I saw the announcement for AOE2 HD got people a bit interested, you can play AOE 2 in HD - widescreen right now if you own the original; all you need to do is download the unofficial expansion called Forgotten Empires.

http://www.forgottenempires.net/

It has its own installer\launcher which will check for updates and shiz, pretty professional. The main menu will look stretched, but once you set your resolution in-game it will look fine on widescreen monitors\TVs.

The main community for the game is at http://aoczone.net/ , you can download replays and participate in online stuff through Gameranger and Voobly. I could have posted this in the other thread, but it would just get buried and I figured some people would like to try the game again, maybe get some practice before April 10 release of the official HD game.

Oh and in case anyone asks, you don't need the CD for AOE2 for Forgotten Empires to work, though you can find AOE Complete collection in places like K-Mart \ Walmart \ JB-Hi Fi for very cheap, like 10 bucks.

Cool, thanks for the heads up.

Thank you. I love this game and didn't know about this.

Before I reinstall AOE2 and then this I want to make sure I read that correctly. Does it improve the look of the whole game?

No :p

It doesn't change any existing graphics (although it adds some new ones for the new civilizations). What it does is allow you to play on higher resolutions and widescreen resolutions, which basically makes the game look very pretty and sharp.

The expansion makes other changes to hotkeys and bugs etc.

Just remember, the main menu will look low res and stretched as always, the higher resolution only kicks in once you have selected one in the options menu and started a game.

If you'd rather not have the extra civilisations etc. use UserPatch: Conquerors Feature Update instead. This does widescreen and rainbow color fixes without the extra content.

There is one new and really good feature comes with the new HD version though; Steam Workshop. A lot of people may don't like it but it really makes modding easy for the average player.
But, I won't buy the new HD version unless it drops its price by 50%. It's too expensive right now (20USD/19EUR).

And I will stick to that. I bought AOE1 Gold + AOE2 Gold collection new sealed years ago for 5 bucks. Now I would have to pay 19 EUR for only AOE2 in HD?

I will pick up AOE2 hd on steam for 5 EUR tops, if they really are going to revive the multiplayer with steamworks.

But for now, I will stick with the original.

A game is only worth what you are willing to pay for I guess :p

Personally I don't feel it is too unreasonable, I'm guessing they had to pay a team to write a new engine, code the new effects, create the new art assets (few as they may be), and then pay for setting up Steamworks. This sort of game can potentially = hundreds of hours, in the case of the AOE community it seems to have lasted them 14 years.

I'll support it also because I would like to see something other than SC2 become popular, I'm not really sure what the RTS scene encompasses but I only really see SC2 mentioned on the sites\media I frequent.

Was there supposed to be any added missions? I noticed a little more sharpness but no actual expansion. As far as the visuals never played the game for graphics to begin with. To the credit of the AOE series, it was always so good that it could get by with less than stellar visuals because it was so well done and engrosing. Thanks for the link though, but to be honest I uninstalled a few minutes after giving a it a look.