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Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by skittlebrau on Saturday January 02, 2016 @10:07PM (#10829308)
Strangely I am responsible for the name of this cheat code. It's an accidental-turned-intentional misnomer for a place we used to eat a lot during Age2 development called Fred's Downtown Philly.
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by artursapek on Saturday January 02, 2016 @11:10PM (#10829454)
If you have written up any memories/folk lore from your days building this game, I would love to read it (and I'm sure many others here would too).
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by skittlebrau on Saturday January 02, 2016 @11:42PM (#10829531)
I have never written anything up personally, but I'm sure there is some stuff out there to be found.

Get any two former Ensemble employees together, possibly buy them a beer, and you will almost certainly get some stories that sound apocryphal but probably actually happened :)

Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by jsmthrowaway on Sunday January 03, 2016 @12:57AM (#10829703)
Ensemble was a truly great studio. I hear people rag on AoE3 but I personally don't think Ensemble ever missed. Once. Between you and Westwood, RTS was pretty great for a long time.

Whatever you did for them, thanks for some really fun entertainment across many years of my own life.

Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by bluesilver07 on Sunday January 03, 2016 @10:46AM (#10830953)
Thank you for some truly wonderful memories! Back in school, my goal was to join Ensemble Studios. I was really disappointed to hear that it shut down. I'm now in the games industry and I owe it mostly to Age of Empires!
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by artursapek on Sunday January 03, 2016 @03:23PM (#10832162)
Ensemble employees get free beer from me for life, if I ever get the chance to meet any of you. You guys defined a big part of my childhood, and even today as a young adult I think back to lessons I learned from that game. It made a big impact on me in many ways.
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by Houshalter on Sunday January 03, 2016 @12:02AM (#10829579)
You might be interested in the Age of Kings Postmortem: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131844/postmortem_ense...

It has a lot of behind the scenes details which I found interesting.

Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by artursapek on Sunday January 03, 2016 @05:39PM (#10832919)
Thanks, I enjoyed reading that
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by stryk on Sunday January 03, 2016 @08:26AM (#10830503)
I love to see/hear/read little behind-the-scene tidbits like this about the development of the great games of yore. It lifts the veil (or, the "fog of war" HAHA [sorry]) oh so slightly and lets you in on how the magic was made. Geez... I miss the 90's. I feel old now, but thank you for the skinny on that cheat code.
Re:Why Age of Empires 2 is still growing by NicoJuicy on Sunday January 03, 2016 @08:43AM (#10830549)
Rock on! This is a perfect example why i love hn! Thx 4 the comment :-p