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The Summoner's Guidebook: The best ways to ruin a gank in League of Legends
In League of Legends' Classic mode, jungling is my second-most preferred role. I prefer ADC first, since it is very taxing on attention and raw skill matters more than strategy. However, as a jungler, I can impact the game more meaningfully. While being ADC allows me to usually win the game in spite of awful teammates, jungling helps me prevent those awful teammates from throwing the game away. When I'm going for a gank, there's nothing worse than someone mucking it up for me -- except when I screw it up myself. It's frustrating when I ping for a gank and my mid lane proceeds to engage and die to his opponent before I get there. It's even worse when I run through a place that I know is warded, attempt a gank anyway, and get jumped by three opponents. Sometimes a gank wasn't meant to be, but most of the time, we botched it all on our own.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Winning LoL games takes good decisions
Decision-making is a broad topic, so I am a bit hesitant to cover it directly. It's the little things that contribute to victory in League of Legends, and decision-making is not a little thing. It's a big topic with a lot of ground to cover. As I've said many times in the past, experience is the best teacher, and I can only tell you what to look for. However, I wanted to bring the column back around to talking about what it takes to step up your game. By now, you've heard me talk at length about mechanical things -- things like last-hitting or aiming skillshots that you can sit down and practice. I've talked more on narrow things like how to make a good team composition or execute ganks. Now I'm going to begin to put everything together and talk about what things you should think about before you click to move on the minimap, place a ward, or ping your team to go for dragon. Good decisions win LoL games, and whether you're a pro or an amateur, you can improve on the choices you make.
The Daily Grind: What isn't fair?
To many people, "fair" occupies the same mental space as Santa Claus and the Fallout MMO -- it's nice to believe in, but it doesn't really exist. Balance in an MMO is hard enough without adding in standards of fair play, and in any environment more complex than Team Fortress 2, there will be some things youu consider blatantly unbalanced. (Even in that environment, actually.) But there are always some things that strike you as just being inherently not fair -- things that on a conceptual level make the game less fun, especially in PvP. Stuff where you find yourself blaming the mechanic even when something is your own fault. Stealth is a classic one, as many players find the idea that you could be killed by a heretofore unseen presence not remotely fair. Another classic is any form of crowd control -- few people are pleased at PvP matches consisting of their character being unable to act while other players unload on them. What about you? What mechanics do you consider inherently unfair to play against?
Forum post of the day: Flying mounts in the old world
I was thrilled when Blizzard announce that the Burning Crusade would usher in flying mounts. Then we found out that we would only be able to use flying mounts in Outland, since Blizzard had not rendered some areas of the game. Lalia of Icecrown suggested that flying mounts should be allowed in the old world, just with a lowered ceiling. The biggest objection to this idea was the possibility of sky-ganking. Ganking however is a fact of life on a PvP server. I try to avoid going to Azeroth whenever possible, partly because it takes so long to get from place to place. Sure it would take a great deal of coding, but I would love to see this explored further. If nowhere else, flying should be an option in Moonglade. That way Druids could try out their fantastic flying skills as soon as they get them. Do you think we should be able to fly in Azeroth?
Heroic 3-year old arises to save Azeroth [Updated]
juBBjuBB is the proud father of one very charismatic girl who, aside from being absolutely adorable, is also able to play WoW! As he says in his forum post "YOU may have been GANKED by our 3yr old!", Charisma was captivated with her parents gaming activities and started out playing WoW at 1 and a half years old, doing very basic things like running and jumping and chasing bunnies, but since then has actually gotten the hang of some of the basic mechanics of the game. She has learned that you don't want that green bar to get empty or you'll "fall down," as well as the fact that the alliance ("blue") is good and the ugly ones ("red") are bad -- or enemies in PvP anyway. She knows to cap a flag and grind her way up in levels, too apparently.Some people who read this story cry foul. How can a 3 year-old level to 20 "by herself" (as her myspace page claims) without being able to read? Also, it certainly does seem a bit much to say that she can "gank" people. I also doubt that she can play at the same level as, say, the proverbial 12 year-old WoW player could. My bet is that when the father says "level to 20 by herself" he probably means "without doing any quests and with me watching and talking her through things." And when he says "gank," he means "overpower a level 30ish opponent with a level 60ish rogue alt of her parents using very basic play tactics," which, hello gankers everywhere, even a 3 year-old can do by pressing just a few buttons! Good for her, I say, but shame on anyone over 9.But I digress. Playing three to four hours per week maxiumum, juBBjuBB says, is helping Charisma get excited to learn the alphabet and cooperative teamplay. Fatherly love and pride in such progress may be leading him to exaggerate a little bit about her gameplay skill, or maybe leave certain details about it to our own common sense -- but can you blame him? If I had a little kid who showed a strong aptitude in any area, from computers to cartoons, I might need to rein in my superlative praise too. She may or may not be the one heroine destined to be the best gamer in the world, but she's the pride of her father's life, and in his Azerothian sky there's no star shining brighter than her.Update: More from Charisma's father after the jump! You may find it hard to believe...
