Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What did we settle on as a better name for the DOTA-like games? Heroic tower-defence? Something like that. One of you had a good suggestion, I forget what it was… Presumably there is a genre name I am missing out on. Anyway! League of Legends is that kind of game, and free, which is useful, and it’s being built on all the time with various updates, which now includes a co-op vs AI mode, which will be nice and reassuring for noobs like me. Here’s the news, and here’s a salient bit from Riot: “We’ve been hard at work augmenting our AI, allowing us to produce more and more challenging and complicated computer controlled enemies. In the near future, players will be able to experience the fruits of these labors by joining a matchmaking queue that will pair them against a team of enemy AI bots on Summoner’s Rift.”

The new AIs are apparently a big step up from the existing bots, and can pull off a number of useful tactics such as “ganking mid”. Which sounds despicable. (Confession: I am totally being bullied by my old Eve corpmates to play this game with them, but I am NOT doing it! They can’t bully me. And I have to other very important stuff to install, like a Minecraft mod. Yep.)

If you’re going to get bullied, get bullied in public. People notice. If you’ve followed the story of the World Of StarCraft mod, you’ll know that a mod team picked a really dumb name for their ambitious MMO project, and Activision-Blizzard went down the tiresomely dumb route of banning the existence of videos of the work in progress from the internet. But here comes the twist. According to Pixelated Geek, front man Ryan has been offered a potential postion working for League Of Legends developer, Riot Games.

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This article is the first in an ongoing safari through a range of free-to-play games of all genres.

Relax. It’s ok. There’s nothing to worry about. Just take a seat, get acclimatised, perhaps browse the store for a little bit, we’ve got this. We’ll take care of everything, and the thing you’ve got to bear in mind is that this is about you; we’re here to make your life easier in every way, because hey, you’re the one playing the game, after all.

That’s League of Legends’ UI, talking to me in the sultry tones of an air stewardess that’s been in the job enough to learn how to get you comfortable, but not long enough to stop caring and grow embittered and cruel. More legroom, sir? Indeed. Except League of Legends, despite being Free to Play, isn’t the Easy Jet or Ryanair of DOTA clones. This is the premium service, right here, and it starts from the moment you first load the game up. All of the superfluous garbage has been torn away and rolled up into a ball, before being tossed into an bin, leaving you with a stripped down, super efficient experience that lets you just get on with playing the game.
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PC Gamer have got terribly excited over revealing the “incredible new art style” for League of Legends. There’s more in their issue, but they show how two of the legendary leaguers and – er – trees have been changed. Generally speaking, it looks like the increased-detail sort of retexturing and seriousing-up which you know will be rife after Diablo III is released. We’re also pleased to see that Riot Games have discovered desaturation in photoshop. Incredible.

Riot Games send word that their “Season One” event for League Of Legends is getting under way. That means a content update for everyone, but also a big old championship. Here’s the bit where it gets interesting for serious players:

Players who finish the season at the top of the League of Legends ladder will have the opportunity to participate in the Season One finals tournament which boasts a total prize purse of $100,000.

Riot are also celebrating this event with a cinematic trailer, which I’ve posted below. Watch for more information over on the official site.
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As League of Legends actually inches towards an open Beta – a matter of days or even hours, according to our sources – they unveiled a new map. It’s The Twisted Treeline map. It looks like a spooky forest to me. What do they say it’s like?
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If ever there was a time when some in-game footage of mythical dudes hitting each other was required, it’s in these two videos. They are, amazingly enough, purely of the back end summoner-management stuff for League Of Legends. Of course that does go to show the depth the game boasts behind the scenes, and the care the developers have taken in making the game infinitely tweakable, and packed with supernatural champions – exactly what the DoTA veterans will want to see. For the rest of us: less exciting. Anyway, we’ve heard the game is in closed beta right now, so the full game may not be too far off, and we can expect plenty more information from Riot Games soon. And don’t worry particle effects fans, I’ve posted the in-game trailer too. Hooray!

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I’ve been meaning to post about League of Legends for a while now, and this new trailer gave me a suitable nudge. It’s the debut game from Riot Games, who I believe previously made the Warcraft 3 super-mod Defense Of The Ancients: Allstars. It looks like Riot have captured and reworked the cartoonish essence of Warcraft III brilliantly for their own game, and the trailer shows a champion-led RTS game that’s looking like a lot of fun. There’s a beta sign up on the main site right now too, so that might be worth a look, assuming this captures your interest. No dates yet, but I guess there’s a good chance loads of you will be just waiting for Demigod…

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The Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients is big. So big it inspired Demigod. So big that Basshunter made a song about it before he was conquering the UK charts with unintentionally comical Euro-house (which is one of the odder paths to musical fame of recent times). And now it’s so big that the creators of DoTA Allstars – the most popular version of the mod – have gone off and made their own commercial game, League of Legends.
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