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'League of Legends' studio buys a fighting game powerhouse
Riot Games, the studio in charge of League of Legends, acquired Radiant Entertainment and all of its fighting game technology this week. Radiant is staffed by popular figures in the fighting game community, including former Street Fighter commentator and Capcom community manager Seth Killian. The studio was created by Tom Cannon and Tony Cannon, who are also founders of the world's largest fighting game tournament, the Evolution Championship Series. Radiant has two titles under its belt: the free, online fighting game Rising Thunder and the town-building simulator Stonehearth.
Steam Greenlight sneaks out six more games, one more app
Steam let six games and one piece of software through its Greenlight service last week during E3, granting each the ability to be distributed on the platform. The greenlit games were Assetto Corsa by Kunos Simulazioni, DreadOut by Digital Happiness, Benjamin Hill's Ether One, GunZ 2: The Second Duel by MAIET Games, Stonehearth by Radiant Entertainment and Ben Falcone's first-person survival horror game for Oculus Rift, The Forest. Stonehearth, a sandbox strategy game, recently raised $751,920 on Kickstarter. Heaven Benchmark by Unigine was the lone piece of software that community approval last week.
Crowdfund Bookie, May 26 - June 1: Stonehearth, TUG, Son of Nor
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter campaigns for Stonehearth, TUG, Son of Nor, Tiny Keep, Sissyfight 2000, Redwall: The Warrior Reborn and Welcome to Boon Hill came to a close. Radiant Entertainment's Stonehearth brought in the most money this week ($751,920), and also had the most backers of the group, with 22,844 people funding the project. Son of Nor ended the week with the highest average pledge per person, with each funder averaging $67.37. Check out the results and our fancy charts after the break.
Stonehearth builds a giant tips bucket on Kickstarter [update: goal met]
Stonehearth, a blocky sandbox strategy game from Radiant Entertainment, has taken to Kickstarter for funding. Set in a fantasy realm, Stonehearth is a Windows PC game in which you nurture the development of a small band of humans. Stonehearth utilizes procedurally generated terrain and dynamic AI encounters to instill variety into each play session. The game's also been built to be highly moddable; it will ship with tools and guides to help people customize just about everything. By the time you're reading this, Stonehearth will in all likelihood have met its goal of $120,000, with 28 days left to go. [Update: Just as we thought, Radiant has met its goal of $120,000.] If $200,000 is raised, Mac and Linux ports will be developed. Meanwhile, you can also vote for Stonehearth on Steam Greenlight.
The AV map imbalance in patch 2.3
Alterac Valley has never been completely balanced. Before patch 2.3, most people generally agreed that the map favored the Alliance, but now, we can see that it favors the Horde. The difference mainly lies in which parts of the map are most important, and how either side can use the terrain differences to win the game. Before, the only way to win the game was to kill the opposing faction's general; anything less was effectively an on-going stalemate. But now that we have reinforcements, the general will automatically die of grief and shame once too many towers fall and players bite the dust, regardless of whether he's actually seen the enemy or not. This seemingly simple shift has totally turned the faction imbalance on its head, and placed the game entirely in Horde hands to prosecute as they choose. Assuming a relative equality of gear, player skill and morale (and of course AFKers), the Horde can decide to make AV a slow but certain victory, or else toss the dice and make it a quick but uncertain race to the end. Keep reading to see how they do it, and why the Horde can't play their ultimate best if they want to play at all.
