Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 123 of 260)

      Bullz-Eye game review: Civilization V

      October 9, 2010 /

      Civilization V reviewI’ve done a couple game reviews recently for our parent site, Bullz-Eye.com, so I thought I’d share them while I’m on a bit of a content hiatus. Most recently I had a chance to review Civilization V, which I really enjoyed. I’ve never been much of a Civ fan, so it was nice to find that I could learn to like the game.

      Here’s a quick excerpt:

      If there’s one thing RTS fans didn’t like about “Civilization,” it was the lack of warfare. In “Civilization V,” though, warfare is probably the most interesting aspect of the game. While building a robust economy can be fun, it’s typically easier to tech ahead of your enemies and rush them with mounted cavalry or rifleman while they’re still researching iron or steel. As I mentioned, the computer doesn’t manage troop movement well, and troops now have high enough mobility to allow for distance campaigns, which were nearly impossible in older versions of the game.

      You can check out the full Civilization V review at Bullz-Eye, alongside a smattering of PC game reviews and just about any console title review you might want.

      PC, Reviews, Strategy

      Life at the top

      October 9, 2010 /

      Man on a mountain top.I had a chance to browse the forums today (still not at home, still not totally stable with the internets) and found an interesting post from a summoner hoping to reach 1600 ELO. He, like me, has been hovering around 1550 and set up a few guidelines to help him make his way to the top.

      It’s a decent read, which I’ll let you do on the official forums, but more interesting to me were the responses from the community. There were plenty of “your dodge-worthy champions shouldn’t be dodged because of X (it always makes me laugh when someone uses the word “strong” near the word “Teemo”)” but players were also willing to give all kinds of advice for someone striving to reach 1600. The most interesting to me was, “Just play a TON of games, and have a win % > 50. Saw a dude today at 1620 who had a measly winning percent of 52 percent, but had 600 games under his belt.” It made me wonder, how often are top players winning games?

      The answer – not much more often than 50 percent. In fact, the top ten players have a collective 57.7 percent win rate. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, solo queue win rates are pretty close to 50 percent in most cases. That’s actually reassuring, because it means my own 56 percent win ratio is on par for me to continue climbing the ladder. Granted, I’m probably going to stall out at some point, but I can see that I’m at least winning as often as people who have stalled at the very top.

      league of legends

      Riot encourages employee interaction with the community, admits training may be necessary

      October 6, 2010 /

      Forum TrollIn all the recent activity on the forums (I won’t get into it here – head over there and read, or dig your way through the dev tracker), one post stuck out to me today, and got the attention of Riot president, Marc Merrill. The post points to an obvious trend – that every several weeks or so, a Riot employee mishandles a community issue and then has to publicly apologize for the action. It’s a frustrating thing to watch, because I really do believe in Riot’s ability to create and manage a community.

      The reason Merrill stepped in was to admit that the community interaction is encouraged, but that maybe there isn’t enough training around employee/consumer relations. Here’s what he said:

      I think it’s fair feedback.

      We have a goal of wanting everyone at the company to directly interact with the community to continue to foster relationships, but we probably need to improve our training in this area.

      We’re OK with taking our lumps when we’re out of line, it’s the only way we can improve!

      I couldn’t agree more. I’ve often been shocked by the things some Riot posters are willing to jump on and say. I wrote a while back that trolling is among the worst things you could do to your community, and I’m glad to see Marc looking for solutions to the problem. I’ve noticed it most from the recent community hires. If you read the forums much, you’ll see certain community members go from black or purple names to red, but still try to maintain the same identity in the public realm. While it’s fine for the people who know those members well, the responses can be jarring and off-putting to new members of the community.

      I hope Riot and its leadership continues to think on ways to improve the community experience. After all, this is a team game, and without the community around it, the game would wouldn’t be nearly as good.

      Editorial, league of legends

      When it rains, it pours, even for Riot

      October 5, 2010 /

      Flooding in NC.

      Servers are still down, and in the wake of the Milkfat fiasco (which I’m planning to cover in depth when I have the time to really dedicate to the issue), Riot’s having a hard time containing all the rage. When you stack a very short list of patch notes on top of it all, the community has exploded in a fit of rage.

      Normally, I’d give you an extended rundown of all the problems, the issues at stake, what have you. I’m tired, though, and I can really empathize with Riot this time around. Last week I saw more literal, physical rain than I have seen in my lifetime (some accounts are saying it was six months worth of rain in five days for North Carolina), and after traveling home I’ve had more hangups, mixups, and unexpected turns of planned events than I care to detail.

      The long and short of it – try to be understanding today. Though much of what Riot is dealing with is self-inflicted, it’s still a lot to juggle. Hopefully they can prove, as they have in the past, that they can handle everything and walk away with a little dignity.

      Editorial, league of legends, Patches

      Swain champion spotlight

      October 5, 2010 /

      I’m still in Ohio due to a family emergency for my girlfriend, but I’ll be trying to update as often as possible throughout the week. After watching this video, I’m crazy pumped to get back and give Swain a go, but I’m willing to bet he’ll become a highly desirable champion, much like Miss Fortune.

      Swain borrows a skill from DotA’s Witch Doctor with Torment, which deals increasing damage based on the damage you deal to the target while Torment is active. From what I remember of Maledict (the DotA version), this is a really fun mechanic and it’s great for bursting down carries when you have a team with a couple targeted nukes.

      You’ll also notice from the video that Swain’s ult works like Anivia’s, draining mana as long as it’s active but with unlimited duration and what looks to be a very short cooldown (eight seconds once Phreak has Deathfire Grasp and the golem buff in the video). All in all, I hope you guys have a lot of fun with Swain. I’m looking forward to getting some time with him.

      Champions, league of legends, News, Patches, Video

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