I've noticed a lot of NPL players posting about things on the forum here and I wanted to give my 2 cents on the case. I've been playing AoE2 since it's release in 1999. I created one of the largest clans on [You must login to view link] and then when that shut down moved to igz and even voobly over 10 years ago. Now I'm back and happy to see things are still up and running as Age was one of my first games ever played.

I'd like to point out that I've always been a build order player as I'm Korean so it tends to be in me to always do build orders, but it took me a solid month before I could even get consistent games due to the "too new" "not enough games" and whatever else toxic behavior from community members. I will say that that is few and far between and I've met a ton of very cool players from all over the world.

I run tournaments and enjoy a competitive spirit, but I do have to say that for a game that has 500,000+ players world wide and with about 2K players on voobly 24/7 you should really consider changing the atmosphere here. I've seen this type of mentality in sports having run 1000+ tournaments for USOC, US Open/Nationals of those sports and I can say that it's terrible for any sort of community to grow with that type of welcome.

A lot of players say that Age is really difficult to play and players don't like those types of games, but I can honestly say that here on voobly I think it's more that the first impression is pretty terrible here. I know it's god awful on steam, but voobly is barely any better in terms of first time experiences. I think that you should consider being a little more open to allowing new players play in your lobby's and to just learn how to play because let's be honest most players have had someone take a chance and play with them so that they can get their first 50 games played.

I hope players will be more considerate.

As a Rm/Dm lobby player I can tell that majority of players who come from NPL are really really low skilled as compared to regular Rm/Dm lobby players. A 14xx of NPL is no match for a 15xx Rm/Dm lobby.

NPL players come straight into a 15xx room and think they can compete with the 15xx right away. By doing this they create huge unbalance in the game as the rookie does not have enough skills to defeat a 15xx. Along with this there are many factors that MS lobby does not welcome NPL players in their rooms. I am referring to 0 games here.

Some players who are 14xx and banned in NPL are so bad that we sometime think what the hell were they doing in NPL if they haven`t even learned the basics in NPL.