Some of you may recognize the name Jon St. John. Yeah, he has a badass name in real life, but he’s also done voice acting for one well-known and incredibly delayed badass: Duke Nukem. Well, Jon St. John has a new project, and one that could be of interest to LoL players. He’s doing voice acting for Valve’s version of DotA.
I don’t really have any details, and frankly, the DotA moniker comes from JSJ, not from Valve. What we do know is that Valve hired IceFrog (the mind behind DotA (along with Zileas)) to make something to please DotA fans. Jon St. John posted to his Twitter account this weekend that he has been doing voice work for DotA at Valve Software. I’m not sure why he would call out the name of the game without hearing it from Valve, and if they didn’t give him the go ahead, you can bet he wouldn’t be talking about it.
This doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot for the LoL community, but it could be bad news for any HoN fans out there. I’ve played a bit of HoN and been completely unimpressed, so it’s not like the name DotA will kill a game like LoL. It could kill HoN, though, especially with the kind of money Valve has. What could be a problem for LoL is just that – the money.
Valve could very easily sweep in on LoL territory with more bank, more developers, but more importantly, more support. With better server uptime and the bankroll to back a quicker development cycle, Valve could make a dent in the LoL player base. That’s not to say Valve will do that, just that it could with the resources it has. Valve was notoriously slow with some of the TF2 developments, though, even if TF2 has a massive player base. Let’s also not forget that IceFrog did work on HoN, and we can all see how well that’s going.
In short, I think it’s totally possible that Valve is working up a DotA clone and it has the potential to make a bit of a stink for the big players in the MOBA world. There are so many variables, though, that Valve has a long way to go before
A few months back, Riot announced that it was developing a Mac OS X client for League of Legends. Why don’t we have it yet?
This isn’t a, “why are you ruining my life, Riot?” post, but rather a “please, please, please make this a reality,” post. I committed to avoid buying a gaming laptop some time ago, mostly because it isn’t truly a laptop. I don’t want a 17-inch screen, I don’t want it to weigh 11 pounds. I want portability and functionality without egregious size. That said, LoL isn’t exactly a taxing game, and it would be nice to log in when the night is winding down and try to pick up a quick game with the new champions and features when I’m not at my home machine.
I’m guessing it will come some time in late fall, though it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see it pushed to the holiday season.
If you’ve had a chance to play this weekend, you may have noticed the lack of change in your win count. No, it’s not a bug. It’s one of the ways Riot is hoping to maintain as much uptime as possible for the changeover to Season One.
With regard to the wins, it’s an issue of stat recording. They’re revamping the internals, so you don’t keep any wins you might accrue over the weekend. Kinda sucks, but I’m not too worried about those disappearing from my stat record if I get access to a much more robust system in a few days. I do wonder, though, what kind of stats we’ll get to see for legacy games. I know those games will still be private, but will they get the full analysis package of the other games?
I’m glad to see Riot is taking precautions for uptime around the Season One launch. Here’s hoping the rest goes smoothly.
Riot hasn’t released any more information regarding the inaugural season, other than pointing to the original Season One preview. Also, I should point out one very important word in Pendragon’s post – “targeting.” No guarantees on next Tuesday, folks.
I’m hoping Season One is as cool as it has the potential to be. I’ll mostly be playing the Solo 5v5 playlist, with the occasional 3v3 when I have friends online. I think it will be tough for me to find a solid 5v5 team, despite my active play schedule. I do tend to split my time these days, playing a few games here and there between a more active work schedule. I’m willing to bet most serious 5v5 teams will want to get a lot of playtime in over the next couple days.
With a game like LoL it’s hard for me to remember that there’s an attempt at some sort of backstory for the characters and locations. It makes me wonder, are any of you guys into that stuff?
When I played WoW I got marginally interested in the lore. Every now and again it was nice to forget about the grind and focus on the motivation for doing a particular quest or dungeon. The Nesingwary quests were a lot of fun in Outland and Northrend (the STV ones were pretty awful). LoL doesn’t cater to that kind of “motivation” right now. When draft mode launches I guess you could pit warring factions against one another.
This. Is. Hilarious. Make sure you turn your speakers down a bit because the highs are all kinds of tinny, but it’s funny/nerdy/cool all the same. Props to these guys.
If there’s one thing League of Legends is missing, it’s monster champions. Today, Riot gave us a sneak peek at something that is finally non-humanoid: Kog’Maw, the Mouth of the Abyss.
Kog’Maw made his first appearance back when Malzahar launched, in the picture above. A lot of people thought that might be his original voidling skin, but it turns out that’s actually our boy, Kog’Maw. Unfortunately the picture is the only thing we have to go on at this point. I think he looks pretty cool, I’m just hoping his mouth-related abilities aren’t quite as buggy as the gentlemanly Cho’Gath.
Pendragon included a silhouette of our new champion in the official post, but I think the pic above does him more justice. I’m as excited about this guy as I’ve been about any of the recent champions I can remember. I’m also kind of happy that the Test Realm is down because it makes his release a little more mysterious. I can’t wait to see a skill list.
I know from the comments that a couple of you have been wondering where I’ve been. Posts have been a little sporadic over the last week, but I can happily invoke Paul Newman from The Color of Money when I say, “Baby, I’m back!” I had been busy with some other projects for work and I got out of town over the holiday weekend to visit good friends from college.
