League of Legends

[Belle Hibiki]

Yes, and they're all also awesome.

Awesome is not a limited resource - it is renewable.

[Ashe]

The people in charge of character creation have nothing to do with map development or other areas like server stability. They have different groups with different jobs, so no, them creating characters on a schedule that's been in place since release is not holding up map releases at all. Magma Chamber is waiting for the "shiny" textures update to be ready. I'm not sure what's delaying that update, but /shrug.

As far as characters go, there's a specific number they said a while back that they want to have released as a minimum, something like 100 or so, since other games have more champs (or something to that effect, I don't actually know how many champs are in other games).

[Belle Hibiki]

Er, I wasn't suggesting moving staff over. But since we're on the subject, they could have used the money that they used to hire the amount of staff they have on creating champs to hire other employees for other sections of the game, instead.

But anyway. I've never been a big fan of how fast the champs are cranked out. They've done a relatively decent job of keeping things kinda-sorta competitive in Normal, but it's quite a bit more lopsided in Ranked. Having a constantly growing, unwieldy, huge number of champs doesn't exactly help.

Me, I'd love to see LoL become a really competitive, balanced game, in the vein of e-sports like Starcraft.

[Vad]

Meer hates Le Blanc lulz

[Jonathan Meer]

Mordekaiser can solo mid as a melee.

That's how awesome he is.

And yes, I'd really really like it if they slowed down on champ production and focused on things like maps and such, but it *is* their main source of revenue.

Make maps purchaseable.

Problem solved.

[Jonathan Meer]

Me, I'd love to see LoL become a really competitive, balanced game, in the vein of e-sports like Starcraft.

Unfortunately, what you're espousing simply would not work in the context of LoL's business model.

That said, balance is clearly a major concern of the administrators of LoL, and while I've heard about hilarious/gross disparities in the past, they seem to be pretty damn knowledgeable and attentive about getting things fixed.

[Kaden]

Me, I'd love to see LoL become a really competitive, balanced game, in the vein of e-sports like Starcraft.

Personally, I think it's already there.

@Raf: Personally, I'd suggest Kennen. He's a ton of fun. Also, he shoots shurikens and lightening. Urgot and Jarvan are pretty big high-tier picks at the moment, so if that's how you role, you could get one of those guys. Olaf can be an absolute blast to play and jungle. My personal favorite on that list -- and possibly in the game -- is Nidalee. The problem with Nid is that it can be hard to actually be useful to a team. You need to be able to flip through her different forms and really use all six of her skills effectively to play her correctly.

[Belle Hibiki]

I dunno. I don't. Maybe it's because we don't have an official replay function. There's a proggie out there (I have it, I think) but last I checked it didn't have the ability to scroll back and forward like you can in the SC2 client.

I think a replay function like SC2 would be absolutely incredible for the game as a whole. I know they're working on it, though - they seem to mention that like every other week.

[Kaden]

I don't see replays as being necessary for a game to be "a really competitive, balanced game." Would it be nice? Absolutely. Do other people agree that is has to have replays in order to be serious? Yes.

I think the regularity of legitimate tournaments and events has done enough to establish it as an "e-sport" (never really liked that term, to be honest). I can definitely appreciate that not everyone shares that view, and I'm sure some people never will. That's coo'.

No matter what the stance on LoL's viability as a legitimate form of competition, I think everyone can agree that, considering the game didn't exist 18 months ago, they've made an absolutely astounding amount of progress towards that end.

[Ashe]

So replays make or break a game being an e-sport? I was under the impression that its status as a viable e-sport was based on the number and quality of tournaments being held on a regular basis, not this specific feature or that specific feature. Counterstrike does not have replays, or didn't the last time I checked anyway. Does this mean CS is no longer a viable candidate for MLG? RTS games are really the only games I've known to actively keep up with replays until recently.

Regarding "use that money to hire people to do this instead of that", its not that they are scrounging money and not hiring people. Go look at their jobs page. They are regularly hiring people for nearly every type of position, primarily server and coding positions, but also creative for various things. They are always telling people they are hiring. This doesn't mean they aren't going to have certain standards while hiring (letting every applicant get the job) but they aren't being cheap either. Last I heard, from both Riot employees and from people who have applied (talking on IRC), they actually pay rather competitively to acquire people.

TreeEskimo just got offered an internship after going out to LA for his interview. I believe Roku has also gotten started in getting a job there. That guy who got in trouble with Blizzard for making that "World of Starcraft" mmo project on his own that was actually fairly developed for a one man project? He got an email from Pendragon offering him a job because "I think you're awesome". I believe he turned them down only because he was later counter offered a job by Blizzard itself, but I haven't kept up with it.

So don't let someone convince you that they are just "not using that money to hire people for other things and only care about pumping out characters", because nearly every argument about that is pretty far from the truth.

[Belle Hibiki]

I misspoke. I meant to say that it fosters a competitive community, along with public ladder rankings (which should also be implemented). The ability to go over your replays, post them, get feedback on them on what you can improve etc. is absolutely a huge boon to creating a competitive culture.

There's tournaments, true. I don't know. I guess I'm just talking out of my ass today. I'll shut up now.

[Tyr]

I misspoke. I meant to say that it fosters a competitive community, along with public ladder rankings (which should also be implemented). The ability to go over your replays, post them, get feedback on them on what you can improve etc. is absolutely a huge boon to creating a competitive culture.

