Yesterday, on the 15th of May, AoEH turned 25 years old. That's right, we've been around for that freaking long. It's absolutely amazing that AoEH is still up and running, even though we are nowhere near as active as in the heydays of Age of Empires and The Rise of Rome expansion anymore.

I still remember those early days, at least since late 1998, when I first visited this place. It was a time when the internet was still sort of in it's infancy, more simplified, and visiting AoEH was a place of pure magic (for me it certainly was, still is!). Lots of nice and helpful people with knowledge of strategies, scenario design, and every other aspect of the game, as well as creating amazing custom content for it. Add the Zone to that, and for a young kid this was an absolute wonder to witness, very captivating to say the least.

I spend quite some time playing versus other players on the Zone, loved RM on highland maps. Though I never have been a very good competitive online player, I enjoyed every moment of it. Those were the days, and I kind of miss them. That's not to say the years after were not any fun, on the contrary, especially after the Zone died down I stuck around AoEH and became very interested in scenario design, after becoming inspired by playing other people's creations and custom campaigns. This, to me, is one of the most important aspects of AoE: the creativity you can express is limitless. You can design your empire, shape your world, define it's traits and quirks pretty much exactly to your vision. Even though you are kind of bound to what the game can do, breaking those boundaries in creative and new ways was probably the one thing that kept me coming back for more, and with me, many other fans and designers.

When Scenario_t_c came around and "unlocked" the hidden units, and unit overlapping, things got even more interesting - a defining moment in the history of AoEH and AoE scenario design, you now had the power to do the uninmaginable, allowing for infinite new variety in your custom worlds. Even though the game was almost 10 years old now, it breathed in new life and possibilities. I myself started digging and experimenting and unlocking new options too, such as the lengthen combat mode. Then came the next thing, like unlocked new terrains to play with, and after that, hex-editing allowing even more new things never seen before.

Fast forward another 10 years or so, and around came even more possibilities with the arrival of RockNRoR, such as map copy which has backward compatibility. At some point even triggers, like those used in Age of Kings, became available. It also allowed a more immersive and adapted-to newer computers experience, making use of higher resolutions. Here's when we also get the Upatch, and from there, a few years later, we finally arrive at the Definitive Edition, which is kind of a complete overhaul of the game with an emphasis on new detailed graphics and up-to-date online capability. Even though I prefer the original game over the newer DE version for quite a few reasons, I still appreciate the fact that we even managed to get it at all, and for a while AoE was kind of revived. If it had received a similar amount of respect from MS as AoK DE has, that revival could perhaps have lasted even longer.

Now, 25 years later since Archangel Mike McCart launched AoEH back in 1997, we, incredibly enough, are still here. Though the community has been split between several places now, you can't deny that AoEH was and in a way is still the one place for Age of Empires and it's expansion pack, the Rise of Rome, and I guess to a slightly lesser extend, the Definitive Edition.

I want to thank all the fans and staff for this wonderful experience over the many years that have gone past. You made this community thrive, made it an excellent and fun place for learning and gathering information, interacting with others, and a huge inspiration for other people to get creative. Your dedication has allowed AoEH to survive up to this day.

So, even if you are not as interested in AoE anymore as you once were, come by and visit us once a while. Keep up the good work, and happy birthday AoEH!

Cheers,

PhatFish

[This message has been edited by PhatFish (edited 05-16-2022 @ 07:53 AM).]