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Posts Tagged ‘lol’

The Future is Now

January 31st, 2013 1 comment

Season 3 in League of Legends is fast approaching. In fact, as of 20 minutes ago, ranked queues were shut down in preparation for the patch. The EU server qualifiers were last weekend. Teams are done.

We’re here.

You know, I find the interesting thing, the really compelling thing about League of Legends at the moment is the way they’re trying to bridge the divide between conventional and electronic sports. They’ve got a regular season schedule planned out, the way you would a hockey season. Each server bracket (NA and EU, who we might think of as conferences) has 8 teams playing against each other in single matches every Thursday and Friday for the North American server, and Saturday and Sunday for the Europeans. Teams are required to have subs, because they’re going to be playing for ten weeks straight. There’s going to be a midseason break, where each division’s lowest teams get pitted against rising non-professional teams from the ranked bracket, who you can be sure will be hungry for their spots. There will be salaries involved.

If you think that eSports is just a fad, we’re talking about millions of dollars in prize money, and more than that in advertising. These games are going to be streamed, HD, for free. There’ll be video on demand, we’re talking about the beginnings of an annual thing. MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL will have at least one more acronym to add to the list by the time season 3 is over, mark my words.

So get used to the future, gamers.

We’re here.

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Free For All

January 29th, 2013 1 comment

The alternate title of this post is “A Few More Word On Why You Should Be Watching eSports”, because there’s a great video out from PCGamer. T.J. Hafer takes five minutes, and gives us some very compelling commentary.

Go watch it. I’ll still be here.

Ready?

I think it’s a great piece, but I also think that I can give you an even better reason for watching eSports, and the reason is accessibility. If you have an interest in the game, you can go be part of a community with not only people like you, but the competitors themselves, just as soon as you want. You can be part of a group within five minutes of learning about the sport.

The necessity of online gaming is there in its name: online gaming. It must be played on the internet somehow, and the truth of the matter is that the medium on which we play is also the medium on which the whole world communicates. I find this level of possible involvement and global influence in the sport itself fascinating. We can talk to the stars of the show on Reddit, or a blog. We can be part of the community of fans by going to the forums and email lists. We can spectate matches on justin.tv and twitch.tv. Because the sport has to be watched online, where anyone can access it, we create a necessarily large potential fan base. As the internet continues its global spread into our pockets, and the ability to get information spans from the mountain steppes of rural China to the slums of the favelas in Brazil, eSports has a path to be seen by everyone in the world.

The other side to accessibility comes from being on the field, and not just watching from the stands. Combine the following facts: Not only does the action take place behind the mask of a keyboard, but the competitors have such names as Locodoco, Saintvicious, and ZionSpartan. That anonymity creates a Mary Jane effect, where anyone could be playing. All of the time that the players put into this is something that everyone can do. Universal accessibility means that we could aspire to be as good as the pros someday. The characters we see being controlled on the screen could just as easily obey our own commands.

These two facets, universal visibility and unlimited participation, make eSports accessible to anyone and everyone. From a 30 year old woman who has just a passing interest in video games to people who have been playing them since they were 3, any gamer is welcome to come and watch.

And you should.

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You Had To Be There

January 22nd, 2013 3 comments

Sometimes, I worry about the ability or lack thereof of eSports to have a kind of viral impact. I can’t expound on my enthusiasm of xPeke’s spectacular play from IEM Katowice to someone who just doesn’t give a good god damn. I had this very sensation last night, as I was having dinner with some dear friends of mine. The couple are as geeky as you like, reveling in the obscure and nerdy. They’re some of my greatest friends in the world, and if anyone can possibly appreciate my rants about how fantastic that Kassadin was (noreallygolook), it’s this duo. But the wife seemed disinterested. I don’t fault her for it in any sort of way (I love you Roo!) but this is emblematic of my concern about eSports’ ability to captivate strangers to the sport. It seems a far cry to be excited about a series of button clicks in rapid succession.

But I am excited, and so was the other half of my lovely company. When I was describing Kassadin’s swift dodges, managing to duck and weave between axes, using his slows as effectively as a prize fighter, my good friend Nathan was as happy as I was at the plays.

My only solution to the worry of eSports’ transmitability is to stay enthused. To stay interested. I want to make this a thing, and I want you to come with me.

