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League of Legends introduces Braum, the Heart of the Freljord
For too long, there's been a hole in the many champions of League of Legends. Braum, the Heart of the Freljord, fills that hole, introducing the first truly impressive moustache to the game and allowing everyone to marvel at every perfectly waxed hair. Oh, and he also serves as a tank support character, which is also a first, but mostly it's about that glorious lip-blanket. Right, you probably want to know a little bit more about what Braum can do. Well, he applies a stacking debuff that stuns enemies with his basic attack, but once the first tap is in place, attacks from allies will also increase the stack count. He also attacks with line-based AoE attacks that snare targets, blocks attacks with his enormous shield, and can dash to his allies to help protect them from further attacks. In short, he's a traditional MMO tank tearing up the League of Legends lanes. And he has a moustache. Did we mention that?
April Fools' Day around the virtual world
I was in Guild Wars 2 last night at 10 p.m. PDT when my Asura's head... grew. And wobbled. And bobbled. As did the heads of the not-so-scary-anymore Nightmare Court villains I had been murdering in pursuit of my dailies. Ah, I remembered. It's April Fools' somewhere! Here are some of the MMOs that tried to prank us today: Blizzard showed off a hideous new model for World of Warcraft's Draenei women and announced a new fighting game full of rejected characters. Neverwinter introduces a brand-new playable race -- the Dragon! EverQuest Next wants you to choose the next class: Duct Tapomancer, Rubberbandian, Origami Assassin, or Martinizer. Star Wars: The Old Republic introduced asteroid starships. Final Fantasy XIV teased the worst NPC companions ever. TERA has been overrun by beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Lord of the Rings Online announced plans for a major sports league. DC Universe Online brought to life the Unicorn Trinket. EverQuest II celebrated Bristlebane Day. Path of Exile gave up and went pay-to-win. Destiny unveiled the "Get Your Ass To Mars" collectors edition. World of Warplanes promised playable UFOs. The Repopulation posted patch notes including The Adventures of Ding Veisel. World of Tanks introduced World of Tanks: The Crayfish. League of Legends turned its meta upside down with a goofy Ultra Rapid Fire mode. Finally, rather than add to the pranks, we sent you on an April Fools' Day quest. The first person to complete it was reader Nathan6! The words in order were waffle, platypus, macguyver, shazbot, and doge, and here is the "prize" page. Thanks for playing, everyone! ;)
League of Legends introduces the new Team Builder queue
You know what you're good at playing in League of Legends. Which is all well and good, but sometimes you choose to play something that requires a degree of support that's just not there from the rest of your team. Wouldn't it be nice to just choose your character and your playstyle right from the start, so you can form a team meant to compliment your strengths and weaknesses? That's what the new Team Builder queue is all about. Queueing up requires selecting both your character's position and role, then filling in the blanks by matching with other players who can support your initial decision. You can also invite friends in to the queue along with you, filling out the missing spots with other suitable candidates. A preview video is embedded just pas the cut, but you should take a look at the full article and FAQ for more information on forming a team that's the best it can be.
HBO's Game of Thrones advertises for League of Legends
League of Legends will be partnering up with HBO's Game of Thrones for a cross-promotional effort in the coming weeks. Riot Games said that HBO contacted the studio with the offer, saying that there was a shared interest between the two franchise's fanbases. Riot released League of Legends assets to HBO, which will then be turned into a trailer spotlighting both the MOBA and TV series. The game studio gave an overview of the promotion in an interview today: "HBO is doing a three-week activation in advance of their series premiere on April 6th. They're going to be getting some marketing assets, whether that's logo bugs or website takeovers. But we're also working with their team to produce a mash-up trailer. They're giving us some exclusive sneak peaks into footage that hasn't been seen before."
The best of Massively's League of Legends column, The Summoner's Guidebook
Former Massively writer Patrick Mackey was first brought onto the team to cover Champions Online in his Behind the Mask column, and he did so with technical expertise and brutal honesty that was even better-suited for his ultimate column here: The Summoners Guidebook, which for two years covered Riot Games' League of Legends, one of the biggest games on the planet. Today, in honor of that column's lengthy run, we share the very best of Patrick's articles. If you'd like to follow his future League of Legends blogging, you can find him at Boot Camp for Gamers.
