Age of Mythology: Retold

[Lacrymas]

It's just a beta.

 

[pickmeister]

What a disgrace this is. The AI art especially considering the original hired an actual artist, unlike that obese my little pony abomination they call the art director now.

 

[REhorror]

I'm fine with AI but this looks a bit too jeet AI for me.

 

[Lacrymas]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeofMythology/comments/1e25vrn/all_pantehon_changes_in_retold

Some really dramatic changes in there.

 

[PlayerEmers]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeofMythology/comments/1e25vrn/all_pantehon_changes_in_retold

Some really dramatic changes in there.

some much needed changes but after watching high mmr player matches, theres a few new issues

egyptians in particular seems even more cancerous do deal with then before

 

[REhorror]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IclUxTF6lYI
Yes, I watch this to shit on it.

 

[Elttharion]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IclUxTF6lYI
Yes, I watch this to shit on it.

This is absolutely horrendous, wtf. The character portraits are also terrible.

 

[REhorror]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IclUxTF6lYI
Yes, I watch this to shit on it.

This is absolutely horrendous, wtf. The character portraits are also terrible.

I smell jeet, jeets as far as the eyes can see.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I smell jeet, jeets as far as the eyes can see.

They have a reputation but in this case the smell precedes that.

 

[PlayerEmers]

the soundtrack feels like a downgrade but i guess it could be way worse...
it sounds muffled and artificial... idk

 

[Vic]

I bet the soundtrack is AI generated too.

 

[Kabas]

Still can't get over the fact that they turned Gaia into Groot.

 

[PlayerEmers]

ok i hate the new OST




they massacrated my favorite one

they clearly use samples from the originals songs but everything else that is new conflicts with the old

 

[pickmeister]

the soundtrack feels like a downgrade but i guess it could be way worse...
it sounds muffled and artificial... idk

That's how you add a sense of depth without having an access to the source files after you axed your best fucking studio. You slap filters on it, fiddle around with EQ curve, add some more noises that copy the original wavelength, sprinkle on top room and other echo modulations, then export it in a higher bitrate than the original, and you're done.

Should be categorized as a hate crime but oh well..

Normies are gonna love it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Fucking AI art? Just use upscaled versions of the original art FFS

I would've bought this day one, but AI art makes me nope out of it. What a load of trash.

 

[Vic]

I still don't understand the need for this. The original game runs fine on my PC. Resolution is fine too. It already had LCD display resolutions so it's not small like games designed for CRTs.

 

[Lacrymas]

I still don't understand the need for this.

There were some awful, awful design decisions that prevented the game from reaching its potential the first time around, so out of any "Age of" titles this is the one which needed the remaster the most.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I still don't understand the need for this.

There were some awful, awful design decisions that prevented the game from reaching its potential the first time around, so out of any "Age of" titles this is the one which needed the remaster the most.

Which design decisions?

 

[Reality]

Self trading with own marketplaces for infinite gold any map, super tanky villagers for all factions.

Also personal preference but the map generator templates have less slightly even gold access than AoE2, production time discount technologies go way too far in certain cases (Egypt Thoth and Norse Hel). I also find anti cavalry bonuses to be somewhat vindictive - sure they are almost boring in AoE 2 lategame but having it as a generic tower/castle upgrade for all assumeyirc factions is a bit much.

flying myth units having buggy multihits for higher damage than intended. China expansion general laziness - half OP and half AoE 2 brought into AoM with no thought.

 

[Lacrymas]

^ Yes. Balance was a huge problem in many areas, even random map generation.

I'll also add autoqueue and auto-use of myth unit abilities to the pile. They lowered the macro and micro skill ceiling too much in a bad way.

 

[Lacrymas]

Unfortunately, auto-queue is still in.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

 

[thesheeep]

Fucking AI art? Just use upscaled versions of the original art FFS

I would've bought this day one, but AI art makes me nope out of it. What a load of trash.

AI upscaling is superior to doing it manually, and radically faster to do (there's no artistic vision in upscaling anyway), at best requiring some finalizing touches.

They also claim that all the portraits are hand-painted, not AI.
I doubt they are lying about that (would be the dumbest thing to do), so that only leaves one conclusion:
I wouldn't want to be the artist responsible for something so uninspired-looking that people's first reaction is "this is AI art"

I still don't understand the need for this. The original game runs fine on my PC. Resolution is fine too. It already had LCD display resolutions so it's not small like games designed for CRTs.

What's the need of any remaster/remake (this seems to fall kinda in-between those)?
I don't mind an updated version with improved graphics & UI, controls, features, etc.

Too bad about the completely messed up voice acting and the AI-looking portraits, though...
As I'd only get it for the campaign, anyway, that puts it into "wait for deep sale" category, most likely.

