Category: Development (Page 13 of 51)

      Notch back from vacation, Minecraft update coming soon

      February 15, 2011 /

      mc_cathedral

      The Minecraft community has been growing a bit restless over the past month or two, much like the League of Legends community, in the face of slow development. Notch, the game’s creator and primary developer, has been on vacation for a couple weeks. He’s back in the office, as he posted to his Tumblr today, and ready to crank out some new features.

      Here’s what he said:

      During the two weeks up until GDC, we’ll be working on finishing up the new game launcher and finishing up some new game features for the game, including an official white list implementation for the server and more types of half sized blocks.

      Personally, I’m excited about the changes. I host a small private server for a couple friends and none of us know our way around Linux particularly well. I also don’t really have the time right now to mess around with mods and all that, so the more features built into the basic server package, the better. The half block thing is also good news. I’ve been working on the cathedral type structure you see pictured above over the course of a week and a half and it’s the first time I’ve really done much with the half block pavers. They definitely open up some nice design features for structures.

      Development, Minecraft, News

      League Replays tool is pretty nice for three weeks of work

      February 15, 2011 /

      League Replays.Late last week I covered a new replay tool that had been developed by a couple guys from the League of Legends community. I tested League Replays out over the weekend before migrating to the new launcher (the replay client wasn’t working with the patcher but has since been updated) and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.

      The client works by recording network traffic, which means any requests sent to and information received from the Riot server is recorded so that it can be played back. Now, that also means limited information. You’ll notice that creep counts in game don’t update until you click on a player. The same is true for League Replays. I could only see health bar information and creep counts for the units my camera was focused on over the course of the game. The replay does, however, allow for free camera movement, so you can at least watch the other players move around the map.

      For three weeks of development and a completely free service, the client is damn good. Shortly after Riot released a new launcher in beta form, the guys from League Replays had their own client up and running with the new directory structure.

      If you’re in need of a replay system, be sure to check it out.

      Development, league of legends

      Maokai patch delayed, on schedule for some time this week

      February 15, 2011 /

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      Although most League of Legends patches drop on Tuesday, the Maokai patch has been delayed for some reason this week. Phreak responded to a post titled “Doesn’t tree come out tomorrow?” with the following:

      This week most likely. No promises on patch date.

      Phreak also mentioned in other threads that he finished the Maokai spotlight some time last night, so hopefully we’ll see that at some point today.

      Development, league of legends

      Patch preview: Vlad/Rammus/Anivia nerf and a Ryze remake

      February 12, 2011 /

      ryze_splash_4

      Riot posted a patch preview for the upcoming Maokai patch, and though it wasn’t presented in video form this go round, we still got a lot of good information. At the top of the list, for me personally anyway, is that Vlad is getting a nerf.

      You may remember Vladimir’s champion spotlight, if only because it was so funny to listen to Phreak tell us just how overpowered Vlad would be. Riot’s stance is that he’s not explicitly overpowered, which I can sort of agree with. Certain characters do very well against him, but a lot of toons don’t, and he snowballs way too fast with the bonus survivability he gets from his passive. His passive is getting a nerf, but probably more importantly so is Sanguine Pool. I’m excited, to say the least.

      Anivia is catching a nerf to her annoying ult -> E combo, which is almost a guaranteed 25 percent damage done to her target with very little required effort. The change will make it cost more mana for players to ‘pulse’ her ult, quickly toggling it on and then off, hopefully reducing the number of times that simple combo can land. I don’t think this will be quite enough, but we’ll see.

      Rammus is also getting nerfed, this time on his speed. Powerball bonus speed is down 15 percent. Again, I’m not entirely certain that this addresses his issues, but it should help. I can understand Riot’s resistance to nerfing tanks. There are relatively few tanks in the game – a heavy nerf to one tank makes the rest of the list look pretty sparse.

      Lastly, Ryze is getting a long awaited rework. I’ve played a few Ryze games recently. He’s pretty fun if he gets farmed, but the mechanics on Spell Flux make him unreliable in lane. The change will make him a ranged caster-carry. His spells will have shorter cooldowns, longer range, lower base damage, and scale with mana as well as AP. I’m actually really excited to try him out, though I wonder how Spell Flux now works. If the bounce range wasn’t increased with the cast range he could still feel a little frustrating.

      Some of the cooldown reduction items are getting a rework, but I’ll cover that in more detail once Riot releases the actual number changes.

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News, Patches

      Maokai official ability list announced

      February 10, 2011 /
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      Riot posted the official Maokai ability list to the forums today, and he already sounds different than the PC Gamer exclusive. I’m glad to say that – his ult sounds much better and it’s very cool that his traps deal damage when they land in addition to their explosion effect on detonate.

      Here’s the official list:

      Arcane Smash: Maokai slams the ground, the force of which knocks nearby enemies back and sends an arcane shockwave forward damaging and slowing his enemies.

      Twisted Advance: Maokai dissolves into a cloud of arcane energies. He regrows near a target enemy, dealing damage and rooting it in place.

      Sapling Toss: Maokai hurls a sapling, dealing damage on impact. The sapling becomes implanted in the ground warding a nearby area. When enemies approach, the sapling attacks, exploding in an arcane blast that damages enemies.

      Vengeful Maelstrom (Ultimate): Maokai shields his allies by drawing power from hostile spells and attacks, reducing non-tower damage done to allied champions in the area. Maokai can prolong the effect as long as he has mana to spend on it. When the effect ends, Maokai unleashes the absorbed energy to deal damage to enemies within the vortex.

      Sap Magic (Passive): Each time a champion near Maokai casts a spell, he gains a charge of Magical Sap. When he has 5 charges, his next melee attack drains energy from his target, healing Maokai for a percentage of his maximum HP.

      The fact that his ult deals damage in, at least from what I can see of the screenshots, a pretty decent radius makes this guy sound much better than he did yesterday. I also really like his art direction. I’m curious to see how the ground slam will play out. From the description it sounds as though it’s a close range knockback but a long range slow.

      Be on the watch for him this coming Tuesday.

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

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