There's tournaments, true. I don't know. I guess I'm just talking out of my ass today. I'll shut up now.

D:

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/ladders

Also, fun fact: Brand means (a) fire in Danish. Yeah. bet you didn't know that.

[Belle Hibiki]

fuck me sideways, I guess

what is this feeling of poop in my mouth

[Ashe]

This game. This fucking game.

Look at this fucking game.

Hardest fought First Win ever, and actually was pretty fun.

It starts off where the other team was being pretty dickish to us, trash talking and such in chat because they were stomping us while their Teemo was offline from the moment of spawn. Our Ryze joins game, says "ad" after locking Ryze AFTER we already had Lux, Malz, Trundle, and Famitsu had another AP style character picked as well (we decided we'd just let Trundle do his thing instead of having a true tank, which the opps basically did with Garen).

He then goes straight to top after I was mid, leaving Corki to lane with Lux (we weren't that upset by that, seems decent - sorta). He then proceeds to feed 4 kills to his Garen at top. As soon as Eve hit level 2 laning with Shaco bot (Shaco was intending to jungle, but Teemo never connected), she started roaming and got a quick kill on me in mid due to a critical stun when I tried to run back from my mid tower while Urgot had me in Q locked in range. She roamed lanes owning everyone in her path after (but making sure Urgot got the kills, who was beast with his ult timing) until Shaco and Garen both joined the festivities.

For most of the game, we tried to go back and forth, but Ryze simply stayed top farming away, never calling mia on his Garen, never listening to a thing said, never doing... anything. I literally do not recall a single cage that happened, although others say he did but practically never. I'm talking to the point where Eve was able to bd turrets while tanking them, then drop the inhib. Ryze runs up as she's running away and literally just trades Spell Flux and Overload shots with her while nearly dying and I'm typing "CAGE HER. PLEASE. PRESS W." repeatedly as he just never did do it. He manages to kill her... but never did cage.

He then would just leave while we were defending a team fight on inhib to try to solo dragon - when we were fully geared - giving free kills to Eve who followed him with Mob boots. So he'd just try again. They'd leave dragon knowing he'd keep going there. He would then go to do blue, again ignoring us, even when we were doing baron. Interesting part was when we were almost done with baron one of the times and they hadn't interfered, in comes Ryze to suddenly run across the creep wave towards us, causing Shaco and Eve to instantly take off in our direction from defending mid.

4v5 with a Ryze so incompetent that we actually saw their Teemo reconnect 75 minutes into the game. He then leveled like crazy, but was generally a nice guy as by now we were all damned determined not to surrender - both sides. One of my memorable moments was Shaco congratulating me on timing a Q silence for his rebirth from GA before he could Deceive out, gaining a kill, while another more hilarious time was when I put my aids on a minion in their base, then left, went to the upper grass by their turret to recall. I get into my base and suddenly see me getting a kill on their Teemo who had just respawned from me killing him with my ult before putting the aids down. It took me forever to figure out what happened, when Teemo goes "wow, your dot was on a creep and bounced to me and ate me alive!"

Teemo was able to leave the base with a Banshee's, Bloodthirster, Frozen Mallet, and Zerker's Greaves the first time he left base. I have no idea how, as I didn't think he'd gained gold while offline, but apparently he did, but not levels.

Look at those CScores. Look around, then look at our Ryze. Then acknowledge that Ryze was suicide farming lanes pretty much always (not pushing, there were times he'd just go follow someone and sit in a bush, watch them die to a single Eve, then turn around and run off to afk in another bush. If I tried to do Golem, he'd run in out of nowhere and try to Q for the steal.) Now look at his actual CS remembering that he also had a solo lane and was feeding kills to them because he was UNDER THEIR TOWER the entire first ten minutes. If he died, he'd run straight back top and push to their tower mindlessly. Never responded to chat. Not once, other than a single "..." and to spam ping one time randomly on where he died when the entire team was nowhere near.

I'd rather have had their Teemo on our team than their Ryze.

That said, their Shaco tried to add friend us (I declined as always) but all four of their team were actually really good in that game. 4v5 for that long, and yet WE were on the defensive? The way Eve and Shaco were all over, we couldn't do a damn thing to change that. Eve punished too hard and would drop towers the moment we left. We ALL had oracles (other than Ryze) and she'd still waltz in and get kills (fucking BV - I'd have to aids before ulting her when she nearly dropped Corki in a stun right beside me in base).

Their Garen reminded me of old school Garen actually. Would. Not. Die. In my W with my aids on him, Q hitting him, sometimes ult even (on 48 sec cd with Blue Buff) and TWO OTHER PEOPLE (usually Trundle and Corki) with him just tanking it away and spinning to win it. For at least 6 secs or so. Meanwhile, "FUCK, Eve just dropped an inhib again in like 3 secs - and gone."

I honestly had a blast, other than our Ryze. However, in his defense - at least he didn't build like Athene.

[Kole T. Merr]

TL;DR

I guess it was a long game?

[Ashe]

Sure.

Why did I bother.

[Jonathan Meer]

I read the summary and had a jolly chuckle.

[John Doe]

No you didn't! Liar!

I read it too. FEEDER VS. LEAVER! WHO WILL WIN?!

[Rafael]

Fuck, just hit lvl 20 and noticed...tier 3 runes are available. Suppose it's a good thing I never really focused enough to finish a character set before now

[Vad]

fuck me sideways, I guess

what is this feeling of poop in my mouth

Stop giving people Rim Jobs.