Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 145 of 260)

      All Roads Return to WoW: Playing the Auction House

      July 26, 2010 /

      Hoarding your gold.

      It had been a few weeks and I was starting to lose interest in WoW. Well, I thought I was starting to lose interest. What was really happening is that I was only playing the few parts of the game I had yet to experience. I was running heroics – a lot of them – and kinda doing little else. I did go through a crafting spree, leveling jewelcrafting from 1-450 over the course of a few days, but I wasn’t doing all of the things I used to love about the game.

      The crafting was a start, but one of the things I really enjoyed in WoW was the Auction House. It seems a little see, and frankly there are a lot of games in the world with in-game currency houses, but nothing has gripped me quite like WoW. I love digging around to find deals, trying to find the hottest items, figuring out where sellers are over and under charging. For whatever reason it feels like a safe way to feed that gambling itch everyone seems to have (at least everyone I know). I’ve made thousands of gold over the past few days alone, and sure, it’s just pixels on a screen, but it does provide a simple thrill of success I find truly enchanting.

      There are other aspects of the game I’m slowly remembering to return to. More on that later.

      All Roads Return to WoW, News

      Vladimir patch should drop this week

      July 26, 2010 /

      Vladimir on TT.

      Riot has posted the skins and bundles pack for the upcoming Vladimir patch, which usually means we’ll see it in the next day or two. Of course, I’m going out of town during a major patch again so my impressions of the actual gameplay may be a bit delayed.

      His skins look surprisingly cool, though I think I like the clean, colonial looking getup the best. It also looks like he will be ranged, as many people have been wondering. Corki is also getting his one millionth skin in this patch. I don’t think Riot understands that more skins do not make people want to play a character more. In a way, it breeds a bit of animosity from Singed fans and the like – toons that only have one or two skins, basically.

      Zilean also gets a new skin, epically themed for dropping his peace bombs on the heads of his enemies. Hopefully we’ll see patchnotes soon so I can cover the inevitable Xin Zhao nerf.

      Reviews

      Vladimir is on release notice

      July 23, 2010 /

      Vladimir

      The latest in a string of culturally themed heroes is officially on release notice. Riot posted the “new champion approaches” post for Vladimir this afternoon, offering a cursory look at his skills and what looks to be his splash screen.

      Here’s the ability list:
      Transfusion: Vladimir drains the lifeforce of his target, dealing magic damage and healing himself for 25% of that amount.

      Sanguine Pool: Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood for 2.5 seconds, becoming untargetable and slowing enemies above him. Vladmir deals magic damage to targets above him and heals himself for 15% of that amount.

      Tides of Blood: Vladimir unleashes a torrent of blood, damaging surrounding enemies. Additionally, multiple Tides of Blood in a short period of time cause them to cost additional health and deal additional damage, and increases his healing and regeneration by 8%.

      Hemoplague (Ultimate): Vladimir infects the target area with a virulent plague increases the damage they take for 5 seconds. After 5 seconds, infected enemies take magic damage.

      Crimson Pact (Passive): Bonus health gives Vladimir bonus ability power, and every bonus ability power gives Vladimir bonus health (does not stack with itself).

      Unlike my original assumption, Vladimir’s resource system is his health (no crazy new crap to deal with). I wish I had more impressions about his skill list but it’s so hard to say how he’ll play without numbers and costs and all that. I thought Xin Zhao would be fun, but I had no idea he would have such low mana costs and such ridiculous damage output.

      Champions, league of legends

      Champion Sneak Peek: Vladimir

      July 23, 2010 /

      Vladimir.Amidst the tumultuous Season One release, Riot is still sticking to its frequent roll-out of new champion ideas and designs. The latest is Vladimir, the long-rumored vampire champion.

      Here’s the official word from ByronicHero:

      If you’re like me and you’ve ever gone through one of those dark, goth phases at some point in your life, you’ll probably relate to this next champion at least a little bit. Meet Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper. This champion combines the epic power of fueling his magic with the blood of his enemies with the style and flair of Transylvanian count. You know the type of count we’re talking about… the type that has a lifetime supply of liquid black eyeliner sitting in his medicine cabinet. So dust off that copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that you’ve got sitting on your nightstand. If you start reading now, you should be super excited by the prospect of getting your hands on Vladimir by the time you finish.

      I could be crazy, but it sounds an awful lot like Vladimir could be using yet another new resource system. Will we be seeing a range of vampiric toons, similar to the trio of ninjas?

      Development

      People really don’t know how to pick

      July 23, 2010 /

      MM is greatA friend and I wanted to play a couple quick games tonight to try to bump our solo 5v5 ELO beyond the levels of absurdity in which we currently wallow. I really wish this post was about our success.

      We started out fine, with an easy win because of some feeding on the part of our opponents. For our next game, though, the feeders were on our side. I had first picked Nidalee for a bit of variety. She’s not a strong first pick, but I am a strong player so I figured I’d be okay. The other team picked Shen and Annie, two very strong picks with high CC, a point I was sure to make to my team in no uncertain terms. We would need CC.

      Our next two picks were Yi and Karthus. I was right on the verge of losing my mind, but I just tried to even more emphatically express a need for hard CC. Our opponents chose Ashe and Morgana, which is a sealed fate, but I guess we still had two picks. Our teammate picks Katarina and my friend, seeing the comp, says screw it and picks Nasus. They last pick Janna. You can see the results above.

      I really thought there would be a serious ELO discrepancy based on the picks. These guys were obviously clueless, right? Well, right, but that doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to ELO. Despite my position at the top of the ELO list, my teammates were right in line with the enemy and fairly close to me. They just don’t know that zero hard CC versus a mix of the best CC in game is almost guaranteed to lose (barring some SERIOUS problems on the other team).

      league of legends

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