Category: league of legends (Page 87 of 163)

Riot launches the League of Legends merch store

December 27, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Welcome back, everybody. I hope you’ve been enjoying your holidays so far. My heart goes out to those of you at work today, so I’ll be trying to put some posts up to help fill your time at the office. My own holidays have been great (thanks for asking), though I’ve probably gained a solid ten pounds as a result of my own crippling gluttony.

The first bit of news today is that Riot has opened the League of Legends merchandise store. As of right now, you can pick up a graphic T-shirt with a variety of champions for about $20. You can also have the T-shirt customized with your summoner name, which is pretty nerd-chic. There are also posters on sale for $10.

I’m guessing we’ll see the typical gaming swag added to the store over the next couple weeks. Coffee mugs, hats, hoodies, etc, should all be making an appearance, but I’ll be interested to see if they come up with something cool. The shirts are pretty cool and the prices are reasonable. If you’ve got some extra holiday cash to spend, get out there and spend it.

league of legends, News

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Still not sure how I feel about the dragon changes

December 22, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Though I’ve spent most of my gaming time in Cataclysm lately, I have been sneaking a few games of LoL with my brother. There’s been a lot for both of us to catch up on, though the dragon change has probably had the most impact. Teams are definitely playing the game differently now that dragon is worth so much gold.

One of the most interesting setups I’ve seen was a team that ran two junglers. I’d seen it before, but it had never seen all that effective. I guess I should mention they were both jungling in their own jungle. I was jungling ours (and getting ganked all the damn time – there is no getting away from Nunu and Trundle). With two people constantly mia, our lanes were playing very safe. No one was farming well, so no one wanted to buy wards. Obviously this is all a bit anecdotal, since it was just one game, but there does seem to be a lot more focus on dragon in general, and more games seem to slip away from me early if my team doesn’t ward.

I really think the double change – XP nerf, gold buff – was a little too much. Dragon is such a crucial element of the game that I’d always prefer to err on the side of moderation rather than dramatic change. I’m still working to figure out just how much it matters, and there are some farming toons/comps I’d really like to try to exploit the extra cashflow. What have you seen?

Development, Editorial, league of legends

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My bad on FG LoL Mondays – next three weeks will be sporadic

December 20, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I forgot to mention that I traveled most of the weekend and as such wouldn’t likely be around for games this evening. I am in a match right now, so feel free to hit me up afterward if you want to join. I probably won’t be organizing games for the next couple Monday nights because I’m with family and my schedule will be up in the air. I promise I’ll do a better job letting you know what’s up for the coming weeks. If you don’t come around to read for the next few days, have a happy holiday!

FG LoL Mondays, league of legends

Caitlyn sneak peek: what can we say, bondage sells

December 20, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

It’s an off-patch week, which means just one thing: there’s a new champion on the way, Caitlyn. Let’s just jump right into her introductory paragraph:

Officials from Piltover would like me to issue a statement to all of you. It is my duty to inform you that there is a new sheriff in town. The beautiful (and stylish) Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover, has arrived at the League of Legends, so bandits, ruffians, rabble-rousers, and otherwise uncouth persons beware! Of course, even if you’re on the run, one look at her and you might not want to escape anymore. Of course, you don’t need to have a warrant out for your arrest to get a closer look at this pretty lady. Whether you’re an outlaw type or someone who plays by the rules, I’ve got the publicity shots for you right here!

There is already a lot of discontent brewing among the playerbase about Caitlyn’s design. As so many have been quick to point out, she looks an awful lot like another buxom gunslinger, one who already has a cowgirl skin. I’m hoping Riot finds a way to make Caitlyn feel different. I would love to see a sniper-style character (you can see in the concept art that the sights on her gun flip up – ultimate activation maybe?), but I just don’t know if it’s going to happen. From the looks of things, she’ll be another piece of jiggly eye candy with a familiar set of skills.

Champions, Development, league of legends, News

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More on the Cassiopeia patch: seriously, just kill dragon

December 17, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the way this game can sometimes induce a lack of skill in the player base. There are a lot of champions who are (or were) just too good for the low skill required to play them. Players see the strength of those champions and flock to them, learning the game at its easiest without picking up on the nuances of League of Legends.

The latest patch addresses a lot of these issues. Some of the easier champions got nerfed (though to be fair, so did some of the harder ones), and some champions got reworked to require a little higher skill ceiling (Udyr comes to mind – I don’t think he’s as bad off as everyone thinks). The most prominent change, though, was to the dragon. Dragon has always been an integral part of the metagame, and it has undergone significant changes when Riot thought it was affecting things too heavily. The change this patch really seems to be about getting teams to the dragon. There’s no more global experience, which means you gotta be right up on top of him to get that extra boost. To compensate for the global XP nerf, dragon got a global gold buff, up from 130g to 240g.

I’m still not sure how this will affect games, but I like the idea. Obviously the purpose is to get teams to travel to dragon in force, but by buffing the gold gain, Riot sort of shot themselves in the leg. If a team fights and wins dragon twice (with the majority of the team at dragon), I think it’s safe to say they’ll have a huge advantage. That much XP and gold for an entire team will launch them ahead of their opponents. I’m all for more focused fighting on the map – it decreases roam, slows down ganking, encourages tight comps – but increasing the benefits to the team that wins the fight means we’ll see serious snowballing in a lot of games. Snowballing is one of the biggest issues for competitive play. This dragon change could make things a lot worse, and we might see a return to the five-man roam squads of months past.

I’m hopeful it won’t happen, but I’m fairly certain we’re in for a frustrating couple weeks of play. While I think Riot can most often be criticized for too many tiny, incremental nudges, when they make big changes, they make huge changes, and often several of them at once. Why not just remove global dragon experience and see what that does?

Current Affairs, league of legends, News