I’ll have full updates on the changes to LoL over the course of the day today, but in the meantime, here are a few updates from my weekend in upstate PA. First, Hudson Four Grain Bourbon Whiskey is incredible, and a great bottle to share with three other friends. Using grubs on a hot day can land you some enormous bass. Halo 2 on a LAN is still one of the best ways to wait out a rainstorm and always bring chips when there’s salsa or you’ll be horribly disappointed.
The patch that introduces Garen has officially gone live on the Test Realm. So far I’ve only had the chance to sneak two games, one of which crashed in epic fashion so I’ll have to hold out on the real feedback. I can give some impressions, though, regarding the newest addition to the League of Legends list of champions.
First, I can’t help but think that Garen is the Tryndamere remake and they’re just going to delete Tryndamere from the game. Obviously I don’t really believe that, but if you look at his skills there are some perplexing similarities. Judgement is like Spinning Slash, but with much greater damage output potential and slow immunity. Courage reduces incoming damage (a bit like Mocking Shout). He has an active skill that deals extra damage and crits and, just for good measure, silences too. His ult is definitely different but for overall “feel” I’d say the two are a close pair.
I’ll try to get another game in tonight but I’ll definitely have some more detailed analysis on the Garen playstyle tomorrow.
There’s been a lot of back and forth in the community about Kennen so I thought it would be appropriate to put together a full guide. I’ve fallen in love with the midget ninja and I’ve been playing him to great success in most every game I’ve tried. Kennen is one of the strongest gankers in the game and, when played well, provides excellent utility and killing power to a solid team. He will easily carry a team if his opponents allow him any kind of farm.
I build Kennen AP, despite all the claims of his poor AP ratios. Personally, I think his AP ratios are excellent, good enough that they might catch a nerf in the near future. For runes, I roll with magic pen marks, dodge seals, cooldown reduction per level glyphs, and health quints. I go back and forth on masteries but for this guide I’ll recommend a 9/21/0 build, taking the 15% spell pen from the offense tree and making sure to grab the extra health and the 4% damage reduction from defense. The rest is up to you.
For summoner skills I take Cleanse and Ignite, but Ghost, Exhaust, and Teleport if your team needs it are all good options.
Kennen is a very powerful farmer so I always like to take him mid solo. Grab a health crystal, get to lane, and get ready to farm. At level 1 I have 820 health, which is a ton for a mid toon. Most of my opponents are somewhere around 500, so I have a huge advantage early. I take Thundering Shuriken (his Q skill) first and focus on last hitting. At level 2 and 3 take one rank of your other skills to prep for your combo. Keep last hitting to get up a decent farm.
Kennen is an excellent harasser. I take Electrical Surge at level 2 so that I can keep my mark count on my target as often as possible. Whenever I have the chance I like to Shuriken my opponent. I’ll then use either the passive from Electrical Surge or the active to keep my marks up. The active has surprisingly good range and can be used any time a nearby target has a mark. Try to always have at least two marks on your target so he’s prepped for a gank. At level 3 you can start rolling with your combo. Without boots your opponent will have a hard time avoiding Lightning Rush. I try to get a stack or two on the target and then Lightning Rush in. The stun procs some extra energy so I can Shuriken again while I’m standing on top of my target and auto attack for some harass and hopefully another mark from the Electrical surge passive. The high early health pool allows me to soak a little minion damage and bring my opponents down to half health or so. Once you have your opponent to half health you should be able to get an easy kill. Again, work up two marks on the target while you farm, regen some energy, build up your Electrical Surge passive and Lightning Rush in. Your stun procs extra energy again and with an auto attack you gain a mark, Shuriken will net you a mark, set your ignite and then auto attack the target down. As they start to run away you should have plenty of energy for a quick Electrical Surge active for a second stun. This combo is your bread and butter until you have your ult. Obviously it relies on your ability to keep marks on your target, so get some practice, even on bots if you want.
For the rest of early game you’ll main Shuriken for the cooldown reduction and increased damage. I follow that with Lightning Rush, again for cooldown reduction and because the damage scales better for the early game than Electrical Surge. Obviously, you want to take your ultimate as often as possible and save consecutive ranks of Electrical Surge for the end of the game.
You should find it very easy to farm. In the mid lane it’s important that you only last hit. You want to keep your target closer to your turret so you don’t have to dive for the kill. I typically wait until I have 1400g, which should be around level 5 or 6, before heading back to base to pick up Haunting Guise and my boots.
At 6 your ganking power only improves. If you’ve done a good job farming your Guise will give the penetration needed for some early kills on targets with low magic resistance. Stack up a mark or two (preferably two) and Lightning Rush in. Once rush hits I Shuriken and start to auto attack for the duration of the stun, planting one mark on my target and dealing a little damage. Once stun ends (which is fast, don’t get me wrong), I pop my ult, which drops another mark and then Electrical Surge for a second stun. You may have to wait a second for the energy to Surge, but if you prepped your target correctly you should have a mark waiting on your Surge passive just in case. That combo alone will kill most targets at 6. Thankfully, you brought Ignite for anyone that might be a little more durable. Read the rest of this entry »
With a game like LoL it’s hard for me to remember that there’s an attempt at some sort of backstory for the characters and locations. It makes me wonder, are any of you guys into that stuff?
