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The Summoner's Guidebook: Picking a role in League of Legends
A lot of players advise approaching League of Legends with a jack-of-all-trades attitude. If you can play in any position, you'll cause a lot less friction on your team. On the other hand, playing a single role well has a lot of advantages. Individually mastering one aspect of the game doesn't automatically make you better than your lane opponents, but there's a wealth of knowledge available for each position that you can't learn while playing others. Personally, I fall into the latter camp; I can play one role well, two less proficiently, and the rest very poorly. There's a big reason that works OK for me, but almost everyone will want to be diverse. You simply won't be able to play a huge percentage of ranked and normal games in one role.
The Art of Wushu: Being a master or an apprentice
Fun facts for fans of the Art of Wushu: I wrote three articles about Age of Wushu for this week. I started off writing something lame, but I scrapped it because I didn't like the topic. The second is one about reaction times, perception, and brain chemistry. However, I realized somewhere in the middle of writing it that I used terms about "skill levels" that I have never really defined, and I figured it would be a good thing to do that before I went any further. So this time, we're going to talk about skill levels and what they mean. All of them are fairly discrete, and they are pretty universal, whether you practice swordsmanship or carpentry (or do either in a video game). I have probably used the term "expert player" over 9000 times while writing for Massively, and I've held an opinion on what an intermediate player is since long before I was blogging. This is a good way to identify where you and others stand, which is how you'll know what kind of advice you need to get to the next level.
iPhone 4 antenna problems were predicted on June 10 by Danish professor
Well, this must be one of the most epic "I told you so" moments in the history of consumer electronics. Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen, an antenna expert over at Denmark's Aalborg University, managed to get his concerns about the iPhone 4's external antennae on the record a cool two weeks before the phone was even released. In an interview on June 10, the Danish brainbox explained that he wasn't impressed by Steve Jobs' promises of better reception, describing external antennas as "old news," and suggested that contact with fleshlings could result in undesirable consequences to the handset's reception: "The human tissue will in any event have an inhibitory effect on the antenna. Touch means that a larger portion of antenna energy becomes heat and lost." Machine-translated that may be, but you get the point. Researchers at Gert's university have already shown that over 90 percent of any phone's antenna signal can be stifled by holding it in the right place, but he's highlighting the specific exposure to skin contact as a separate issue to be mindful of. Good to know we've got sharp minds out there, and as to his suggested solution, Gert says phones should ideally have two antennae that act in a sort of redundant array, so that when one is blocked, the other can pick up the slack. So, what are we going to do now, Apple? [Thanks, Andrew]
iPhone 4 antenna woes contextualized by dude in the know
It's the ultimate of ironies that Apple's externalized antenna array in the iPhone 4 -- hoped (and hyped up) to finally give us a phone every bit as good the rest of the device -- has become the cause of most rancor in the immediate aftermath of the handset's release. This morning you'll be rubbing both sleep and disbelief out of your eyes as you read that Apple's response to some people's reception problems with the 4 is to hold it differently. But, before we start ostracizing Apple as the singular offender here, let's hear from a man in the know. Spencer Webb runs AntennaSys, a company that designs tailormade RF solutions, and has himself worked on making quad-band transceivers for AT&T. As he tells it, almost all phone makers have now transitioned to locating their antennae at the bottom of the phones. This has been in order to move radio wave emissions away from the head (a shortcoming that a top-mounted aerial would incur), which the FCC has been quite demanding about with its SAR standards -- The iPhone 4, however, moved the antenna action from the back of the phone to the sides. This probably improves the isotropy of the radiation pattern, but only when the phone is suspended magically in air. Another great point made here is that testing done both by the Federales and mobile carriers might include the head, but never accounts for the presence of the person's hand. Thus, although a phone's antenna could test very well, it might suffer from such issues as those experienced with the iPhone 4. Mind you, this still seems like an assembly (rather than design) problem to us, since most of our editors haven't had any reception worries and we in fact saw improved performance on that front while conducting our review testing. Spencer himself has decided to buy the phone knowing full well about this potential limitation, and concludes on the note that "sometimes an antenna that's not great, but good enough, is good enough."
