Throughout history, colorful articles of clothing were symbolic of power, wealth and social standing. Red is often associated with the Romans while green was a very important color to the Egyptians. It seems only fitting as we prepare for the official launch of the Age of Empires II HD – The Forgotten expansion pack, you have a chance of winning a piece of history with a collection of brilliantly colored bandanas representing the five different civilizations found in the expansion.

The Sweepstakes starts at 9 am PST on November 7th, and ends at 1 pm PST November 11th (“Entry Period”). Only entries received within the Entry Period will be eligible to win. During the Entry Period of the sweepstakes you must post the name of your favorite of the 5 civilizations featured in Age of Empires – The Forgotten to one of the listed social feeds to enter. The 5 featured civilizations are Inca, Indian, Italian, Magyar, or Slavs.

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

On or around seven days following the end of the Entry Period, we will randomly select ten winners from among all eligible entries received for each channel (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+) and award them a complete set of 5 Age of Empires 2 HD – The Forgotten bandanas.

<center><img src = "http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/5b/6c/5b6cccab-c16a-4028-85af-4327417dcc86.gif?n=photo.gif"></center>

For the complete set of official rules for the Age of Empires 2 HD – The Forgotten Launch sweepstakes, please visit the following <a href="http://forums.ageofempiresonline.com/forums/thread/376337.aspx">website</a>.

The day is nearly upon us. The looming battle draws near.

Prepare arms.

Throughout history, colorful articles of clothing were symbolic of power, wealth and social standing. Red is often associated with the Romans while green was a very important color to the Egyptians. It seems only fitting as we prepare for the official launch of the Age of Empires II HD – The Forgotten expansion pack, you have a chance of winning a piece of history with a collection of brilliantly colored bandanas representing the five different civilizations found in the expansion.

The Sweepstakes starts at 9 am PST on November 7th, and ends at 1 pm PST November 11th (“Entry Period”). Only entries received within the Entry Period will be eligible to win. During the Entry Period of the sweepstakes you must post the name of your favorite of the 5 civilizations featured in Age of Empires – The Forgotten to one of the listed social feeds to enter. The 5 featured civilizations are Inca, Indian, Italian, Magyar, or Slavs.

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

On or around seven days following the end of the Entry Period, we will randomly select ten winners from among all eligible entries received for each channel (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+) and award them a complete set of 5 Age of Empires 2 HD – The Forgotten bandanas.

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For the complete set of official rules for the Age of Empires 2 HD – The Forgotten Launch sweepstakes, please visit the following website.

The day is nearly upon us. The looming battle draws near.

Prepare arms.

The latest developer diary contains interesting information regarding player profiles and how they will be handled in Age of Empires II HD and The Forgotten expansion pack. Ryz0n also mentions a neat trick with the game’s soundtrack files you may find worth listening to.

Check it out <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/0/684839199715888828/">here</a>.

Be sure to stop back by tomorrow to hear how you can win cool swag we’ll be giving away to promote the upcoming release of The Forgotten.

The villagers are getting restless. Only a few days to go.

The latest developer diary contains interesting information regarding player profiles and how they will be handled in Age of Empires II HD and The Forgotten expansion pack. Ryz0n also mentions a neat trick with the game’s soundtrack files you may find worth listening to.

Check it out here.

Be sure to stop back by tomorrow to hear how you can win cool swag we’ll be giving away to promote the upcoming release of The Forgotten.

The villagers are getting restless. Only a few days to go.

The weekend is nearly here and this time next week hopefully you all will be playing The Forgotten. Until then we thought we’d share a rather insightful and lively developer biography featuring Cysion, who provides an excellent summary of how this project originated and evolved into an official expansion pack for Age of Empires II HD.

<center><img src = "http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/04/d4/04d41680-a89d-46d4-87f6-4fcc528171b8.jpg?n=Cysion.jpg"></center>

The post was so long it had to be posted in the forums – but you don’t want to miss it as it offers never seen before commentary directly from the development team and also provided us the opportunity to share one of the new Age of Empires Steam trading cards to celebrate the new Capture the Relic game mode.

<center><img src = "http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/bd/68/bd681384-9431-4951-8062-2cf772763d09.png?n=capturetherelic.png"></center>
Check out Cysion’s full developer biography post <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/1/684839199366149892">here</a>.

The weekend is nearly here and this time next week hopefully you all will be playing The Forgotten. Until then we thought we’d share a rather insightful and lively developer biography featuring Cysion, who provides an excellent summary of how this project originated and evolved into an official expansion pack for Age of Empires II HD.

<center></center>

The post was so long it had to be posted in the forums – but you don’t want to miss it as it offers never seen before commentary directly from the development team and also provided us the opportunity to share one of the new Age of Empires Steam trading cards to celebrate the new Capture the Relic game mode.

<center></center>
Check out Cysion’s full developer biography post here.

With a fairly active mod community we periodically field questions about creating custom content. And while it might be premature to start talking about modifying content that hasn’t been released yet, this developer diary discusses the naming convention scheme used by The Forgotten.

