WHAT.

[legionaire45]

WHAT. WHAT WHAT WHAT. WHAT THE FUCKING WHAT THE FUCK. (http://www.techpowerup.com/71025/Microsoft_to_Close_Ensemble_Studios_Following_the_ Completion_of_Halo_Wars.html)

This makes me very very sad ='<.

[ultama121]

I know they sucl very much.

Sucl, sucl, sucl, sucl... sucl.

[dg]

Bound to happen.

It's sad though. I <3 Age of Empires.

[Zeph]

tell about it in here. There's soo many scripts on that page and you have to run ones from off site to look at the site's content.

[legionaire45]

Microsoft to Close Ensemble Studios Following the Completion of Halo Wars
In an article published by Shacknews, Microsoft has released an official statement which details their decision to close Ensemble Studios, a developer within Microsoft Game Studios, upon completion of the upcoming title Halo Wars, a real-time strategy game based on the Halo franchise.

The full statement can be read below:Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.

The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars. This decision does not reflect at all on Ensembles talent or the quality of Halo Wars. in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game.

This was a fiscally-rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.

As to our overall strategy at MGS, it remains the same. We are committed to growing MGS with world-class talent both internally and with our external partners around the globe. We have recently added some well-known developers to our team and will continue growing the team. Were particularly excited about the titles we have in the pipeline and continue to evaluate additional opportunities to bring incredible games to life with the industrys best. Our investment in games has never been greater than it is today.
:(

[ExAm]

Meh. I haven't had enough experience with them to care.

[Bodzilla]

AOE was alright. nothign flash.

i actualy have no idea why it sold so well and was so popular considering it was a defensive based stategy game.
My wall is Superior to your wall! now what ya gunna do bitch, just wait, now i'm gunna stave you out of resources while you futily try to attack my impenetrable wall, then after 3 hours of wall Vs army action i'll come in when you have no money and no army because you wasted them tryign to get through my impentrable wall of Anti-penetration.

god i didnt like that at all.

[Hotrod]

I actually loved AOE and AOM, both great series. I don't understand why they're closing down, since they've had a lot of success, and Halo Wars is bound to give them much more.

Very strange move in my opinion.

[Sel]

:(

[Zeph]

I never knew they were first party.

[Botolf]

AOE was alright. nothign flash.

i actualy have no idea why it sold so well and was so popular considering it was a defensive based stategy game.
My wall is Superior to your wall! now what ya gunna do bitch, just wait, now i'm gunna stave you out of resources while you futily try to attack my impenetrable wall, then after 3 hours of wall Vs army action i'll come in when you have no money and no army because you wasted them tryign to get through my impentrable wall of Anti-penetration.

god i didnt like that at all.
The games were popular because they were fun. :awesome:

And you'd have to be playing against some serious nincompoops in order to construct an "impenetrable wall fortress" without incident.

[Phopojijo]

They're not firing them it seems (albeit "no layoffs" typically means "we changed the locks on the office doors"... but it doesn't seem like they'll fire people.)

They're just reorganizing it seems... probably they found that they didn't need all the 1st party developers working for them... streamline it a bit. Probably more people on fewer, higher quality games.

[343guiltymc]

They aren't going to fire anyone yet until halo wars is finished. The sad thing about this is that the few number of developers who make games for the PC (I'm not talking about crappy console ports) has shrunk by 1, hope Relic doesn't go down too.

[DrunkenSamus]

I only liked Age of Empires III...the first two were revolutionary at first but I got used to III so much that I couldn't go back to the first two

[n00b1n8R]

I never knew they were first party.
^

Also fail. :(

[Apoc4lypse]

AOE was alright. nothign flash.

i actualy have no idea why it sold so well and was so popular considering it was a defensive based stategy game.
My wall is Superior to your wall! now what ya gunna do bitch, just wait, now i'm gunna stave you out of resources while you futily try to attack my impenetrable wall, then after 3 hours of wall Vs army action i'll come in when you have no money and no army because you wasted them tryign to get through my impentrable wall of Anti-penetration.

god i didnt like that at all.

sounds like u neglected trying to use trebuchets...

the antiwall/building machines.

[Lateksi]

Have you guys seen this? http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20153

http://www.gamereactor.net/media/halommocanned_164535.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3154/2882652568_ae383dbd7d.jpg?v=0

http://www.gamereactor.net/media/halommocanned_164537.jpg

After you have read that, check out this whole gallery. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30784486@N04/sets/72157607452469273/
I think it had potential, it looked very nice but most of it is just not Halo.

[thehoodedsmack]

Thank god they cancelled it. Halo + Magical bullshit does not equal a good MMO. If they ever release one, don't fill it up with WoW nonsense.

[teh lag]

Thank god this never came to fruition. Not Halo in the SLIGHTEST.

Though some of the brute shot/carbine concepts were nice...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3149/2881815803_d93f20c1ba.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2881816379_c9972cf246.jpg?v=0

E : Might wanna add some lines between the pics, it's stretching the thread.

[Lateksi]

Though some of the brute shot/carbine concepts were nice...

Man I totally agree. Imagine your own tuned up chromed Halo weapons! Some of those human/forerunner ones looked odd to me, though.

[thehoodedsmack]

After looking at the gallery, I quite like the artwork, but seriously, too much swords and sorcery to be Halo.

[Heathen]

Thank god this never came to fruition. Not Halo in the SLIGHTEST.

Though some of the brute shot/carbine concepts were nice...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3149/2881815803_d93f20c1ba.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2881816379_c9972cf246.jpg?v=0

E : Might wanna add some lines between the pics, it's stretching the thread.
I see some potential WIP's...

E:

Also, http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/2882611162_99e5e4fe5f.jpg?v=0

[TeeKup]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2882644904_65a4553118.jpg?v=0

Why in gods name would a race of near omnipotent beings use wheels?

[Corndogman]

Its called the Aardvark, which implies that its a human vehicle. But the design is forerunner. Ensemble got something mixed up along the way.

[Heathen]

its a mix of Covie/Forerunner, and Human. I think.

[Lateksi]

I guess humans/Covenant engineers were bored. It looks like a vehicle a human being would use since it has wheels, but do humans know that much about the Forerunner technology? One of the only things that they got to make was aperture energy shield for some Mjolnir armors. And they actually just copied Covenant, which copied Forerunner. So I just think that vehicle, Aardvark as they seem to call it, doesn't fit in the story if the MMO game's story takes place in 2550-2560.

[SnaFuBAR]

A lot of that stuff was pure crap. I did like a lot of the weapons, though, except for the "plasma rifles". They seem to have a running streak of blending technologies to the point where they don't fit halo at all.

[Corndogman]

Thats what I was just gonna say, Snaf. The plasma rifles, for the most part, just look like Brs with forerunner patterns and covie tech. Blegh.

[Pooky]

Thank god this never came to fruition. Not Halo in the SLIGHTEST.

Though some of the brute shot/carbine concepts were nice...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3149/2881815803_d93f20c1ba.jpg?v=0



E : Might wanna add some lines between the pics, it's stretching the thread.

I actually do kind of like the first one.

[Con]

I'm glad this has been canceled, it doesn't look like it was on the right track at all.