Review: League of Legends

Since I play videogames a lot, and this blog is about videogaming, I think that its time that I turn my attention to reviewing games, so here goes: my review of Riot Games' free to play "League of Legends", the link in the title is to the game's official website.

League of Legends

First impressions of the game were good; I logged in and found that the game was not in fullscreen mode untill an actual match initiated, making it easy to do other things on your computer while you are waiting in the admittedly inconsistent matchmaking system. Once into a game lobby, you have a choice of 10 free heroes, who rotate each week with a different free hero lineup to keep things fresh. To have access to heroes permanently, you must purchase them. This is where the micro-transaction system comes in. Whats brilliant is that the heroes can be purchased for either real money, which is converted into "Riot Points", or the currency obtained by completing games, "Influence Points". All of the non-aesthetic features of the game, excluding a few item bundles, are purchasable with Influence points. Alternate character skins can be bought with Riot Points only. although the important stuff can be gotten with no actual money (It will take you a LOT of grinding though), Riot points, for what they buy, are a bit on the steep side; you can expect to spend £5 worth of Riot points aproximately to buy one of the more expensive heroes and just as much for one of the high end skins!

What is important though is the gameplay. While It is in some ways more simple than Heroes of Newerth; you can't deny creeps or towers for example, it is in other ways more complex. You can pick two summoner spells to bring with you into the game, which can go with any champion. There is also a rune system and a "Masteries" system, which is comparable to World of Warcraft's talent system, only masteries can be reselected at any time, which is just as well since you will have to repick them each time you want to use a different hero or even just a different summoner spell. The gameplay itself is quite similar to other Dota-esque games, but the feel is slightly different for the melee type characters in particular. This is because most of them seem to have very satisfying initiator abilities that mean that ranged enemy heroes arent as much of a threat as they were in games like HoN and don't have quite the same harrassing power in the early game. The heroes also seem a little more balanced in some ways, with only a few feeling overpowered to me.

The game looks great so far, free to play, an absolute Riot blast to play, so what's the catch?
Well, the servers are as often busy as they are available, and there is an awful lot of bile on the forums about excessive server maintainance. The game's chat system, which is used for chat outside games and forming premade teams, is often down or "experiencing technical issues", which seems to happen almost every other day, cripples my ability to play with friends too. I wouldn't for a moment accept this in a game that i had to pay for; Companies such as NCSoft and Blizzard seem to be able to control their maintainance and keep their extended maintainance periods to a minimum, keeping them well within periods that one would expect people to be sleeping (even me).

In conclusion, i can look past the poor levels of server availability the flakey chat system and the rip-off riot points to an extent, and see the great game that Riot has made. Get it and play it now, assuming the servers are available.

8.4/10

I LoL'd

A friend recently persuaded me to download the free-to-play Defence of the Ancients-a-like League of Legends. Was unable to play an actual game with him though because my internet was downloading the whole thing so slowly. At about 23:15, i got into my first game.
I choose Bitzcrank, a robotic champion. His abilities remind me of the Electrician somewhat and he has the "C'mere you!" grab ability of the Devourer (both heroes from Heroes of Newerth). Im in love with him instantly, as soon as the 3v3 starts.
The game itself though, goes poorly; one of my team quits straight away. Its left to me and another player, playing a character called Fiddlesticks, to face the other team's three. On my lane, I am outnumbered two to one by another Fiddlesticks and Ashe. A deadly duo capable of Stun/fear locking me to death. Surely enough, as soon as I over extend, I'm dog food. When I respawn however, things change. I instantly get a double kill on the bottom lane, giving me enough money to afford some good gear. I rack up five kills to no death, but they are bearing down on my tower as I am simply unable to push. When I do finally try, I am beaten to within an inch of my healthbar and I run through the jungle as fast as I can, using the speed boost from my overdrive to get away from Ashe, my persuer. Ashe is on half health, and catching up with me fast. I reach the middle lane and make for the tower. Ashe Persues, hungry for a kill. I execute a massive 'Dick move' and use the ranged grab ability to pull the greedy bugger into the tower. I am killed quickly, but so is my opponent, as he tries to flee from the punishing attacks of the defensive building. I am credited with the kill.

Shortly after this, my other ally leaves, leaving me three against one. Most of my towers have been destroyed and I can't cover all my bases. I decide to just sit in my base and make life as hard as possible for attackers. Soon its over though. I end my first game with a loss, but 21 kills to 5 deaths.

Sleepy Days and Sleepless Nights

I was so shattered when I got home from school yesterday that I hit the sack at about seven and woke up again at three. Unable to get back to sleep, I estimated that I had an hour to play WoW before server maintainance kicked in.

I loaded it up.
"Fuck..." I muttered as i saw the "breaking news" panel on the login screen. "Maintainance from 03:00 to 11:00 CET". It had been extended by two hours. I twiddled my thumbs for a few minutes before settling with Civilisation 5. Two hours into the game, everything felt the same. The world map didn't hold the wonder that Civ 4 did and the AI didn't do anything bastardly or interesting. Playing as Russia though, it did occur to me that my situation sort of mirrored reality (during the cold war at least). I had a tense relationship with Siam, who were suspicious of me for some reason I couldn't fathom (Civ 5 has AI that works in mysterious ways; once a faction whose borders were ten tiles away on a different continent confronted me, claiming that I was moving troops near his borders) and war seemed fairly likely. I did, however, have three city states, which effectively formed a wall between myself and Siam. Meanwhile, I shared borders with an Amicable China on the eastern side, whom I formed many research and border agreements with. None of this could save me from the grinding boredom, though.