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Long Live the Meta

January 20th, 2013 2 comments

If you’re still skeptical of eSports as a thing, check out the amazing technical skill of xPeke from Fnatic at the second day of IEM Katowice.

Having the presence of mind to think of a strategy and execute it under stress is a remarkable skill for any competitor, and you should rightfully be impressed.

Season 3 is heralding some pretty amazing plays already, and it’s going to be week after week of this sort of thing. Look for unorthodox strategies, radical ideas, and a whole lot of skill. The meta is dead.

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Triumphs and Tears

December 12th, 2012 No comments

Eight days ago, Riot Games banned competitive player IWillDominate from playing League of Legends in any sponsored tournament for a year. Though this isn’t the first competitive ban, it’s definitely one of the more noteworthy, particularly for this side of the Pacific. In addition, it’s the first ban of a pro player I can find for League of Legends at all, and it’s worth a deeper look.

I’ve long held that Riot’s system is innovative and the standard by which other games, particularly those that want to make a name for themselves in the competitive gaming arena. DOTA, as a genre, has long been known as a place for trolls and griefers to get their kicks, due in large part to the somewhat unbalanced areas of play in the original maps that spwaned from Warcraft III. As more polished versions of DOTA came out, a more forceful change than simple graphics needed to be implemented if any were to distinguish themselves from their competition. Riot’s solution was the Tribunal, a system by which players could review the conduct of other players, and see if it breached , a set of loose rules and guidelines to promote good behavior and sportsmanship. Balanced on the other side of rewarding players for good behavior (with the Honor Initiative), the twin facets of carrot and stick have generally enhanced peoples’ experiences with the games, according to many accounts.

Of course, there were still some people who were abusive and toxic to the environment, at all levels of play from the low brackets of 600 Elo all the way to Dignitas’ jungler, IWillDominate. In a indictment of his behavior, Riot’s Senior eSports Manager
, letting the community know in no uncertain terms that even players of IWillDominate’s caliber need to comport themselves by the social contract all the members of the League of Legends player base have agreed to.

I think it’s brilliant.

When we start talking, as gamers, about gaming being taken seriously, we have to embrace that notion. Games as art must be able to share human experiences that are not easily conveyed, and be able to transform the witness. Games as entertainment have to be genuinely pleasant experiences, rather than just something to frustrate and annoy our friends, neighbors, and parents with.

But games as sport must hold themselves to a greater standard, for two reasons: money and respect. Though these two don’t often go hand in hand, they do with real life, traditional sports. We pay our athletes a great amount of money, and challenge them to be better than us. We revel in their accomplishments, erecting Halls of Fame to immortalize our great competitors. We bring charges against those who betray our trust, going all the way up to the highest levels of government. In short, we build pedestals for those who compete to put themselves on, and we extol them when they get to the top.

As competitive eSports comes into mainstream society’s awareness, we must be ready to build those pedestals for our own digital competitors. We have to be ready to praise their acts of honest, good natured gamesmanship, and we have to be ready to scorn them for their misdeeds, as Riot has done. By prohibiting IWillDominate from competing at the highest level of play, Riot reinforces the very ethos behind competition: the thrill of the game, and the joy of victory. Going hand in hand with the fines levied against AzubuFrost in October, Riot seems ready to treat this just as seriously as they need to, as we move into the future of gaming’s potential. I commend Riot, and their VP of eSports RedBeard for taking this step, and hope they continue to act as a leader in the competitive gaming world for a long time.

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Completely Twisted

November 6th, 2012 2 comments

League of Legends has come to the end of its second season, with the Taipei Assassins taking home the mantle of World Champions. With this unexpected victory now behind them, Riot looks to the future of the professional scene and season 3, and begin to lay down their vision in the rework of LoL’s redheaded stepchild of a map, Twisted Treeline.

In a statement regarding the transition period between seasons, Marc Merrill (president of Riot) said that the remake of the map was one element they were introducing to change the nature of the game. Even though Season 2 had seen a lot of adjustments, including the Honor Initiative, Spectator Mode, Champion Remakes, and graphical fixes, these changes were merely the polishing of a game that was already very successful, by professional gaming standards. “But we’re still just getting started. In fact, we’re always striving to improve the game over time. With Season Three on the horizon, expect League of Legends to continue to evolve.”

