League of Legends

[Jonathan Meer]

Wow. Ryze nerf? Plank nerf? Still no replacement for Udyr's nerfed-passive?

Not a good instigation for me to play more LoL

[Mal Nova]

Yeah... been a lot quieter since you stopped showing up and bitching about ever mistake and blaming your own on others... They are even dumb enough to have fun and play with me every so often as long as they can get enough...

And that is trolling your ass for the record

[John Doe]

Subtle as always Mal.

Which reminds me, I haven't played in over two months. It's like giving up crack, but much easier to do and I still feel great about doing it.

[Ashe]

Let's drop the uncalled for attacks and continue this discussion in a more positive direction, please.

[Mr. Zhu]

I am not a big fan of new Soraka. I will not like her as my support. She does not have enough mana to sustain herself or an ally. You use 3 heals in lane, no more mana. If you're telling me an AD Carry only has enough room to make 3 mistakes before having to recall and miss cs, that's a no-go.

[Ashe]

Sounds like Soraka's going to have to swap out some runes for Mana Regen.

[Anzekay]

The soraka change will probably end up being a knee-jerk reaction. Her having infinite mana in lane was ridiculously annoying to lane against, but her having no way to regain mana while also having high mana cost heals is a bit too painful.

Should've just made it a lesser mana return on herself, so that it isn't infinite mana but is still enough to keep you going for an acceptable length of time.

[Rafael]

Has anyone actually tried her out? My girlfriend's here for the week so my LoL time is limited with us busy trolling Mafia games

[Mal Nova]

I personally think you guys should try Karma out in her badassness of a support =P

[Anzekay]

There's a PA guy I play with sometimes who does incredible things with Karma.

[Piper Juunanagou]

And with the new Vayne skin, they have managed to utterly kill any respect I have for that character.

*face palm*

edit: Although I do want to point out that Leona's newest skin is awesome.

[Ashe]

And with the new Vayne skin, they have managed to utterly kill any respect I have for that character.

*face palm*

edit: Although I do want to point out that Leona's newest skin is awesome.

I think the new vayne skin is awesome. To me its just like victoria secret cupid or something, which o laughed at. It fits the crossbow well.

[Piper Juunanagou]

More mid-drift and tits aren't going to make me buy skins, but I guess that works on the majority of the game's user base so lol.

A Cupid Ashe skin would have fit the theme better, though. Could have had red latex hearts vacuum-sealed around her breasts. And slutty togas are awesome.

[Kaden]

It's just another theme skin.

[Piper Juunanagou]

You're a theme skin.

[Jarka]

Man, I remember this one time I was like, "Woah, cool, they made a human female champ that doesn't have an overtly pandering skin! Coooooool!"

Sigh.

[Ashe]

NOTHING BUT OVERSEXUALIZED WOMEN FOR DISGUSTING PIG MEN TO RUB THEIR ORGAN ON.

I don't have a problem with it. Its annoying, but I never feel "I'm turned on by a video game character". I think they are doing a fair job at alternating those styles anyway. I mean shit, how is Riven trying her hardest to appeal to heavily breathing teenage boys and pervs and such? This, of course, is assuming that Riven is even female and not a feminine male, since she and Ezreal could be siblings.

I remember that time I had a long fap session to Sejuani. Man, nothing like a brute face viking chick riding a boar. No one can deny that Sejuani has to shift while riding that boar to keep her balls from hurting. Leona is by far not an oversexualized character and looks awesome. And at some point, they'll probably release a Leona skin that DOES show skin, and I still won't care. I didn't care when X-Men characters that actually weren't known for being sex symbols ended up in swimsuits during the Summer Vacation arts either.

There are lots of guys that fit the exact same male stereotype in this game as well. Rugged Garen (OMG SO DREAMY) is pretty typical of what girls are assumed to be looking for in guys. Freakin' Tryndamere and Jarvan IV. These guys all pander to that same comic style stereotype.

