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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.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Pooling your efforts to win LoL games
Winning in League of Legends isn't only about skill. Sometimes you completely rock your lane and go 7/0 in laning phase yet manage to lose the game. Blaming your team is totally reasonable there, but the truth is probably closer to home than you think. A team that is working together will prevail regardless of the strength of its individual members and in most cases regardless of its strategic decisions. I've had games where we had one losing lane and no other big lane advantages (I stole a blue buff once, and both junglers took some Flashes but didn't get any big wins), then went on to utterly destroy the enemy because we pulled together as a team despite having a 5/0 Riven on the enemy team. I've also had games where we had two people with over 5 kills in laning phase and still managed to lose.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Bringing power from one LoL lane to another
In most of the League of Legends games that I win by a landslide, I win because my mid lane takes an early lead and uses it to help win our other lanes. Lately, my main role in League of Legends has been the jungler, and while it's nice to be fed as a jungler, I often can't win the game for my team even if I'm 6/0. However, my mid lane can simply by making things happen elsewhere. If you're ahead in your lane, you have to make your presence known, and sooner is better than later. It's nice to be 2/0 in mid lane or be up several kills as the support. However, if all you do from there is push the enemy team members to their turret and let them farm safely, you're not doing much to win the game as a whole.
The Guild Counsel: Why is it so hard to say congratulations?
When was the last time you said congratulations to someone in game? And no, I don't mean the spammy "congrats" when someone in guild gains a level, an AA, a skill up, a crafting combine, or any of the dozen other milestones that pop up every day in chat. Those are the easy congratulations because the accomplishment has no direct effect on you. I'm talking about the congratulations when someone beats you in game. You might be in a duel or battleground, and the other guy ends up taking you out. You might be racing for a named mob, and the other guy gets there first. Or you might be in that guild that always seems to fall just a bit short and winds up the bridesmaid when it comes to guild progression. There is plenty of competition in MMOs, but you rarely see much sportsmanship from players. In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll look at why it's so hard to say "congrats" and why that has an effect on guilds as well as on the communities overall.
Blood Sport: Having fun in the arena, part 2
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple Rank 1 Gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in Blood Sport. My internet is still down. Yes, this has been two weeks of hell. No Google, no easy check on the weather (I have a motorcycle), no instant directions -- and most importantly, no images or videos of scantily clad ... orcs. World of Warcraft has been out of my bloodstream for yet another week. Having fun in arena is one aspect I don't necessarily need a WoW window open to write about, so we're going to cover some bases that I might have forgotten last week -- namely, how to be a good teammate and encourage a fun atmosphere, and having fun while both winning and losing.
The Perfect Ten: MMO forum terms beaten to death
If there's one aspect of MMO culture that I have difficulty saying anything positive about, it would have to be the official forum. No matter how well-moderated and well-intentioned studio forums may be, they're essentially giant signs broadcasting "COME WHINE HERE!" When you witness a 500-page thread that's responding to a badly spelled rant about a nerf we'll all forget about in a month's time, it's hard not to break down and weep at the time and energy lost to such trivial stupidity. And with the forums -- and to a lesser extent, comments on blogs, Twitter, and telegraphs -- comes a shocking array of linguistic conformity. You see, when people are upset or eager to prove a point, they have no time to sit down and calmly think of a way to fully communicate their perspectives. No time! Instead, they reach deep into the well of the same overused words and phrases, give them a hearty kick in the direction of their post, and feel as though they've conjured up a masterful work of literature. So today I'm going to exorcise 10 of the most overused, abused, and tired forum terms seen daily in your local MMO forum. Then I will move on with my life and suggest you do the same.
'Charlie Sheen Crossing' crosses Charlie Sheen with Animal Crossing
We're not sure what to make of Charlie Sheen Crossing, which combines the quotes ... nay, teachings of the temporarily-unemployed actor with screenshots from the Animal Crossing franchise. Is it a hilariously off-kilter thought experiment? Random mish-mash of words and pictures? Shameless cash-in on human fallibility? We're too jacked up on tiger blood to care. [Thanks, Ron]
Win some real-life loot from screenshot contests
We've got not one but two different screeshot contests that have shown up on the tip line lately. First off, our friend Mep, who runs WoW Screenshots, has gotten his contest all up and running, and you can go over and upload a screenshot or vote for the winners over there right now. His contest runs through September 20th, and the prize is a mousepad with your winning screenshot printed right on it. Pretty groovy custom prize -- we can't wait to see what kinds of screenshots rise to the top.And Chris also emailed us about a new site he's started up called Epic Screens. It's another screenshot database (a little competition is a good thing, right?), and he's hosting his own best screenshot contest, with two copies of vanilla WoW on the line (perfect, he says, for Recruit-a-friend). He doesn't have a final date (or any other official rules posted), so we're guessing you just head on over there and submit some shots, and if you win, he'll let you know. Sounds like fun -- let the screenshot competitions begin!
The Daily Grind: What addicts you to MMOs?