I've been feeling really weird lately. Yesterday, I lashed out at my friend for no good reason. I wanted to break things. I don't have a good reason for feeling like that, I don't have any reason at all and I can't explain it. Today, I just feel resigned and low. More on this later i guess.

Guild Drama

Logged on WoW on Wednesday, ready for raiding, to find that all raids had been scrubbed off the calendar. One of the Mages is in an autocation with the guild leader and is shortly kicked from the guild. Another person leaves of their own accord.
"WTF is happening????" I type in guildchat.
"Dropveter (The guild leader) has stopped all raiding cuz no one is turning up 2 Rated BGs." Comes the reply from Calastor, one of the guild's top healers.
"So no raids ever?"
"nope"
So it came to be that my guild, which had been performig pretty well in the rankings on the server in terms of PvE, decided to forsake all the progress it had made in Raid clearance and persue a broken game mechanic.
"Fuck this" I type in disgust and quit the guild on the spot. I organise a faction change and go to join an Alliance guild that I had raided with in Lich King. I am met with a nasty shock.

Turns out that the alliance guild, DNS, had a rule about having a main character outside the guild. The officer i Spoke to, Gracegrace, claimed that I had been "Jerking the guild around for quite some time". These allegations frightened me a bit. DNS are a nice bunch and I didn't want to find myself unceremoniously ejected from their ranks. I try the arrogant approach: "What if i told you that my paladin had 154k HP unbuffed?" I also flash some achievement progess on the raids. Gracegrace isn't impressed. Realising the future of my raiding career is at stake, I promise to level up what the guild percieved to be my main, my Deathknight, to 85 and get it raidworthy.
"You better" GG replies. I thank him for the second chance and log my Deathknight, where I am contacted by another officer, a nice guy called Pete, who invites me for a little chat on ventrilo and tells me that the other officers are pretty pissed off with me, and that my place in the guild is only secured by the fact that i spent £20 transfering my paladin across to be with them, a gesture that they find amicable. I guess my guild drama is over for now, but only time will tell. They resolve to let my paladin in the guild, but that I cant raid with it as a main, despite having superior gear and experience to everyone else. I accept this because they have bent the rules enough to keep me in, and see this logic-defying limitation as a punishment for my infraction on the rules. The core raiders though, who I raided with during WotLK, are happy to see me.

Raid-ey Days

I sent a text to the raid leader on sunday telling him I was going to be slightly late. Instead of waiting for me, the bugger when right ahead and found a replacement. After an hour or so of raiding though, he came back, cap in hand, and I accepted the invite to go to Bastion of Twilight.

We get an easy setup for Halfus. I handle the two drakes released while Blackopal, the other tank, tackles Halfus himself. Halfus begins to stack a healing recieved debuff on Blackopal, so we switch tanking duties briefly untill it wears off. There is, however, no cause for concern as the drakes die quickly. Halfus soon follows with minimal effort.

On Valiona and Theralion, we initially have a couple of problems but these are soon sorted and the boss dies quickly. A tanking helmet drops. I roll 13. "gz" I type, in anticipation of a higher roll from Blackopal. Surely enough, he rolls a 54. One of the healers, Calastor, pipes up on ventrilo "hang on a moment, Black, aren't you rolling DPS gear now?"
"Oh yeah," Blackopal replies "didn't see it was tanking, sorry."
Another epic for me.

The trash on the way to the Twilight Council is cleared without much fuss, but Blackopal is forced to leave the raid due to a "Really bad family issue" that cropped up. We decide to head for Throne of the Four Winds with a random tank we picked up in trade chat. The first boss encounter is complete after two wipes (one of them partially my fault) and I lose a brilliant looking offspec belt to Infinitelife, one of the other healers.

Over Aggrovation

Got pulled into a Black Wing Descent 10 man raid today. Things started off great; Magmaw goes down after a brief hickup from the half-asleep ranged DPS and I win a nice tanking trinket, to replace the Lvl 78 rare that I have been lumping about since my first dungeon crawl. Omnitron doesn't go quite so well, however. One of the DPS in the group is a Paladin, who dishes out such massive burst damage at the start of the fight that the other tank is losing agro. The Paladin, who happens to be a good friend of mine in real life, rips into the tank for a short time, before donning his own tanking gear to prove a point.

From this moment, there are no agro problems, but another one arises. The infighting begins to build up in Raid chat and people are no longer giving their full attention to the Raid Leader's directions and to the fight. We wipe again as a consequence. The Paladin goes AFK for a bit and the disgruntled raid leaders decided to remove him from the raid and replace him with a hunter. The old tank takes his position back and we ready up. The Paladin sends me a whisper. "Back" he says. I tell the raid, unaware that we are full (another AFKer was kicked also). "I had permition to AFK" The Paladin whispers again. Uneasily, and knowing there is little I can do, I ready up and we pull. Thanks to a newly drafted in hunter, we are able to bring down the boss mostly mess free. We kill the trash between Omnitron and the next boss without issue, The name of this boss constantly escapes me (Arachamedes or something), but many in the raid fail on the wipe mechanic and we are unable to down him. Raid is called. I leave with a concerned mind.

I move on to Starcraft with Valcry, we play a Defence of the Ancients-a-like custom mode and I generally get my arse handed to me. The Paladin whispers me. Apparently its my fault that he is about to be kicked from the guild. Oh boy...

Hopefully I can clear things up tommorow. Things are slowly melting dooown.