Age of Empires Online Season Pass Available Now

28
Alan Pettit

Age of Empires Online is available now for direct download to your PC. The core of the game is free, and allows for 330 Gamerscore to be unlocked without spending a single earth dollar. However, the rest of the Gamerscore (and any upcoming DLC) is dependant upon purchasing some of the Premium Content. Thus, the Season Pass I, available now for a limited time. For $99.99 in the US or £74.99 in the UK you will receive every piece of content released for the game from today through the next six months, including all the premium civilizations, booster packs and the (relatively useless) "Empire "Extras" packs, which allow for the addition of extra decorations to your cities. Four of the "Empire Extras" are currently available via the game's official marketplace page for $4.99/£2.49 each... if you're that hard up for extra shrubbery.

Like I mentioned previously, the first 330 Gamerscore for AoEO can be earned for free from the core game - these achievements do not have any qualifiers in their descriptions save one. Purchasing any Premium Civilization (including waiting and getting one of the upcoming releases) will net you the ability to unlock another 150 Gamerscore for the PVP achievement (despite no qualifier in its description, it does require premium content) and three non-descript premium content quests. The remaining achievements will require the specific content below:

  • Premium Greek Civilization ($19.99/£14.99) - 260 Gamerscore - The greater your power, the greater your empire! Take your free-to-play Greek Civilization to the next level by unlocking Rare and Epic gear, Advisors, and Ranked PVP; increasing your Capital City warehouse storage; adding more Workshops; and receiving Coin when other players buy from your stores. For an unrivalled Age of Empires Online experience, get the Premium Greek Civilization Pack today!
  • Premium Egyptian Civilization ($19.99/£14.99) - 260 Gamerscore - Make all bow down to you, oh, great Pharaoh! Take your free-to-play Egyptian Civilization to the next level by unlocking Rare and Epic gear, Advisors, and Ranked PVP; increasing your Capital City warehouse storage; adding more Workshops; and receiving Coin when other players buy from your stores. For an unrivalled Age of Empires Online experience, get the Premium Egyptian Civilization Pack today!
  • Defense of Crete Booster Pack ($9.99/£4.99) - 150 DLC Gamerscore - Pack up your army and head to Crete! King Minos needs your help to defend his island from invaders—and he’s sure to enrich your coffers if you succeed. Beat back waves of relentless invaders as you protect the sacred Minoan Wonders from being destroyed. For even more fun, invite a friend to team up against the barbarian attackers. Earn new gear and awesome rewards for defending Crete!

So to recap: the full original 1000 can be earned for $40/£30, with the first 150 DLC for $10/£5. However, it is highly likely that the second set of DLC included in this season pass (available "this holiday" according to Microsoft) will also include achievements. There will be two more premium civilizations (the Celts and Persians) at $20/£15 each and a second booster pack (Skirmish Hall) for $10/£5. So for actual achievement-related content, that is still $100/£75, the same as the cost for the Season Pass. What this really boils down to is free shrubbery. If you're planning on buying all the useful premium content anyway, you may as well splurge now and get that shrubbery!

However, one offer, also available only for a limited time, is the Special Launch Offer which bundles both available premium civilizations and the first booster pack for only $39.99/£29.99, essentially netting you the booster pack free. Booster Pack > Shrubbery.