Apple hiring camera expert for iPad, may include USB Audio support with connection kit
I still haven't picked up an iPad yet, though I'm pretty convinced I will soon -- even if I don't need one myself, there's obviously a lot of great apps out there to try. But already there's rumbling that the camera train is due for a stop at iPad station. Apple is hiring a new member of the iPad team, and they're asking for a strong ability to "test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks." We've already seen that there's room in the device for a camera, so it's a pretty good guess that whenever the next version of the iPad rolls around (hopefully later rather than sooner for you early adopters), there will be a camera included. And in other iPad news, there are also rumors going around that the iPad's camera connection kit might support USB Audio as well. That's a bit of a surprise -- you wouldn't expect a kit for connecting a camera to also have USB Audio drivers included, but it is basically just a USB connector for the iPad's docking port, so maybe some crafty engineer at Apple has included support for another standard just for the heck of it. I'm sure plenty of audio pros will be grateful if it's true. [via Engadget]
CCP Games seeking players to commentate EVE Online Alliance PvP Tournament VII
One thing many EVE Online players look forward to each year is the Alliance PvP Tournament, where New Eden's pilots battle it out to see which alliance is crowned champion... until the next year when rivals fight to take that title away. Last year's tournament was very entertaining, both in terms of the matches themselves and the commentary from PvP experts selected from the playerbase, namely Crovan and Verone. This year's EVE Alliance Tournament VII will kick off in September. We don't have any further details on it yet, except that it will follow the same format that CCP used last year -- two weekends of qualifiers and a third weekend for the finals. Last year's finals were broadcast in live video, which is something that CCP Games wants to do again this in Alliance Tournament VII. In fact, they're now seeking PvP experts from among the EVE playerbase since it's worked out so well in the past. The requirements? EVE video producer CCP Charlie writes, "As an Expert you'll be on the set discussing the tournament, tactics, teams and talking with developers about EVE live on air. You'll also take shifts in the commentary booth providing live commentary on the matches themselves. You need to know your PvP and you need to know how to keep on talking!" The first two weeks' commentary will be done from those players' homes (via EVE Voice and internet radio stations), but CCP Games will fly the Experts out to Reykjavik, Iceland for the final rounds, covering both the airfare and accommodation. %Gallery-43561%
"I am Murloc" gets rocked already
Well that didn't take long. Despite the song only being announced yesterday,"I am Murloc" has been 5-starred on Expert, and you can see the video above to prove it. You can also see the notes they've chosed -- as a veteran of all three Guitar Hero games (and a current owner of Rock Band, though "Green Grass" is giving me trouble on Expert), I have to say that it looks pretty simple, especially compared to some of the other songs in GH3. It is too bad that they used the normal Guitar Hero 3 singer, too, and not a virtual version of Samwise.If you want something a little tougher, head down after the jump to see a hacked custom version of "I am Murloc" for Guitar Hero 2. The phrasing on that one seems to fit much more, and it seems to work a little better than the official version that got released in the latest game.
Breakfast Topic: Addons requests and recommendations
Lileah on Livejournal was looking for some help with an addon the other day, and her request gave me an idea. For this morning's Breakfast Topic, we're going all out with the addon requests. If you've got a need for an addon (like custom timers, an addon for keeping track of food, or any other weird needs you might have), ask in the comments below, and if you're an addon expert, show off your expertise by letting the requester know if there's an addon that will fill their needs.And if there's isn't an addon that can do what they're asking, maybe this comments section will be the impetus for someone out there to create one of their own. Think we can find a need out there for an addon that doesn't yet exist? Of course, there are some things that addons can't do (choose targets or spells for you is a big one), but otherwise, consider this thread your clearinghouse for addon service requests.If you can't get an answer here, feel free to tip us, too -- we at WoW Insider always love finding out and writing about new addons. Whether you need help finding an addon that does what you want or you know of a great addon that could use some coverage, let us know and we'll be thrilled to take a look at it.