<b>AoF: Game Saves & Scenarios</b>

Age of Empires as a franchise has seen a number of expansions or content updates. In fact every PC title has seen at least one major addition over its lifetime. Fundamentally when there’s a new expansion, there are changes to how a game file is saved or a scenario created. Some of these may be content changes to account for new units or civilizations. In other cases, it could be something small like having a value field change between 8 bit and 32 bit to accommodate negative values or large numbers. The end result is a difference in file versions that inhibit off the shelf compatibility. In other words, AoF saves, replays, and scenarios won’t be backwards compatible or loaded using just AOE II HD.

Those familiar with the franchise may recognize that with a title such as AOE III, expansion content usually would take on a letter at the end (X for The War Chiefs, and Y for Asian Dynasties). Likewise, AOE II HD inherited scX and gaX from AoC since we included the expansion in release. But The Forgotten is an expansion to AOE II HD, not directly to AoK and AoC. So, we’ve switched up the naming scheme slightly, and will be labeling AoF files with a 2 appended. For example, creating a scenario in the scenario editor when you’re in AoF will result in a file named scenario.scx2, and a campaign’s extension is cpx2. AIs are also .ai2 and .per2.

So specifically how does does interoperability work? Items created in AoF will of course require AoF to play. After all someone running AOE II HD without the expansion wouldn’t have the new content referenced by the new data files. What about the other way? Single player and multiplayer saves you’ll want to load in the version you saved them in. Likewise, replay files should be loaded in whichever version the file extension denotes. Campaigns, scenarios, and AI files can be forward-loaded. So, for example, if you find a sweet scenario you like, but want to play it in the expansion, you shouldn’t have any issue loading it in. Switching between the base game and expansion is a single click of a button from the main menu, so even if you forget everything above it will be easy to get playing.

-Ryan
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Given The Forgotten originated as a fan-made mod, it will be exciting to see how the community will use this expansion pack to create new content, especially since it will offer new units and larger maps.

With a fairly active mod community we periodically field questions about creating custom content. And while it might be premature to start talking about modifying content that hasn’t been released yet, this developer diary discusses the naming convention scheme used by The Forgotten.

AoF: Game Saves & Scenarios

Age of Empires as a franchise has seen a number of expansions or content updates. In fact every PC title has seen at least one major addition over its lifetime. Fundamentally when there’s a new expansion, there are changes to how a game file is saved or a scenario created. Some of these may be content changes to account for new units or civilizations. In other cases, it could be something small like having a value field change between 8 bit and 32 bit to accommodate negative values or large numbers. The end result is a difference in file versions that inhibit off the shelf compatibility. In other words, AoF saves, replays, and scenarios won’t be backwards compatible or loaded using just AOE II HD.

Those familiar with the franchise may recognize that with a title such as AOE III, expansion content usually would take on a letter at the end (X for The War Chiefs, and Y for Asian Dynasties). Likewise, AOE II HD inherited scX and gaX from AoC since we included the expansion in release. But The Forgotten is an expansion to AOE II HD, not directly to AoK and AoC. So, we’ve switched up the naming scheme slightly, and will be labeling AoF files with a 2 appended. For example, creating a scenario in the scenario editor when you’re in AoF will result in a file named scenario.scx2, and a campaign’s extension is cpx2. AIs are also .ai2 and .per2.

So specifically how does does interoperability work? Items created in AoF will of course require AoF to play. After all someone running AOE II HD without the expansion wouldn’t have the new content referenced by the new data files. What about the other way? Single player and multiplayer saves you’ll want to load in the version you saved them in. Likewise, replay files should be loaded in whichever version the file extension denotes. Campaigns, scenarios, and AI files can be forward-loaded. So, for example, if you find a sweet scenario you like, but want to play it in the expansion, you shouldn’t have any issue loading it in. Switching between the base game and expansion is a single click of a button from the main menu, so even if you forget everything above it will be easy to get playing.

-Ryan
<HR WIDTH="80%">
Given The Forgotten originated as a fan-made mod, it will be exciting to see how the community will use this expansion pack to create new content, especially since it will offer new units and larger maps.

Following up on yesterday’s big announcement about the forthcoming Age of Empires Steam trading cards and pricing for The Forgotten expansion pack, it seemed fitting to take a different focus with today’s update by concentrating on one of the members of the team responsible for making this project a reality.

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Hello, though I rarely reveal my real identity, I think this is a good opportunity to do so. My name is Tomas Nedved and I come from Prague. In the Age of Empires 2 world, however, I am mostly known as The_Prophet or simply Tom.

<center> <img src = "http://compass.xbox.com/assets/64/ba/64ba6f14-ece0-4441-94df-68a89ed4a334.png?n=The_Prophet2.png" align = "middle"> </center>
I first became acquainted with this game shortly after it came out, but it wasn’t until late 2005 that I discovered its dedicated community and started engaging in efforts to take this classic to new heights. For several years I had been moderating and administering community websites (the late AoCGroup and later its successor AoCZone.net), leading and organizing prestigious tournaments (starting with UltraRandom and Arabia cup back in 2006 and continuing with the latest World Clan League, Tribal Wars and the currently ongoing Clash of the Titans), and since 2010 also scripting random maps with the intent to explore and push the game’s boundaries. It was primarily because of my scripting experience that Cysion (Bert Beeckman) had me join the Forgotten Expansion project.

