Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 78 of 260)

Brand Champion Spotlight released

April 12, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

The Brand Champion Spotlight is live, giving us a look at his skills in action. I’m pretty excited about Brand – his passive doesn’t seem crazy strong, even if I am a bit worried about those high-MR targets. Judging by what we can see, I’d say the only thing I don’t like about him off the bat is that it’s a little difficult to see when his Conflagrate actually casts. That’s a pretty minor complaint compared to a couple of recent releases.

I really like the shift toward skirmishing heroes over teamfight/tanky heroes. The fact that Pyroclasm only has a couple bounces makes it really devastating against two heroes, but sort of average against more than that. It’s a solid balance idea that should hopefully keep him from just solo-nuking entire teams.

Champions, league of legends, News, Patches

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FG Minecraft Mondays are on – 8 PM EST

April 11, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Last week was LoL week, which means we’re on to Minecraft this week. I know 8 is a little early for some of you west coasters, but I’ve got a commitment later in the evening. As usual, we’ll be playing on the server DarkTide, which you can locate at mc.thedarktide.net. Log in, check out the main city, and if you want to stick around, make a post on their minecraftforum.net thread with your info and you’ll be whitelisted to build.

I currently run a town on the server by the name of Landfall. We’re way up north, currently working to expand our protected regions. Log on and check us out. You can find me playing as “TheWuggler.”

FG Minecraft Mondays, Minecraft

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Achievements, statistics and weather to hit Minecraft 1.5

April 9, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Notch made a blog post this week announcing the official release date for Minecraft. The post also detailed some of the features we can expect in 1.5, not the least of which is the return of weather. Weather used to be in the game but was removed at some point for resource management concerns. It’s making a comeback, as are achievements and statistics.

I’m curious to see how achievements and stats will be tracked. I’d love to be able to log in to Minecraft.net to compare my stats and achievements to those of my friends. It will be interesting to see the types of achievements that Mojang thinks are most difficult or interesting to get.

Jens Bergensten – one of the coders at Mojang – has also been tweeting a good bit about adding the piston mod to Minecraft. It’s not definite, but if he’s spending a lot of time on it I’d be willing to bet that it will make an appearance in some way, shape, or form.

Development, Minecraft, News

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Mojang sets Minecraft launch date for 11/11/2011

April 8, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I spend so much time in Minecraft it’s hard to believe that the game isn’t done. It is so far beyond any game experience I have had in recent memory, largely due to the huge development community that backs the game. It is a fantastic experience, one I can hardly overstate and something that every self-respecting gamer should spend time on (I play on a server called DarkTide under the name “TheWuggler” if anyone would like to join). Mojang, the game’s developer, has set an official release date for Minecraft, which is still in beta. The target: 11/11/2011.

You probably know that date well. A lot of other games are targeting the golden date for release, not the least of which is Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. As Notch mentioned on his blog announcing the release, Minecraft won’t have a proper release date like many other games. There are already millions of registered players, and Mojang continues to update the game on a regular basis.

From Notch’s blog:

It’s a bit tricky to really do a release for Minecraft as we keep updating it all the time. For one, the version we deem as the “full version” won’t be very different at all from what the game was like a week ago, and we’ll keep adding features after the release as well, so it’s really more of a milestone when we finally get rid of the Beta label, and some kind of goal for us to work towards. The plan is to be open with this and try to get people to cheer us on as much as possible, but to be open with the fact that the game won’t change much at the actual release day. (It’s more a progress up until that point).

Progress is right – the game just released an update that added wild wolves to the mix of creatures. The wolves can be tamed and used as player pets, aiding in the hunt for delicious porkchops or, my favorite game, other players.

How many more times can I say in one post that I love Minecraft…I LOVE MINECRAFT. Seriously, check it out.

Reviews

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Brand ability list arrives early

April 8, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

The official Brand ability list showed up pretty early this week – sometime yesterday evening if I saw correctly. It’s nice to see a champ in the mix that isn’t tanky DPS, though I do wonder if his ult won’t be a little strong. Let’s take a look at the skills.

Sear: Brand launches a ball of fire forward that deals magic damage. If the target is ablaze, the target will be stunned.

Pillar of Flame: After a short delay, Brand creates a pillar of flame at a target area, dealing magic damage to enemy units within the area. Units that are ablaze take additional damage.

Conflagration: Brand conjures a powerful blast at his target, dealing magic damage to them. If the target is ablaze, the conflagration spreads to nearby enemies.

Pyroclasm (Ultimate): Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire, dealing damage each time it bounces. If a target is ablaze, Pyroclasm’s missile speed increases.

Blaze (Passive): Brand’s basic abilities light his targets ablaze, dealing a percentage of their maximum Health in magic damage per second.

I really like the synergy of his passive with his other skills. The overall strength of the passive will of course be determined by just how much of a percentage of the target’s health it deals. It’s interesting to see Riot trying to address the Tanky DPS issue directly through character design. I think it’s important to remember that the characters this passive plays best against are characters that already tend to stack a decent amount of magic resistance. My guess is that, even with the passive, Brand won’t stand a chance against a fairly tanky team. Magic resistance will negate a large portion of the damage, just as it does with characters like Kog’Maw and items like Bloodrazor/Deathfire Grasp.

I’m also interested in Brand’s ultimate design. Are we seeing a return to the AoE metagame? Be sure to check back on Tuesday for my impressions.