Have I missed the point?

[:1]

Long time AoE player, complete noob to AoEonline.

Let me start by saying that I am completely open to the notion that I have total misunderstood this game, and welcome your counsel on where to find what I am looking for.

I came to AoE online expecting to be able to build a city, and have a perpetual online city of resource gatherers, traders, and military... building up resources to amass armies to go battle my fellow players, and save my friends.

What I appear to have found is a token 'capital city' which amounts to glorified pictoral depiction of menu options, from which i can launch into a list of solo/co-op 'quests' where I simply start from scratch each and every time. Totally instanced, and completely disparate from any other player interaction/interferance.

PvP is entirely consensual and would appear to be pretty awkward to get into, and doesn't appear to have any real form of match-making.

My hope is I have got it wrong, and one of you is going to say...."Oh you noob... what you need to do is this...". My fear is you're going to tell me "Yep... thats pretty much working as intended, so stfu or gtfo!"

I await enlightenment.

Many thanks in anticipation.

|||I think you pretty much nailed it.

Kinda like the capital cities in AOE III, where you can upgrade them and it helps you in your skirmish matches, but it can't be attacked by anyone and really only exists outside of matches. They've just added a WoW-type gear feature.|||

Thank you for taking time out to reply.

I was afriad you were going to say that. Not quite what I was hoping for from AoE Online. Was worth a try though.

Have a good weekend all.