League of Legends Team Builder beta starts March 3 - trust falls not included
Riot Games' League of Legends is built on a relatively simple premise: you and four other players each pick a character, assign yourselves a role (tank, support, etc) and use your unique abilities to destroy the enemy team and their base. But what happens when you and someone else on the team want the same role during a match? Human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together; mass hysteria, that's what! Thankfully, Riot is rolling out the Team Builder beta starting tomorrow, so we can put down the pitchforks - for awhile, anyway. Team Builder works by having players select their champion, role and position for a match, and then attempts to match them up with other players using Team Builder until a balanced team can be formed. Theoretically, this will lead to less fighting about who plays who, goes where and does what. The Team Builder queue will be separate from others, and will only be available for unranked 5v5 matches. Team Builder won't be sticking around forever. League players will have 48 hours from the time the beta goes live in their region until Riot closes off access. The beta will be a staggered launch, starting March 3 on the RU and EUNE servers. To see when your region is live and learn more about Team Builder, you can check out the official FAQ page. [Image: Riot Games]
Ghoulish MOBA Dead Island: Epidemic enters beta testing
Publisher Deep Silver has begun beta testing the free-to-play Dead Island: Epidemic, and it needs your help putting the zombies through their shambling paces. As its name would suggest, Dead Island: Epidemic is a spin-off of Deep Silver's Dead Island franchise. Instead of a first-person action game, Epidemic drops players into a multiplayer online battle arena (think: League of Legends) populated by the same walking corpses that make up the supporting cast of the core Dead Island series. Cooperative teamwork is key to surviving the undying hordes, but when your teammates fail you, you can also rely on over-the-top DIY weaponry, another hallmark of the Dead Island games. Gaining access to the closed beta is as simple as visiting the game's website and filling out a quick registration form. Those who participate in the beta test will be able to earn "exclusive in-game items and rewards" that will carry over into the eventual retail incarnation of Dead Island: Epidemic. [Image: Deep Silver]
The Summoner's Guidebook: Staying positive in League of Legends
This is the last issue of the Summoner's Guidebook for the time being. I hate to leave, but unfortunately things are out of everyone's hands. So before I go, I will give you my final lesson: the way to be the best League of Legends players you can be. I played my first game of Hexakill last week, and it was terrible. I was jungle Shyvana, and we had a duo top plus otherwise standard lanes. All of my lanes lost. Our Ryze went 0 and 6 against the enemy Syndra. The enemy Riven had something like 11 kills in the midgame with over 26 by the end. I was the only one not behind; our bottom lane was losing, but not terribly. We won that game. Some of that victory comes from the enemy screwing up. I will fully admit that if the enemy had played properly in the midgame, we would have lost. However, even with the enemy's mistakes, we were tens of thousands of gold and several towers behind. How is a comeback like that even possible? Here's how: Stay positive and always look for the silver lining.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Don't be afraid of LoL; just do it!
Everyone who plays League of Legends has bad games every now and then. Everyone has bad community experiences, too. I think it's rare to have a game where everything just feels exciting and positive and wonderful all the way through. LoL is really not well-designed for that. However, it's fear of loss, of playing poorly, and of dealing with jerks that keeps us from actually enjoying the game. Those things are real, but if you let those things get you down, you'll never give yourself a chance to improve.
League of Legends to receive new champion and game mode
League of Legends will be getting a new champion and game mode, developer Riot Games has announced. The new game mode, Hexakill, adds another player to each team, turning the game's typical 5v5 match into a 6v6 affair. Hexakill is part of Riot's featured gameplay modes, where players can experience experimental twists on the usual LoL formula. This also means, however, that Hexakill will only be available to play for a limited time, from February 20 to March 2. Meanwhile, if League of Legends' next champion were in your yearbook, he'd be the kid that was always a little too into the dissection labs in Biology class. Vel'Koz, Eye of The Void, is a tentacled horror that comes to the Fields of Justice from a dimension known as The Void, where it exists as a living font of knowledge and learning. Oh, and he's here to destroy you. So yeah, just like that kid.
Massively's Valentine's Day roundup
When a mob hits your eye with a big sharpened spike... that's not really amore! In fact, it's downright painful. But it's February -- a time when love is in the air, hearts are aflutter everywhere, and pink and red festoon your favorite MMOs. So in the spirit of the season, go ahead and give that mob an extra-hard love tap, right from... er, to the heart! And don't forget to collect whatever treasures it had for you because we all know Valentine's Day isn't all about the love; no, it's about the loot! Want to know where to get your hands on something special for this holiday? There are plenty of celebrations throughout the MMOverse offering a plethora of events and goodies. Check out some of the various Valentine's events and specials going on now.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Two years and I'm still playing LoL
It's the time of the year when I get to sit down and reflect a bit on how I've grown as a League of Legends player. Last year I had made some pretty big jumps in skill, especially in the realm of Dominion skill. This year I've kind of shifted my focus to SR. Also, I got a little more involved in the community, but not enough. That, I hope to change. Playing more stuff that you play Disappointingly for a lot of Dominion players who read these articles, I haven't been talking about it much lately. The big reason is I've been playing it a lot less, and unfortunately it's because the game mode isn't very popular. My solo queue time in Dominion is kind of long, for starters. Once you get to any sort of respectable level in that game mode, queue times start to get obscene. I end up having to wait 5-6 minutes for games on CS, and that's not so good.
