You should post this on aoczone[0] - probably the largest aoe2 enthusiast forum. Voobly[1] is the primary aoc client at the moment with fan made compatibility patches, such as userpatch[2]. They are also hosting a $120,000 tournament in a weeks time with some of the strongest teams around. I'm sure some of the developers from voobly/userpatch could have a look at it.
As someone mentioned 0ad[3] is an aoe2 inspired game, unfortunately I think their kickstarter failed but they did add multiplayer support which looks promising.[0] http://aoczone.net
[1] http://voobly.com
[2] http://userpatch.aiscripters.net
[3] http://play0ad.com
edit: I jumped the gun before RTFM, sorry about that, might want to check out http://aoccs.net too for aoehd.
aroman|11 years ago
Is this still true, given that Microsoft has officially re-released AoE on Steam? I assume most people would have migrated there now...
fakeyfake|11 years ago
You can check the player history for steam here[0], it's almost at an all time low, although this number includes people logged in playing single player too, while voobly's numbers (just over 1500 at the time of writing) include people spectating matches and waiting in lobbies or idling.
Unfortunately there were performance problems on the release of aoehd, pretty much up until 1-2 months ago, leaving the community fragmented. Typically steam is where you'll find casual gamers and voobly is where slightly more experienced players go (although they do have a new player lobby with casual gamers too). During steam sales however the hd edition does get an influx of new players every time (you can usually pick it up for $5).
Since I'm talking about platforms it wouldn't be fair not to mention game ranger[1]. I don't know a lot about it but the rumours are they largely play standard (non-userpatch) aoc or the forgotten empires[2]. I have got no idea about the userbase size though.
[0] http://steamcharts.com/app/221380#1y
[1] http://www.gameranger.com/games/
[2] http://forgottenempires.net