Comments
28
  • Im not sure if I want to get this or not. I love the games just there are to many games coming out this fall. :(
  • I think it'll be interesting to see how this strategy goes for them. This isn't really for me though so I can't properly say how much value is in the £75 bundle. First reaction is, 'Damn, that's a lot", but I think it's more that I'm not used to seeing that price for a standrad edition of a game at launch. Then thinking of it and take Fallout New Vegas for example, I paid £60/£70 for the collector's edition then I was happy to fork out for each of the DLCs on release and so that is more than this already and there's still a last DLC IIRC. (Even with the standard edition it's still quite high.)
  • At the the start of the article I was thinking 75 for a 1000 gamerscore. But 30 for a 1000 is pretty good, seeing as its usually 40/above. And 5 for the dlc is bang on as well. Definitely need this
  • So the whole '1000 gamerscore MUST be included in the initial package' stipulation does not apply to Windows games then? I can kinda understand why, given the business model, but this could possibly be the start of some alarming precedents being set in the future. I'm sure this will be good for fans of the series, mind. I'm just not one of them. And it certainly can't go any worse than their similar, ill-fated Fable 2 'episodic' plan, that's for sure.
  • I really enjoyed the other games in the series, but I might wait on this. I have a funny feeling there will be some sort of GOTY edition with most/all of it included in one package ...
  • The cover art looks.....
  • £74.99?
  • A hundred dollars? Are we crazy?
  • Just remember people. This game is free to play. You don't actually need to 'buy' the game in order to play it.
  • Enjoying it so far, pretty decent for free (unless you want full 1k) Should keep in mind that GFLW has a very small catalogue of games and while its not gonna happen soon the premium content and dlc will end up deal of the week. Plus retail pc games drop price very fast so you might get the greek retail content for less than downloading if you're prepared to wait
  • http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Empires-Online-PC-CD/dp/B005DPWGMC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313540050&sr=8-1 Greek retail content already cheaper than downloading
  • @mhkerr I've been enjoying it so far to... although I've got an epic 'ignore' list already. so so many trolls. Ta for posting this info btw. Inside the game you can't see prices until you hit buy and they're only in msp. Could be worth picking up one of the premium civ packs though for the pvp.
  • £75 for only 6 months of content, that's extortionate anyone remember the good old days when you could buy the game for £30 then a year or so later the expansion would come out for another £20 that felt realistic at least oh how I miss ensemble
  • I'm going to wait and see if they eventually put each piece on sale. This is a game I'm going to play over time, so it's not like I need everything right off. I'll have the retail version, so the Greek civ, and then hopefully sometime in Jan or Feb I'll buy the rest for half off.
  • I've been playing this all day... It's pretty good if you're into medium-core RTS. BTW "free-to-play" in this case means "really long but stifled demo" - If you like it after an hour or 2 buy one of 1600msp packs and dive in or you'll be stuck with a tiny inventory and miss out on good loot until you upgrade.
  • I've been playing this game for a year and since it went live today so many people have been complaining about having to pay but the devs need money and if you buy just one premium civilization it will last you a while and thats only $20 a normal retail games costs (here at least) $70 so it is a pretty good deal
  • @16 you've been playing for a year? Yeah sure....
  • @17 He has! I've been playing it since 1986. According to the developer, there's about 40 hours of gameplay in the free version. I don't know if the inventory is crippled in any way if you don't purchase any content. I'm going to try the game out today.
  • I'm downloading the free version now. I dunno if i'll upgrade passed that, but I always enjoyed AoE2 and AoM so I'm looking forward to giving this a go.
  • I have to say, i've been playing the beta for quite a while, and it's not...brilliant. If you're looking for it to be as good as 2 & 3, then you'll definitely be disappointed. I want another Mythology game!!!
  • In this case I will have to wait until all DLC comes out. You know eventually they ALWAYS come out with a complete collection DLC pack
  • random question the season 1 pass says $99 on the website for me but when i click purchase it changes to $124.95 any ideas why im in Australia and i know our $ is worth more then Americans ATM so i cant see where this extra $25 magically comes from any helps thanks
  • I quite enjoy it even if i have to go though both Greeks and Egyptians
  • @17 I've been beta testing this game for a year...
  • love these games, but the price is kinda pricey. Price is too steep for me so I'm going have to pass. it's a shame as I was looking forward to this game.
  • I'm not even interested in this game, but it sounds like a fucking pointless deal to give you a pass for the same price as actuall content bundled together...Shame on you people...
  • There's enough more than enough content in the free version to keep a player busy for a crazy amount of hours. Like someone above mentioned, this stuff will eventually be %40 - %50 off, and I have no problem waiting until then.
  • confused.com
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