Age of Empires 3 Coming for Mac Second Half of 2005?

[SteveC]

http://www.ensemblestudios.com/

and

http://www.ensemblestudios.com/MoreInfo.htm

"Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios are proud to announce the return of the king of real-time strategy games: Age of Empires III is scheduled to ship in the second half of 2005. This will be the latest landmark release in the award-winning franchise that has sold a staggering 16 million units worldwide."

Will AoE III be shipping for the Mac at the same time?

Will it be MADE for Macs like AoE and AoE II were?

The graphics look awesome. :)

[Toreador93]

I will probably NEED this game.

Because it's a Microsoft production, Mac-ers will most likely have to wait for it to be ported.

[pgc6000]

Age of Empires II was a MAJOR success. I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the mac soon after.

[Lacero]

I still play Age of Empires v1 on the Zone for the last 5 years. Too bad Macs aren't supported by the Zone. Otherwise, I still keep my own Win95 Pentium 100 for this game.

[pgc6000]

I got the first one a few years back. Ah, the memorys. Sadly, I lost the disk. I wasted even more time on the second one! Well I shouldn't say wasted. I don't think I've ever played a game more then AoE II. I picked up Age of Mythology about a year ago. I only recently stopped playing it every hour of my life and I still pop it in every once a while.

[Blackheart]

If they port it, I better be able to play with my PC friends unlike with AoE II

[ColoJohnBoy]

Those screenshots make me happy I opted for 128 MB VRAM on the new PowerBook. They seem almost too busy to be for actual gameplay. I'll lose simply because I'll be focusing on the pretty backgrounds instead of the action. :p

[JzzTrump22]

Sounds awsome. The first 2 were really good. I can;t wait to see what they come up for this one.

[JeDiBoYTJ]

im rooting for a release as soon as possible.

from looking at the history, they will probably release it for Mac once an Expansion Pack for AOE III has been released.

Just look at the previous 2 releases:
AOE II - Gold for Mac (AOE II Age of Kings, and The Conquerors Expansion)
Rise of Nations - Gold for Mac (RoN + Expansion)

eh, thats just my guess

[applekid]

Probably an accurate assumption.

I'm not expecting any Mac-PC network compatibility, if AoE III actually makes it to the Mac.

[JeDiBoYTJ]

Probably an accurate assumption.

I'm not expecting any Mac-PC network compatibility, if AoE III actually makes it to the Mac.


I wouldnt expect Mac-PC compatibility, unless they decide to not code the multiplayer aspect around "DirectPlay", which is why most Microsoft games that get ported to the mac, arnt PC->Mac multiplayer compatiable.

[A Mac Gamer]

Hate to break the excitement up ( I really want the game too), but its going to be using the havok physics engine, which = no mac port. :(

[SteveC]

Hate to break the excitement up ( I really want the game too), but its going to be using the havok physics engine, which = no mac port. :(
Why not? What is the havok physics engine? How about a Mac alternative engine? If that's a stupid question, it's ok because I'll be the first to admit my lack of gaming-tech knowledge. ;)

[pgc6000]

Hate to break the excitement up ( I really want the game too), but its going to be using the havok physics engine, which = no mac port. :(
Damnit! Are you kidding me? AoE III alone was a good enough reason to get a G5...

[stutz]

A Mac Gamer is exactly right. It's extremely unlikely that AOE III will make it to the Mac in spite of the franchise sales in the past. Combining use of Direct X and the Havoc engine kills this one for us. Too bad. If the Havoc engine got ported to the Mac just once, it could open the flood gates for quite a few great games to make it over to the Mac. It looks like Rise of Nations and Age of Mythology will be the latest and greatest for RTS for quite a long time to come.

[pgc6000]

Damn damn damn...

[benpatient]

this is what happens when Blizzard loses focus. WoW may be fun, but it shouldn't be their sole focus. It looks too much like WC3, which looks too much like 2001.

AOE was always playing catch-up to the Blizzard games (appropriate since AOE was a WC/SC rip-off to begin with), but now it looks like AOEIII is going to run away with the genre...at least graphics-wise.

Can't wait. Maybe this will encourage Blizzard to hurry up with StarCraft 2 already.

[pgc6000]

I don't think AoE ever had a problem with Blizzard games. AoE is one of the most famous strategy games ever.