 

[JarlFrank]

AI upscaling is superior to doing it manually, and radically faster to do (there's no artistic vision in upscaling anyway), at best requiring some finalizing touches.

They also claim that all the portraits are hand-painted, not AI.
I doubt they are lying about that (would be the dumbest thing to do), so that only leaves one conclusion:
I wouldn't want to be the artist responsible for something so uninspired-looking that people's first reaction is "this is AI art"

They are lying about it, the art is very obviously AI to anyone with a trained eye. It's not just the uncanny style that almost looks like real art but not quite, there are also little mistakes that prove it.



https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeofMythology/comments/1e3mhzg/they_are_lying_about_using_ai/

Why aren’t people more concerned about this? Regardless of your stance on AI art, the fact stands that a video game published by Xbox Game Studios is using AI generated content and their developers are lying about its usage.

On Bast art only:

• The sistrum, the instrument she holds in her left hand, has the lower sliding metal crossbar going out of the instrument, instead of inside its hole.
• Her left hand fingers are all completely out of whack, with color mismatch and spacing between finger that are very telling of an edited ai result, since it is what AI struggle the most with.
• The thumb in her right hand is merging with her ring finger. The whole right hand is also very blurry. Again, classic.
• There are whiskers growing out of her ears.
• Each of her eyes have different pupil dilatation
• Her left ear piercing is much more detailed than her right one, with the latter going the opposite way in her ear
• Her crown is completely asymmetrical and the perspective is all wrong
• Her entire head has a very distinct white border around it regardless of the scene light, which, alongside a very distinctive ‘smoothness’ to the lighting reflection on her whole body, is very telling of AI generated art.
• The symbols on her belt are nonsensical. Ai can’t do hieroglyphs.
• The red jewel on her waist hangs either from metal chains on her right or from literal spaghetti on the front, clearly telling of ai edited result again. The jewels aren’t even held by anything, they are somehow glued to either the chains or spaghet.
• The chain around her waist doesn’t even go around her, but instead loop on itself on her left side and is somehow flying.
• The very detailed cat head is again very consistent with AI results.
• She has three breasts: her right one, the little middle one that is visible in her cleavage, and the left one fully contained in her dress that is somehow also going out or her corset judging by the shading even tho the right one isn’t. Again, this IS the classic AI result.
• Some of the little gold star thingy on her collar aren’t even aligned with the red part they are supposed to be fixed upon.

Those are what my untrained and very tired eyes could figure out, but I am sure that there are artists out there who would find much more and would rip their hair out knowing that the devs are actually trying to have us believe this isn’t AI.

Without a doubt they are all AI generated. And I fully agree with you, AI generated "art" has no place in a finished product. World's Edge is lying to us (no real shocker, given how they do the same with all the other games). After seeing the Osiris and Apollo posts earlier, I went through and took a closer look like you did at the portraits, and to my untrained, colorblind eyes, some immediately jumped out.

• Osiris shows 6 knuckles on his right hand. Dead giveaway
• Bast is just atrocious, and you've detailed more than I could ever spot
• Zeus. I know people are arguing those are not abs, but instead obliques or whatnot, but come on. No one looks like that, not even the most jacked body builders. No artist would draw Zeus like that
• Apollo doesn't have the arrow notched in the bow, but instead it is phasing through a finger, in addition to the fact the arrow is not resting where the bow is pulled back, Apollo's sternum messed up, and the arrow is on the wrong side of the bow.
• Hephaestus only has 4 fingers on his left hand and they blur together in the anvil (very clear in the pic that he only has four since the glove he is wearing makes them very square
• Hades with 4 fingers on his left hand, although it's harder to tell with the angle. And the hand anatomy is all wrong
• Horus is the exact same as Hades. 4 fingers on his left hand, although it's harder to tell with the angle. And the hand anatomy is all wrong
• Ra. Ok, I started looking at Ra and it got worse the longer I looked.
  • None of the lines on his headdress are straight. They've wavy, and not subtly so
  • The pattern on his loincloth(?) is inconsistent, with wavering widths and lengths of the chevrons
  • His fingers on the left hand don't match the right. His left fingers curl around the staff, but if they were like the right hand, the talons would be way too long to wrap around the staff but would instead dig into his palm
  • Realism focused falcon head that is completely expressionless

This is an atrocity. They could have paid real, talented artists to create new art or paid the original artist for his works that Ensemble copied for AOM in 2002. But instead, they made Forgotten Empires use a crappy AI to generate "artwork" to save a couple bucks assuming no one would notice, and if they did, that no one would care.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeofMytho.../usually_ive_been_quick_to_shoot_down_the_ai/

 

[Lacrymas]

They should've just upscaled the old art. What I care most about is gameplay, though, and we'll see how they handle that.