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      DotA 2 coming “soon” – will you be playing?

      July 16, 2011 /

      Valve quietly mentioned that DotA 2 was fast approaching just yesterday. The message appeared at the bottom of a press release about the Steam content delivery system. “Soon, Dota 2 will be delivered using [the new system]” was all it said, but there’s a little more info circulating the web. Apparently MYM, one of the most popular DotA teams in the world, is headed over to Germany during Gamescom along with several other European and Asian teams, supposedly to play in a promotional tournament at the event.

      It’s no secret that Europe and Asia both have exploding esports scenes, particularly with regard to the MOBA genre. Gamescom seems like an excellent place to showcase the most anticipated entrant in the MOBA field. As for release dates, Valve hasn’t said anything, but Gamescom runs from August 17-21. I would imagine we won’t see the final product for at least another month, which puts us at late September, early November, just like roughly every other game you’ve been hearing about for the past three years.

      Personally, I’m excited for DotA 2. I really enjoy Valve games and I have faith in what they can bring to the genre, especially with regard to multiplayer features. As much as I enjoy League of Legends, the game is way behind in terms of social features. If Valve can deliver core technical features players have come to expect, it could see incredible growth and visibility in this sector of the industry.

      That said, I also think DotA 2 could miss the mark with a lot of casual players. The strength/agility/intellect system from those games feels opaque and archaic, even as someone closely familiar with the game. I could absolutely see people who are accustomed to the AP/AD system get frustrated with learning a whole new system for categorizing champions and choose to stick with LoL.

      Will you be playing DotA 2?

      Development, DotA, News

      Wukong, the Monkey King next to join the League

      July 16, 2011 /

      Remember that preview we saw for a character called the Monkey King back in April? It looks like he’s finally ready to join the League. Riot put together a preview comic as his sneak peek, but we know very little about the role he’ll actually play.

      I’m guessing from his size that he won’t be a Tanky DPS, but that’s really just hopeful thinking. Also, the lore for the Monkey King makes him out to be much more trickster than he is straight warrior, but this isn’t necessarily a direct adaption of the Eastern myth.

      Scoot on over to the official forums to see the whole thing, and in case you missed it, here’s a link to the art preview Riot posted a few months back.

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

      Leona Impressions

      July 15, 2011 /

      Valkyrie Leona

      Leona’s mid-week release has been messing with my schedule a bit, but I’ve still been able to sneak in a few games with her here and there, enough at least to give you an impression post. Leona has all the skills necessary to be a powerful force in the game, there’s just one problem – she doesn’t have a lane.

      The current metagame is focused around leveling an AP carry and either a high burst ranged carry (Corki, basically) or a bruiser in the mid and top lanes and allowing the pure ranged carry to farm bottom with a support. The support sustains the carry for a big farm so that the team can scale in to late game. Unfortunately, Leona isn’t very good in a solo lane. She doesn’t farm creeps well, she doesn’t harass well without another player with her, and she sure as shit can’t jungle. For competitive play, that leaves her one place to go – bottom lane – which means the carry is left without a healer, hoping to snag a few kills in the early game thanks to Leona’s crowd control. There’s one giant problem with that strategy, though.

      Have you ever noticed how low the kill counts are in competitive matches? Competitive matches are about safety for the majority of the game – players ward, every team brings support, every team packs Clairvoyance – with a focus on objectives and the occasional teamfight. That’s not really where Leona shines. Leona is about having an aggressive lane and teamfighting often, using her low-cooldown CC skills to pick apart the enemy team. In a metagame that is essentially a farm-off, she doesn’t have a place.

      That said, I’m hoping the metagame can make a shift some time in the near future, because Leona is a lot of fun when I can actually use her abilities. Leona is a tank in the purest sense of the word. She has a boatload of CC but fairly weak damage, especially compared to champions like Jarvan. Riot got so many things right about her kit I’m wondering if we’re about to see a very significant shift in the game’s design. She doesn’t do crazy damage, she doesn’t even do any kind of resistance debuff. She doesn’t push well, though she can occasionally set up a push with a tower dive. She doesn’t farm well. She’s only there to lock down targets so that the rest of her team can put together some kills.

      I would love to see the game-extending support metagame die in favor of an action-creating CC/Carry lane on the bottom. I think Leona has the kind of kit to make that possible, but until the passive support game gets nerfed, I don’t think we’ll see Leona in a ton of games.

      Champions, league of legends, Patches

      What’s your top priority for the League?

      July 15, 2011 /

      Palantir.

      This post started as a brief thought the other day and has since been echoed in forum posts by other players and an email chain between a couple of my friends. League of Legends is definitely in a bit of a lull after the end of the Season One Circuit. Dreamhack was a very cool event, and Riot did a nice job getting players excited to see the top teams compete. It was an event that made me hungry for more, but my excitement has waned a bit over the past month and I’m not alone.

      There have been quite a few threads criticizing Riot lately, some of which have received very thorough response. Most every communication from Riot involves a breakdown of priorities and why it’s hard to put some features over others on the to-do list. Players experience the game very differently depending on level and skill, so how can Riot prioritize one group’s expectations over another?

      I’m curious what your top priority would be when it comes to LoL. You can only pick one, so pick carefully. I’d like to suggest avoiding server stability because frankly, the servers are remarkably stable for a game that scaled as quickly as LoL. Also, server stability is such a tired subject I don’t think I can take much more. Give me something that you think will have a dramatic effect on the game.

      For me, it’s new game modes. I loved the different game modes that were available in DotA. Hvaving different rulesets available that modify the experience of the game would add incredible replay value. Random Deathmatch would be fantastic, but I’d love to see other custom rulesets like the progressive draft we occasionally play on FG LoL Mondays. New game modes would also carry over to newer maps, should they release, giving players additional ways to enjoy the new maps.

      What about you? What’s your top priority for the future of League of Legends?

      Current Affairs, Editorial, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: No Surprises Yet

      July 14, 2011 /

      It should come as no surprise that supports are strong in League of Legends. They’ve made appearances in some shape or form in every major competitive event, often as the cornerstone of a team. My experience with Soraka so far has been, well, that she’s strong. She’s pretty amazing at keeping a team healthy, helping them push, silencing the AP carries, even soaking a little damage. There’s really not much to say beyond that without breaking into a discussion of healing and its place in the game and why it’s so strong/such a design problem. I don’t want to do that yet. That’s going to be the end-of-week wrapup.

      For now, I’ll say that Soraka is kinda fun to play in a solo lane. I recently played in a five-man premade consisting of Soraka, Nocturne, Malzahar, Leona, and Tristana. I took solo top against Mordekaiser so that Leona could bring her amazing CC to support Tristana. It went surprisingly well, though I did die to a tower dive from Vayne and Mordekaiser – pretty tough to stop that one. By going top, I also got to have a little more fun with the farm, which was really nice. Most of my reluctance toward playing Soraka (or any support) is the passive gameplay. It just isn’t fun. I much prefer to see my character grow in strength over the course of the game – it’s what drew me to the MOBA genre.

      For the rest of the week I’ll be testing some strange builds and rune setups to see where I might sneak a little more fun out of the character. Check back this weekend for more focused thoughts on healing as a whole.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

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