Around that time I had just released a new map script called MegaRandom. Its goal was to create a different and unpredictable map every time but not detract from its playability, visual appeal, or fair distribution of resources. I took the unusual approach of pre-designing over a hundred and fifty different maps and putting them all in a pack that was able to randomize them and give them different attributes. Since then I have taken the concept of MegaRandom beyond its first version as I focused my scripting on the Forgotten Expansion.

Working with all the great people on this capable team has been a very enjoyable experience. There have been numerous challenges along the way, not just with the scripting and designing the game but also the game-balance and implementation of new features. The introduction of several items raised interesting discussions about the balance between making the game too easy to play and making it a challenge.

I sincerely hope everyone will enjoy this long-awaited expansion and that we’ll be able to continue working on this gem in the AoE franchise.

<b>*Editorial Note from MS Ryz0n*</b>

Many of you have seen some of Tom’s work in the past, or heard him discussing content on Dev streams. Back in late August, we were fortunate enough to have him travel from Prague out to Seattle for a short while to help both with AoF development and the civilization reveal at PAX Prime. At the show, players got a chance to check out the AoF civilizations on Capture the Relic and pick Tom’s brain on the details for all the new units.

Following the show, we headed up to Skybox in Vancouver to spend a few days really digging into the command lag issues after addressing the 2.6 patch issues and ELO quirks that presented themselves. It was a bit too warm for a game of ice hocky, but we also made sure to stop by a Tim Horton’s for Timbits to capture a little bit of Canada.

There is one critical discovery we made while in Canada, it turns out Tom’s spirit animal is in fact a Grizzly Bear, not a Toucan. After seeing several live ones, he was determined to hunt through Vancouver giftshops to bring a good sized replica back to Prague. Alas, stores only seemed to carry cartoonish stuffed animal versions and he left emptyhanded. But while your scout is running from Bears in AoF, keep in mind Tom could always have made them more cuddly if only he’d managed to bring a model grizzly back to Prague.

Following up on yesterday’s big announcement about the forthcoming Age of Empires Steam trading cards and pricing for The Forgotten expansion pack, it seemed fitting to take a different focus with today’s update by concentrating on one of the members of the team responsible for making this project a reality.

<HR WIDTH="80%">
Hello, though I rarely reveal my real identity, I think this is a good opportunity to do so. My name is Tomas Nedved and I come from Prague. In the Age of Empires 2 world, however, I am mostly known as The_Prophet or simply Tom.

<center> </center>
I first became acquainted with this game shortly after it came out, but it wasn’t until late 2005 that I discovered its dedicated community and started engaging in efforts to take this classic to new heights. For several years I had been moderating and administering community websites (the late AoCGroup and later its successor AoCZone.net), leading and organizing prestigious tournaments (starting with UltraRandom and Arabia cup back in 2006 and continuing with the latest World Clan League, Tribal Wars and the currently ongoing Clash of the Titans), and since 2010 also scripting random maps with the intent to explore and push the game’s boundaries. It was primarily because of my scripting experience that Cysion (Bert Beeckman) had me join the Forgotten Expansion project.

Around that time I had just released a new map script called MegaRandom. Its goal was to create a different and unpredictable map every time but not detract from its playability, visual appeal, or fair distribution of resources. I took the unusual approach of pre-designing over a hundred and fifty different maps and putting them all in a pack that was able to randomize them and give them different attributes. Since then I have taken the concept of MegaRandom beyond its first version as I focused my scripting on the Forgotten Expansion.

Working with all the great people on this capable team has been a very enjoyable experience. There have been numerous challenges along the way, not just with the scripting and designing the game but also the game-balance and implementation of new features. The introduction of several items raised interesting discussions about the balance between making the game too easy to play and making it a challenge.

I sincerely hope everyone will enjoy this long-awaited expansion and that we’ll be able to continue working on this gem in the AoE franchise.

*Editorial Note from MS Ryz0n*

Many of you have seen some of Tom’s work in the past, or heard him discussing content on Dev streams. Back in late August, we were fortunate enough to have him travel from Prague out to Seattle for a short while to help both with AoF development and the civilization reveal at PAX Prime. At the show, players got a chance to check out the AoF civilizations on Capture the Relic and pick Tom’s brain on the details for all the new units.

Following the show, we headed up to Skybox in Vancouver to spend a few days really digging into the command lag issues after addressing the 2.6 patch issues and ELO quirks that presented themselves. It was a bit too warm for a game of ice hocky, but we also made sure to stop by a Tim Horton’s for Timbits to capture a little bit of Canada.

There is one critical discovery we made while in Canada, it turns out Tom’s spirit animal is in fact a Grizzly Bear, not a Toucan. After seeing several live ones, he was determined to hunt through Vancouver giftshops to bring a good sized replica back to Prague. Alas, stores only seemed to carry cartoonish stuffed animal versions and he left emptyhanded. But while your scout is running from Bears in AoF, keep in mind Tom could always have made them more cuddly if only he’d managed to bring a model grizzly back to Prague.