If the rework of Twisted Treeline proves to be the standard by which Riot moves forward, I am very excited to see what comes next. In its previous incarnation, Twisted Treeline was a muddled mess of a map, too big to be comfortable for 3v3s, but too small for anything else. Its buffs were awkwardly placed, the layout of the jungle was snarled and incoherent, and when these elements were combined with exceedingly narrow lanes, the map gave too much power to teams with heavy control or pull elements like Blitzcrank/Nautilus/Ahri. It was, simply put, frustrating.

Twisted Treeline’s remake was released soon before Elise stepped onto the Field of Champions, and just in time for Halloween. While the various skins and themes of the holiday definitely influence the map, the balance that was once lacking from the Treeline is now closer to being realized. No longer does the TT feel like a sprawling tangled snare, but instead, a more streamlined and action oriented map, where two teams rest for control over altars, and the middle ground. The Elder Lizard and the Dragon are gone, their buffs switched around into two altars and one neutral mob.

If you’re looking for a significant short term buff (and you’re strong enough) head over to Vilemaw, the new boss creep of the map. A giant spider who may have eaten the last boss creep, Vilemaw is a significant threat, and a significant prize. He’ll give you the Crest of Crushing Wrath on his defeat, which may give your team that last rush needed to take the enemy’s Nexus. This isn’t too much different than Baron, and isn’t as interesting a change to the map as the altars are.

The altars are a great point of contention, one which doesn’t rely on a team fighting and getting weakened by a creep. Instead, the two altars are split on either sides of the jungle, one closer to either team. Control one altar, and receive a small gold on kill boost. Control both, and you get increases to your attack damage and your ability power. It’s a way to invest zones of control, and give something for the players to fight over other than towers and creeps. Control over the altars is governed by a small timer, and once you capture one, an altar cannot be recaptured for 90 seconds, making them both a valuable prize and something that isn’t game changing by itself. If your altar is captured, the enemy team gets a small benefit for a short, and then you get to try to reclaim it. It is only over the whole of the game that the bonuses have a decisive impact on your game: if you’ve held both altars for a more significant part of the match, then its buff will be felt in the end as you accrue more gold than your opponents.

The last significant change to TT is the addition of several items. Treeline has a host of new items meant only for it that were added because of the player count. In 5v5s, there’s more of an opportunity for everyone to do a bit of damage, and so the items tend to be a little weaker on the whole. With fewer players and the possibility of a really beefy team, the designed of the new TT felt that some heavily impacting items needed to be in the mix.

On the whole, the new Twisted Treeline is a fun, interesting place, and if we can see this sort of thought put into just a map, I’m looking forward to season 3 as it rolls out. When the designers listen to their players, you get a higher quality game, and though I don’t know what the future holds for League of Legends, I’m sure it’ll be a bright one.

See you on the Fields of Justice, Summoners.

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Under The Bridge

January 11th, 2012 2 comments

I have been playing a lot of League of Legends lately. Alliteration aside, I think it’s a solid game that’s let me reconnect with some friends back at home while I’m on winter break here in Korea. I won’t get to play quite as much with them once school starts, but I’ve deeply enjoyed my time so far. Except for one, small, tiny problem.

Griefers.

They’re becoming a more ubiquitous sort of problem in video game culture in general, and LoL and other DOTA clones are well known for the amount of trolling that goes on in the game. “Fucking retards”, “My team has downs”, “Oh God, it would be better if you just went AFK.” Actually, I got told that in a game I played just tonight. “Fizz, ur useless. just afk.” And I’ll admit, it hurt. I mean, it always does. That’s the point, and also the problem. A certain amount of teasing and ribbing is in line with competition of any kind. There’s a natural, primal instinct to gloat, to roar in triumph. I think it’s part of our ancestry, actually. To be able to cry out, to shout that you had achieved something gave you recognition, gave you status. If you could do what you said you could do, then you wanted to be known for that. In competitions that’s primarily “Beat the other guy”, and we celebrate it even today when we ask sports stars and athletes what they think of their performance in the game today, or how they trained to be so God Damned Fast.