PvPer? PvE lover? Are you all about the raids? Are you in it for the small group content? Achievement grabber? Battlegrounds dominator?What drives your passion for MMOs? We usually put this type of stuff into more catch-all terms, such as "PvE player" or "PvP player" but we want to know exactly what pulls you into MMOs. No more of this beating around the bush and talking about large swaths of content.So today's question is thus -- what is that one element that really keeps you coming back for more? It could be from any game or any genre, we just want to know what it is. Tell us a nice story about why it excites you so much as well, because we want to know what makes you tick.When you feel the need for speech then head on down to our comment box and go to town. Let your keyboard free your feelings and shout them out for the whole internet to hear!Ready, steady, go!
Forum post of the day: Heals and heels
Decent healing is often a key factor in determining victory and defeat in a battle ground. Resto and Holy specced characters have quite the job set out for them. Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans regularly face a healing quandary. Is it better to spend time and man healing another player or continuing to do as much damage as possible. Zanhart of Medivh believes that any character than can heal in the battlegrounds, should heal. He finds it particularly insulting when a player heals him or herself while comrades die around them. Some agreed with him that anyone who can heal should, but most people dissented. There were several themes to the responses: Paying a subscription fee allows any player the right to play however they like. DPSers in substandard gear are a waste of heals and mana. Non-healing specs often have such poor healing abilities that the battleground is better off with them continuing to dps. Some people just don't find healing to be fun.
What to do about perpetual losers?
Many Alliance players have this impression that the Horde is constantly united, more cooperative, and generally understands how to play better than the Alliance does. Whether this is true or not is not something I myself can speak for, though I have heard my Horde friends say they have just as many clueless PvP people as the Alliance does. So perhaps both factions can relate to Mendax's complaint that so many people seem to go into the battlegrounds with no idea how to win, and somehow fail to learn how, even in spite of playing a great deal and getting a lot of good gear. Their tendency is just to go in and lose over and over again, repeating the same old proven-to-fail methods for various reasons: possibly because they don't know anything better, possibly because they don't care anymore, and possibly because they've already identified themselves, their faction, or everyone else in their faction as born losers.In any case, Mendax thinks that Blizzard should make the battlegrounds themselves reward you for better play, so that the game mechanics themselves encourage you to play in such a way that you're more likely to actually win. First of all, they could provide more honor for kills near contested objectives (such as flags or towers), and secondly, they could deny all bonus honor if you lose. His first idea quite interesting -- I like the possibility that the reward system of the battlegrounds could somehow teach you to play better in itself, if that's really possible. However, while I can understand his reasoning in removing all bonus honor gain for losing teams, I think this would just make the "losers" stop queueing up altogether. We might be happy to get rid of whiners, complainers and all them, but in the end would the increase the waiting time in between battles be worth it? And in any case, would the "losers" really go away, or would they just look for ways to get around the system?
WoW Insider BlizzCon-tests update
So here's what my BlizzCon Bingo card looks like so far. All I need is to see someone play Zul'Aman, and I'm done. I found it kind of funny that most of the stuff wasn't very hard to come by-- Mohr didn't need a lot of prodding to do his Walken impression this evening, and instead of a Leroy Jenkins impersonator, we got the real thing (Ben Schulz, who really was Leeroy Jenkins, walked out on stage during the Sound-a-Like contest). And even if I don't catch Zul'Aman, tomorrow night I'll definitely see L70ETC play, so my BlizzCon Bingo is all but won.And speaking of winning, I still have my prize-- no one came up to me on the floor and asked for it, so I still have a prize to give away. I believe we have a few prizes left, so let's do our find-a-blogger contest again tomorrow-- if you find a WoW Insider blogger on the BlizzCon exhibit floor before anyone else, and ask about the contest, we'll give you a prize. A ton of stuff has happened at BlizzCon already, but we have a whole other day left-- see you on day 2!
Proudest PSP gaming achievement [Update 1]
I was playing Killzone: Liberation today and it's quite a challenging game. I began to fantasize about how proud I would be once I beat the game. That thought made me think back on all my prior gaming victories and wonder which one was the biggest accomplishment. I think for me it was probably beating Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. When I was a kid I was as good at Mega Man games as I now am at remembering other people's birthdays, so it made me especially proud to beat it. So what PSP game did you find the most challenging? Also, what PSP gaming achievement (winning a game or doing something amazing) are you most proud of? [Update 1: Fixed formatting error.]
Winning Eleven DS site gets updated with new commercial
The Japanese website for Winning Eleven DS World Soccer updated today, including a new commercial for the game. Upon viewing the commercial, if you're hungry for more soccer goodness on the DS, you can check out some of the You Tube videos here and here.See also: Winning Eleven delayed in Japan Winning Eleven bundle includes carrying case as well Winning Eleven special edition DS [Via Go Nintendo]
Winning Eleven bundle includes carrying case as well
With the delay and super-snazzy bundle, Winning Eleven DS has been quite the topic lately. Well, another incentive to pick up the game has just been revealed in the equally-snazzy DS Lite carrying bag. While the special edition DS has seen equal parts criticism and acclaim, we're certain this bag will help bring some of the bundle's critics over to the other side (or at least help line some pockets through ebay).[Via Go Nintendo]