I do think the new Vayne skin's art has some saggy ass boobs that are too large for her actual frame, now that I actually looked deeper into it, but I don't really focus on it all that much. For the sake of decent art, though, they should be better with proportions. I am not particularly fond of the art style they use in the game in general in comparison to the Chinese art, personally. I don't have any real reason why, though.

I want them to make everyone happy, though. Release "Valentine's Victoria Secret Ashe!" in a full Muslim burkha. Or Sexy Sejuani where they go do the Mormon censorship to make her show skin (that thing where they do the photoshop circles all over the place). I think it'd be hilarious.

EDIT: ROFL, another look at the art for the Vayne skin, man, those boobs look like they should be swinging back and forth with every step. She got them breasticles, man. That said, I'm kidding around and know full well that not every girl is perfectly injected with immobile breasts that stay absolutely in place even if a car were to strike them.

[Mr. Zhu]

On another note, apparently Soraka's auto attack animation is OP now.

[Ashe]

Ok, I just actually looked at the Sabretusk Sejuani skin. I know its just the angle and all, but she definitely needs more on. That picture is just terrible in terms of how she's twisting her shoulders, though I totally understand that's a difficult angle to draw out.

[Jarka]

Ok, I just actually looked at the Sabretusk Sejuani skin. I know its just the angle and all, but she definitely needs more on. That picture is just terrible in terms of how she's twisting her shoulders, though I totally understand that's a difficult angle to draw out.

I'm glad you caught that... I was like "FFFF SHE IS WEARING A BIKINI ON A BOAR." And you are right, I didn't give enough credit to the female champions that aren't sexualized - Irelia, Riven, Lux, and a couple of others.

But no seriously, it's the sort of thing that we're just so accustomed to seeing, a lot of people don't notice how much more sexualized female characters are over males.

I actually went through every skin in the game to make a visual aid. My criteria for "sexualized skin" was the character showing skin between chest (nipple level) and hips. It sounds prude, but I figured it was an even standard between men and women, since in real life, most women don't wear bellyshirts all that often (about as often as a guy goes around in shirtless... that is to say, summertime at the beach or at really greasy clubs). In addition, for the monstrous champs, they were excluded if their face was more animal than human (Cass and Brand made the cut). I know that's a pretty subjective form of judgment, but eh. Oh, and no Yordles or undead.

The result:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

The only non-monstrous females not to have a sexualized skin according to the standards I selected were Ahri, Sona, Irelia, Kayle, and Ashe.

Non-monstrous men who did not have sexualized according to the criteria skins were Ezreal, Gangplank, Garen, Graves, Jarvan, Jax, Master Yi, Olaf, Shaco, Shen, Singed, Swain, Talon, Taric, Twisted Fate, Prototype Viktor, Pre-void Kassadin, Xin Zhao, Vladimir, and Zilean.

Remember, this isn't even counting heavily exposed cleavage (I'm looking at you, every Sona skin except Snowdown) or not wearing pants/a skirt (Caitlyn).

And I do know they throw those attracted to males a bone once in a while (holy sexy rugged Garen, Batman). But just look at those few compared to almost every female champion. I can totally do a (highly subjective) comparison of sexy skins versus nonsexy skins and break it down into raw numbers, but please don't make me.

And I'll make a very important note here: I have absolutely no problem with sex and sexuality in appropriate video games and art. Hell, my junior thesis was a series of erotic artwork. I do, however, have a problem with lazy designers and stifled creativity. When almost every female champion feels like a delivery vehicle for boobs, it just gets boring. If it's something I bring up a lot, it's because it's an intersection of my three favorite fields: art, video games, and gender studies.

Also, Vayne's breasts in the V-day skin are actually anatomically accurate for their size (if drawn a little bit close together). Apparently unbeknownst to most video game artists, boobs are actually affected by gravity. However, freaking every other proportion is terrible, just like most of the art in the game.