Game Developers Choice Awards honor Anita Sarkeesian, Riot founders
Organizers of the 14th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have named this year's Special Award winners, honoring Riot Games founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill alongside Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian at an upcoming ceremony event. The event's Pioneer Award will go to Beck and Merrill for their work on the genre-defining League of Legends, an online multiplayer game that reports 27 million players daily. League of Legends has spurred exponential growth within the eSports arena, and attracts a dedicated viewership on streaming services like Twitch. Sarkeesian will receive the GDCA's Ambassador Award, a prize honoring individuals who help the video games industry "advance to a better place" through advocacy or action. Sarkeesian promoted widespread discussion regarding video game gender roles in her Kickstarter-funded Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video series, and regularly addresses related social issues within gaming communities. The Game Developers Choice Awards will be held on March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Center, as part of the upcoming Game Developers Conference. [Image: Riot Games]
The Summoner's Guidebook: My goals in League of Legends
Whenever I enter a League of Legends match, I have a few goals set in mind. Of course, winning is a goal, but that's not the only goal. My agenda tends to be a lot more long-term, relative to other LoL players. We've talked a lot about meta lately, and it tends to be a hot topic with Season 4's preseason patches shaking up the meta quite a bit. There are a lot of reasons to justify not playing meta. There are also a lot of reasons to take risky decisions that might not pan out.
Riot allegedly patents Spectator Mode camera element
According to a Reddit thread today, Riot, creator of League of Legends, has had a patent approved for what the poster describes as the "self-moving camera" within their spectator mode. The patent documents spell out the specific thing Riot is claiming patent on, describing a spectator mode that has an element described as follows: ...the spectator server is further configured to calculate an interest value associated with each avatar and direct the user's view to the avatar having the highest interest value. The online multiuser game system of claim 1, wherein the spectator server is further configured to monitor data affecting the interest values and shift the view to another avatar if it gains the highest interest value. You can read the full text of the claim on the online document. Based on the Reddit thread, and reading the documents, it seems that this claim is very specific, dealing with a camera which the game automatically moves to whichever character has the most interesting action going on. According to the second part of the claim, it will also monitor data on what is the most interesting, and shift its view accordingly. The impact of this patent on other games, particularly Blizzard games, is open for discussion. Should Blizzard wish to introduce a self-moving camera with a background AI that monitors the "interest levels" of the actions of specific avatars, then it seems that might be a problem. That is, of course, if the patent withstands further scrutiny and any cases brought against it.
The Soapbox: Novel content trumps novel mechanics
Action combat. Interactive conversations. Public quests. Voxel worlds. There are many game mechanics that developers of massively multiplayer online games crow about when promoting their games because these are the things that make their games stand out from the pack. Even if they're not the first to do it, they'll proclaim that they're doing it bigger and better than their predecessors. I don't have a problem with any of this. It's when the developers and their ardent fans gloss over the importance of the actual content these mechanics are applied to that I get annoyed. Mechanics are just a skeleton, and they can't do anything at all without some meat on the bones. Content matters, and good, fresh content will keep players interested long after the novelty of unusual mechanics has worn off.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Stop worrying about the LoL metagame
If there's one thing that seems to be fairly static among low and mid-level League of Legends players, it's that they dislike the metagame. If I weren't such an exception (being a kind of bad player overall), I'd say that probably 100% of low-level players challenge the meta. This kind of complaint hits the comments, my email inbox, or IMs all the time: "LoL is so dumb! There are only four viable champs in each role, and the meta is static." The first thing I'd like to point out is that those statements, regardless of variation, are all wrong. LoL as a game changes wildly from patch to patch and season to season, and while the existing Summoner's Rift solo queue metagame is more or less fixed in terms of roles (duo bot, one jungler, a "support" who does not CS in favor of giving it to an ally), none of that applies to premades of three or more players or other game modes. Even between the roles, there's a wide variation in expectations of what those roles should do. Stop blaming the game; think outside the box and start seeing the game for what it really is.
Riot claims 27 million daily players for League of Legends
It's no secret that Riot Games's League of Legends is the biggest MOBA on the block, but just how big might come as something of a surprise. Riot has revealed that the League playerbase has now reached 27 million players daily. Player concurrency hits about 7.5 million players during high-traffic hours; for comparison, Valve's Dota 2, which most would consider League's primary competitor, sees about seven million players per month. The high numbers have done wonders for Riot's pocketbook, helping League to generate over $624 million in revenue in 2013.
League of Legends boasts 27 million daily players
Riot Games reports that its League of Legends userbase has skyrocketed to 27 million players daily, more than doubling the 12 million daily players it reported in 2012. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Riot Games additionally confirmed that up to 7.5 million users are playing League of Legends at the same time during peak hours, up from a high of 5 million concurrent users reported in March of 2013. League of Legends earned over $624 million in microtransaction revenue throughout 2013. League of Legends enjoys continued popularity via streaming services like Twitch, and its widespread popularity led international players to be classified as professional athletes by the US government.
UK porn filter blocks League of Legends update for 'sex' in file name
The anti-pornography firewall run by the UK's four top internet providers has blocked the latest League of Legends update because it happens to contain the letters "s," "e" and "x" in a row in two of its file names, The Guardian reports. The filter dings the following two files, forcing the update to fail with a "file not found" error (emphasis added): XerathMageChainsExtended.luaobj VarusExpirationTimer.luaobj Reddit user LoLBoompje first reported the file error, and The Guardian says that the only recourse for those affected is to contact their internet providers and switch off the filter. The firewall is a new program and this problem should be contained to anyone who has signed up for a new ISP this month only.
