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League of Legends admin fired after streaming misuse of power
Riot Games has fired a customer service representative who live-streamed his misuse of administrative powers during a League of Legends bout. VE3D reports the employee verbally abused a player and inappropriately banned him. Riot Games' community relations director Steve Mescon announced today the employee is no longer with the company and it will be reviewing internal policy and training procedures to "prevent such incidents from happening in the future." Another incident for the employee-related community relations nightmare file.
Alleged Valve employee speaks out on DotA co-developer
An alleged Valve employee seeking to air grievances with his employer and one specific employee has taken to an anonymous blog titled "The Truth About IceFrog." In it, the person -- supposedly working on "an unrelated project" from "IceFrog" -- describes not just a poor working environment with the Defense of the Ancients co-developer (whose real name is said to be Abdul Ismail), but also details "something fishy" regarding his past. Though "IceFrog" apparently told colleagues and Valve execs he never worked at S2 Games -- developers of Heroes of Newerth, a DotA clone -- a handful of online evidence suggests he did at one point (DotA co-developer Steve "Pendragon" Mescon even outright states as much). Furthermore, the anonymous blogger likens "IceFrog's" actions to being "the CEO of McDonald's (DOTA) looking for a job at Burger King (Riot Games), then working for Fatburger (S2 Games), then quitting and going to work for Wendy's (Valve) but outright lying to Wendy's (Valve) of involvement with ANY previous employer," adding, "In the corporate world, this would be the equivalent of stealing trade secrets." As announced this morning, "IceFrog" is currently working on Dota 2 for Valve. When we contacted S2 Games to confirm whether or not a man named Abdul Ismail or "IceFrog" ever worked there, we were repeatedly told, "No comment." Valve representatives didn't mince words, saying only, "It's fake," while League of Legends developer Riot Games offered, "At no time did Abdul Ismail, or anyone known as 'IceFrog,' work at or for Riot Games in any capacity." Now if you don't mind us, we can't fight the sudden urge for a fast food burger. If you've got first-hand knowledge regarding any of the accusations, feel free to drop us a line.
Riot Games counter-files for DotA trademark
The Defense of the Ancients trademark recently filed by Valve is being challenged. Riot Games, the creator of the free-to-play DotA clone League of Legends, has apparently counter-filed, claiming that the trademark should be held by DotA Allstars creators Steve "Guinsoo" Feak and Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, who later worked with Riot on LoL. The pair filed for the trademark themselves "to protect the work that [original DotA creator] Eul, Guinsoo and dozens of other modders have done to create the game," Pendragon told Joystiq via email. He added that, "if we were to obtain the trademark, we would keep the game and the DotA name freely available to the mod community." Valve still hasn't returned multiple requests for comment, but of course DotA's most recent author, Icefrog, now works for the company on a project that will "excite " DotA fans, and as long ago as 2008 was reportedly shopping around a full-scale version of the popular mod. Pendragon tells PC Gamer that he'd prefer no one owned the trademark to DotA, but it seems that if Valve is planning to take the name for its own title, Guinsoo and Pendragon will fight for it.
DAoC's grab bag - thy questions are answered
The movers and shakers behind Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot enjoy answering questions posed by their customers, and usually address a handful during each Friday's Grab Bag session. One question a number of individuals has posed is how one goes about getting a second account. According to the Bearded Wonder, "Download the 14-day trial version. Sign up for an account via that method, using the trial disc cd-key and then you have the game up to the Catacombs client." He went on to say that, "If you want to enable additional expansions for the second account, you can do so, and we encourage it!" Questions ranged far and wide, and discussed equippage rights, seige engines, enchantments, crafting, and more. For example, does Greater Onslaught Mythirian have to be equipped by the siege driver, or can it be equipped by a secondary rider and still provide the move increase of 6? The answer: it must be equipped by the driver, specifically. Speaking of specifics, some people have noted that Pendragon and Normal frequently download the same files, and they rapidly grew weary of the ongoing duplication. the Bearded Wonder again strode to the rescue with the suggestion of using separate game installations for Live and Test. In addition to the questions -- all of which are available on last Friday's Grab Bag page -- there were a number of announcements, as well. On 25/26 April, the players of Gaheris (PvE) will host the first of three weekend events. DAoC version 1.94 is being worked on, and they hope to have it up on Pendragon soonish. On 10 May, a number of the DAoC team will be in Bethesda, Maryland, for a Camelot Road Trip, and they're requesting an RSVP if you're planning on attending. And, finally, they're giving qualified players the opportunity to apply for a PvE Ruleset, Thane, Wizard, or Bonedancer Team Lead position.