But in games online, this sort of gloating is tainted and transformed by the medium that the sport takes place in. Before there were online games, there were online forums. Chat rooms, BBSes, newsgroups, where people could come together under the veil of anonymity and discuss their opinions. But given that safety net, people began to let their darker sides out. The more vindictive, angry, violent, and frankly cruel sides. We gave a name to these shadows of the Internet, who delight in getting a rise out of people.

We called them trolls.

For a long time, the advice was “Don’t feed the trolls”, and it was relatively sound. If you ignore them, then you beat them. You don’t give them what you want. If you can just hold your head, and not submit to their taunts and jeers, their threats and insults, then you can continue on this great big thing we call the Web, undisturbed. Maybe a little bloody, but unbowed.

Video games didn’t have this much of a problem in the early days, because they were often against a computer opponent. But games, particularly online games, require a certain amount of commitment to your teammates. Cordial behavior, teamwork, respect, and the same goal in mind. As the games we designed grew more and more social, then the inherent problem of anonymous assholes who get their jollies off by making other people feel bad bled into this new frontier. Suddenly, we had problems trusting our own teammates. We thought that we could at least count them on being civil, but “gg noobs” and “just uninstall the game fagtard” became part of our vocabulary.

Sadly, I don’t think there’s any one solution that can ever beat out trolling. Which is not to say that we should give up, and just wash our hands of these games. It simply means that we must be ready to accept that there will be a period of time when our experience with it will be less than ideal. Even frustrating. But there are ways of dealing with trolls that are effective.

1. Don’t play with them on your team.

This is perhaps the ideal, and may be impossible in some cases, but is relatively manageable in team games. Do your best to find a community that you feel is worth your time and be a part of it. This may mean you play with your friends only, or it might also mean that you stumble upon a subreddit or a newsgroup concerning your game, and find that the people there are exceptionally friendly or helpful.

Once you’re there, play with them rather than (at least in League of Legends’ case) solo-queue. This has a couple of advantages of not only minimizing your contact with trolls, but also probably improving your game, depending on the size of the community. You learn how to perform your role better, and wind up enjoying the game more.

2. Combat trolling.

“Don’t feed the trolls” is not the same thing as combating trolling. In the former, you’re frustrated, probably angry, and just break. You start swearing, yelling, maybe you go AFK in your game. The troll wins. Even in the defeat of your team, he still gets the satisfaction of knowing that he beat you, and that’s all he wants.

But in the later, which is a bit more situation dependent, you can at least stem the tide. If the troll is on their team, you can report him through any means you have available to your game. In League of Legends, this takes the form of the Tribunal, a peer-reviewed system where other players make determinations on how the game played out based on final score and chat logs, and then Riot employees mete out punishments. I think it’s a pretty good system, and if the statistics gathered by Riot are to be believed, then it’s marginally effective as well.

If the troll is on your team, giving shit to the other players, ask him to stop. You might suffer a bit of your own hazing, but you let your other teammates know that that shit isn’t acceptable, and you fight it, just a tiny bit. It does work better if your teammates are people you know, since they might actually listen to you in that case, but we can’t all work with the ideal.

3. The ignore button.

This isn’t as effective a way to deal with trolls as I would like, but it’s pretty ubiquitous, and follows the internet’s oldest rule about trolls. Most games have some sort of function where you can ignore a certain user. This can be taken advantage of within the game to let you ignore them, and thereby, never deal with them again.
This is my least favorite way of dealing with trolls because it doesn’t actually solve the problem of their behavior in the first place, but there’s only so much to be done about that, largely involving actual remorse on the part of the troll. Really, it feels like you’re just pawning the problem off on other people, but it is an effective strategy, as about 25 years of being online has shown us.

I think as gamers, we have to adapt to the idea that there are people in our games who, just for the lulz, want us to be miserable. The first defense against such behavior is knowing it exists, and then dealing with the emotions generated by that behavior in a responsible way. If you’re just going to ragequit because some guy calls you a “fagtard n00b”, then you’ve lost, and they’ve won, and you wasted your time.

But if you can get the better of them, even when they are kicking you while you’re down, then you can appreciate the high points of your games much more than if you’re being so angry that you can’t see straight. So please, don’t feed the trolls.

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