Smooth Sailing
April 26, 2011 11 Comments
This past weekend, AT&T came out to my house on both Friday and Sunday. Friday, they were able to actually do something (changed physical ports), but problems seemed to persist, and Sunday the tech did nothing other than check the signal, but problems have ceased. I’m not declaring the problem solved, but the last two days I have had zero interruptions of service, and that makes me a very happy man. So, yesterday I gleefully played a bit of EVE – with voice comms, and then a fair chunk of LoL.
My hour or so in EVE actually was rather dull, I got a few people together to try to do some hunting in Oblayu, but only two souls passed through the system in the hour we sat there, and the rest of the group was, reticent to go explore more potentially fruitful systems. I’m seriously considering dropping the corp completely, dropping to low/null sec to live the life of a PvP’er/Pirate and pick up a second account to fund my illicit activities. I think I could convince my wife that $30/month is not too expensive compared to some of her monthly recurring fees.
LoL on the other hand, was crazy fun. I’ve been tinkering around with one of the first champions I bought – Kayle, and had a really good time with her. She’s an interesting mix of support and physical/magical DPS, intertwined with a strange hybrid of ranged/melee. She’s a complicated hero, with intricacies I’ve only seen matched in my other staple – Nidalee. Kayle has a “bubble” reminiscent of a paladin’s in WoW, a heal/speed boost, and a snare/damage boost, to be capped off with a spell that makes her melee attacks ranged AND splash. Her passive increases her ability damage as you up your physical damage, and vice versa. Early on, she’s good for helping play a bit of support and some CC/nuking, mid-game she tends to be a bit week, as she’s VERY gear dependent and hasn’t caught up to the power creep, and late game she can be a powerhouse.
I played two games with her last night, and both went longer than most (over an hour), with one being the longest I’ve ever partaken of. I did pretty well in the later, and absolutely dominated in the former. In the shorter game, I was getting wedding proposals from players whose asses I saved with my intervention, and in the second comments along the lines of, “I thought Kayle was supposed to suck.”. It was pretty uplifting for me as a player, and I know I don’t have the most optimum of builds for her since all my runs are +crit chance and +crit damage.
Follow the jump for screens of the two games.
Edit: Actually, now that I’m looking at the images, the games must have been on two different days.
About Shadow
Shadow-war 
You consistently write in a way that makes me interested in the games you’re playing.
Will have to check out LoL. I always liked RTS, this seems to be RTS with a hero figure that levels up? Cool sauce.
Re: our earlier discussion: Somewhat disappointed with Atlas Shrugged… not awful, but could have been much better IMO. Then again, how well can you translate a book into a movie (LOTR being the best I’ve seen…)
LoL is a spawn of DotA, which was a custom map from Warcraft 3. You’re assumption is correct, you play a singular champion, which levels up through 18 levels in a 45-75 minute arena battle. It’s completely free to play, with the option to spend money to speed up advancement/acquisition or cosmetics. Everything OTHER than cosmetics, you can eventually purchase through just playing the game and gathering the “free” currency. It is good fun, and pretty intense, in that you are ALWAYS doing something for the time played.
As for Atlas Shrugged, I agree somewhat. For what it cost to make (~$10M) I think it was fair, and hit the high notes of the novel. I think about it this way: Trion (and most other MMOs) spent WAY more money making their games than this film cost.
Picked it up last night, thanks for pointing me in the direction!
Looks like fun, though I quickly discovered in 2 games against bots that I am VERY bad at this game… it wasn’t until the end of the game that I started understanding how my champions actually were supposed to be played, and items are still something I’m slowly muddling through, trying to figure out if they are ideal, or if I should go with a totally different build from the ‘recommended” setups.
Will be a fun new challenge to get up to the competitive level!
The recommended ones usually aren’t too shabby, the devs who play this game are actually really good at it, in a very competitive way. I don’t use the recommended build for a couple of the heroes (like Nidalee). With her though, that’s because I like to go for a more attack damage build as opposed to ability power because I enjoy the playstyle – and that’s all just a preference thing.
Wow @ those two games.
Game 1 looks like you guys had the much better team/players. Their Sona, Yi, and Heimer had terrible scores. Kayle should not be getting that many kills, but you certainly rocked it, lol! As for Trynd, I assume he was wrecking face or did you guys have Exhausts to nullify him? Surprised he bought two Infinity Edges as they don’t stack well. Another Phantom Dancer or a Black Cleaver would have been more optimal for damage/lifesteal imho. Either way, his entire item build is one of the priciest I’ve ever seen (~18k gold)!
Game 2 looks like it was a more balanced bloodbath, hehe.
I was wondering the same thing, even with the extra raw damage from Inf. Edge, the movement boost, attack and crit rate (to make use of the FIRST edge) you’d get from a second Phantom Dancer seems like it would be FAR more useful. I almost universally see Trynd’s going with two PDs.
To be fair about my score in the first game, I think I got about 8-10 of them in the last 10 minutes of the game. Kayle can be an absolute BEAST late game. Game two was a hell of a lot more fun, one of those nail-bitters to the very end where both sides towers have access to at least one of the enemies inhibitors, and you don’t know who’s going to win till it’s finally over.
Add me, dude! Rienuaa! I play hardcore Tryndamere, Choey, and Veigar.
Seriously, add me!
I will add you as soon as I can tonight!
Your games make my best games look like level 1 games. 😦
But I’ll be content with having a better win:loss ratio and not having left any games (hate leavers). 😛
Very, VERY few of my “leaves” are actually me choosing to leave – they’re mostly from the internet troubles I’d been having. I can think of maybe two or three (max) games where I chose to leave the game due to sudden baby needs, even with that, I’m sitting under 10%, and that will shrink with the recent stabilization at home internet. I was with you at first with hating leavers, but a little bit of me is more sympathetic towards them now after going through this, especially if it’s clear they aren’t doing it intentionally.
Ah, glad to hear it. But I still can’t help but be extremely pissed off for losing a game (or winning a crappy one) due to someone leaving. Especially with all the BM and epeening being thrown around and me struggling to win any games at all. I guess LoL just feels a bit too much like I have no control over whether we win or not, I can play my heart out (which I usually do) and I’ll walk away with the feeling of being an utter shit player because my team, and consequently me, did bad.
Guess I need to find a group to play with. :S