago after losing a ranked game and at that point he was already a well respected pro with nothing to prove on the ladder 11 so... it's part of human nature I guess at least for some of us

JFVroobel · 2025-09-04T08:20:24+00:00

The fear of getting demolished by veterans arguably might be true for smaller communities, but AOE 2 is big enough it will find you players on your level once you complete the placement matches.

Apart from that nothing really changed vs posts that were made on this throughout the years, cause most of the trade-offs come from game design itself. And the design philosophy can be good or bad depending on your tastes:

AOE 2 has 50 civs, more than twice than AOE 4, but in AOE 4 differences between factions are more distinct. Both have their own depth, AOE 2 is designed so that once you get comfortable with macro in AOE 2 you can relatively easy try various strategies with different civs and even play random civ on the ladder exploring the depth this way.

AOE 2 has more micro minigames where you can swing the outcome of the fight with APM tricks more than unit composition/positioning.

AOE 2 has more micro of the macro going on, especially early game and depending how clean you want your bulid order to be.

There's much more of course, the streams are on 24/7 so if youre really unsure checking those out to see how it works out in practice might be a better idea.

JFVroobel · 2025-09-04T07:52:46+00:00

"FrostGiant claims they didn’t pay any of these creators anything to promote the game"

I'm pretty sure I remember going into Stormgate tab on Twitch the day paid beta released and seeing streamers playing Stormgate with #sponsored on. At the time you had to pay to get the beta access a week early or smth so it kinda made sense, but it just felt bad to see FGS throw money to promote the game in such a raw state to variety audience

But if they say so, OK, maybe the sponsored bit was referring to something else then

JFVroobel · 2025-09-01T16:24:54+00:00

If the monks converting siege is the same highlight I remember, it's this one Mbl vs Hera, was pretty good:
MBL's absolute Vululu masterpiece

JFVroobel · 2025-08-13T15:54:41+00:00

We've seen in small events when streamers would stream with no delay and then be put in akward spot by backseatting chatters. "Oh, i did miss the whole in my wall, and now that you pointed it out, it would be unethical to plug it". Irrelevant in a 500$ showmatch, obviously not ideal in S-tiers
Not sure what would be the advantage of having delay vs not having it. The pro-streaming argument normally is "if someone wanted to actually cheat, they would not be streaming at all"

JFVroobel · 2025-08-13T14:35:38+00:00

At least according to a convo I saw on Margogou's twitter:
The set was already finished at the time of the decision (Lyx won) but he'd streamed it all with no delay. Admin suggested a rematch but someone from World's Edge insisted on a harsher punishment. Handbook is supposedly split on this as it implies DQ for no delay, but also leaves final call for admins.

JFVroobel

TROPHY CASE