Category: Dominion (Page 3 of 4)

Dominion Impressions: everything’s new again

September 22, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I realize it was a bit of a tease to post that I was playing Dominion yesterday without a full writeup. Well, there was no writeup because I was busy making this video! It’s a full game of Dominion with lots of commentary by yours truly.

For those of you at work or who can’t otherwise watch the video, here’s a quick summary. Bascially, Dominion is pretty cool. I only got 4-5 games in yesterday, so my impressions are based on limited experience, but still, it was a lot of fun.

There are loads of new items in the game, which you’ve surely seen in the store on Summoner’s Rift. There’s also a new buff in the game, which is pretty much my one complaint about Dominion. The buff gives the bearer’s attacks a nuke proc and also grants the bearer a shield that refreshes if he isn’t hit for 10 seconds. At max rank it’s a 525 hp shield. I think it’s a little broken, but I explain more in the video.

Check out the video, and as always, comment, subscribe, and like the video if you enjoyed it.

Dominion, league of legends, Video

Dominion Beta opens today – first window at 11AM EST

September 21, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Can it be? Could good news beget more good news? Yes, dear friends, as the title of this post suggests, the Dominion beta does indeed start today, with the first window starting…now!

I’m actually loading into a game as I type this. I’m playing Zilean, hoping that his speed will bring the kind of mobility and pain that you need for Dominion to work.

Alrighty, first game was a win. Went into the second game as Teemo and did really well in the early game but was up against a Jax. That champ could very easily break this game mode from what I saw (mind you, in one game). I’m going into a third game now playing as Jax to see what I think.

If you’re at home, jump online and get into some Dominion. It’s been a blast so far!

Dominion, league of legends, News

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Dominion to see limited beta release for all players

September 18, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Tamat announced at the end of last week that Dominion will be playable in the near future as part of a limited beta. Basically the game mode will be enabled during off-peak hours for anyone to play, but only for a limited amount of time.

I like the idea; it will be nice to get our hands on the game type early and hopefully the data will help produce a smooth release. As always, though, the issue is timing. You may remember this sort of thing happened with Twisted Treeline. It was available in limited doses early on, but there was a pretty significant gap between the first look at Twisted Treeline and its actual release.

That’s my big worry with Dominion. I already posted that it might get pushed back until October, but let’s consider a timeline in which testing gets started this week. I would imagine we’ll have at least two weeks of testing, followed by at least one week of development based on gathered data, followed by another week of internal testing before deploy. That’s four weeks, which puts us into the middle of October. Honestly, I think that’s best case scenario. It seems totally plausible to me that Dominion won’t fully launch until November.

I really hope that’s not the case. Dominion looks like a blast, but I’m not sure it will be able to keep all of my attention once we’re in the thick of the fall release schedule.

Dominion, league of legends

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Dominion potentially delayed until October

September 6, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Things have been extremely quiet at Riot headquarters of late. The forums have been utterly devoid of red posts concerning Dominion, the end of Season One, and the beginning of Season Two in the last week or so. This wouldn’t be all that shocking – Riot has always struggled to provide good communication about timing – but we had been hearing about those things and in quantity for the three weeks or so prior.

From the time Dominion was announced until about three weeks ago, Riot was pumping the Dominion hype. We got the Dominion minisite, gameplay vids at the major gaming news outlets, plenty of screenshots, and chances to play the game at several industry events. We saw Rioters play pros, Rioters play Rioters. We got excited.

Next we were told about the end of Season One and the rewards that end entailed. For the first time since the launch of Season One players had something more than just winning/losing/farming IP to worry about. It was a great announcement, and hopefully a challenge a few people enjoyed as much as I did.

This past week, though, it was dead silent. I thought that meant Dominion was on the way. I thought that meant we’d see it before Q4 of this year, which is when every other game I’ve been excited about for the past several years is coming out. Sadly, that’s probably not the case. RiotRara finally posted in the forums today regarding the timing of Riven and the patch that follows her.

Here’s the quote:

Riven, and the changes within her patch, will be coming next week. As we previously announced, Season One will conclude with our next scheduled game update. Therefore we will also be calculating the Season One Ladder rankings and rewards during downtime for this patch.
Additionally, there will be an extra week (3 weeks total) between the Riven patch and the patch to follow. This extra time will ensure we bring you the best content possible in League of Legends.

I can’t imagine “best content possible” is code for anything other than Dominion. Three weeks from next Tuesday is October 4th. I’m not impressed, Riot. Not at all.

Development, Dominion, league of legends, News, Patches

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Does a Quiet Riot Mean Dominion is Inbound?

September 1, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Things have been awfully quiet from Riot’s offices over the past two weeks. We got the Talon release a week-and-a-half ago, but since then the only thing we’ve seen is the Karthus/Cassiopeia disable. Red forum posts have mostly been of a community flavor, with really nothing in the way of significant game discussion. Obviously the prevailing theory is that we’re about to get our paws on Dominion.

I hope it’s true. By this time we usually have at least a Champion Sneak Peek and sometimes an Art Spotlight. Riot will have some very restless customers on its hands if Dominion isn’t ready by patch day of next week (which I would like to stress again is Tuesday).

The Dominion launch is sort of a precarious thing for Riot. People will obviously be shot up about having a new game mode to play, but we’ve also been promised all sorts of things in the past that just haven’t been delivered. I hope Riot gets this one right.