[oneplane]

I'm also totally fine with the graphics. It was never the graphics that did it, but a nice tech tree and good gameplay. So far, I can't really see anything in their comparison video that makes me want to play it.

AoE2 (non-HD) with Voobly actually works really well. What MS could do is just take a look at that, and make an update based on that. AoE2 HD works too, but unless you are running beta 5.5, it's less playable than AoE 2 non-HD.

I suppose most remake-teams aren't that interested in the people that are currently playing or targeting people that might want good gameplay and integration with mods and platforms of choice (i.e. good Wine support and maybe a macOS build?). This is also why AoE3 pretty much failed: it didn't help with the fancy graphics and while pathfinding and engine errors were better, the gameplay was pretty much half as good as the older editions...

I bought AoE and AoE2 boxed for PC and Mac, it was great back then, and still is. If they could just fix the engine, update unit selection and pathfinding, get good resolution/monitor support and revise their networking code, I'd pay for that. I don't want 3D models or 4D or 5D or UHD or VR, the 2D-ish sprites are fine.