League of Legends

[Tessian]

www.leagueoflegends.com

Anyone else aside from Shrin and I playing this? It's supposed to be the successor to DotA and it's free to play (for now?) while it's in beta. About 40 characters to choose from, all pretty unique, but for free play they unlock a random dozen chars every week. You gain points every game and you can use those to buy, among other things, other characters to permanently unlock. I think I enjoy it more than Demigod so far.. there's a lot more to do. One really nice feature is that while there are hundreds of items to buy they actually give you a recommended items list for each character, so even a noob will know what kinds of items best go with their character.

If you haven't given it a try yet do so... it's free!

[Mental]

I kind of hated DotA - not the game itself, but the playerbase, really - and this isn't really supposed to be any more user-friendly. It's going to have a lot of the same playerbase and I don't feel like getting screamed at by people for months until I get good, or I would check it out.

[Shrinweck]

If the Penny Arcade comics have been tempting you to come back or try this game for the first time you should really go for it. They released the new game play mode today and it's much more intense. The game lengths are 50-75% shorter than the old game play type so if you get a bum team you're wasting far less time. The new map features a much faster pace, so the trash talking is basically nothing.

Also if you're still intimidated, AI has become much more challenging and you can hone your skills in a safe place before joining Tessian (who still plays more than me) and me. You can add him at Tessian and me at Shrinweck or Yemeth0 (the character I use to play with Tessian's lower level friends/try stuff on AI)

[Alec]

I've been playing LoL for a month or two now, hit level 20 the other day. Dominion is pretty cool so far, but it seems like every game I play of it is left completely to chance. I'm sure that will subside as people get more familiar with it.

The only thing I don't like about LoL is that it brings out the absolute worst in people. Mental is spot on...90% of the playerbase needs to be wiped off the planet, pretty much.

[Shrinweck]

Tribunal takes getting to know the worst of the player base to another level. It got to the point where I just skim for a few particular slurs and curses and otherwise don't pay attention to what's being said in particular, so I don't have to go any deeper into their racism or homophobia than I have to.

Luckily, the higher you get the less trolls you typically see since you get paired up with people who've put a lot of time into their user names. Still, you have to do some pretty horrendous stuff to get permabanned, it seems. Tessian and I are 30 and my alt is 17 or 18. You also see a lot less trolls in AI games, which I find particularly satisfying as a time waster/an easy way to get the 150 IP win bonus.

People who rage are a constant. And if you're doing something incredibly stupid then sometimes you deserve it. Still, these people deserve to get reported when it's taken out of hand. I've found it sometimes takes a LOT of self control in games not to yell at the obligatory one person in every game that is just a waste of space. Doing poorly is one thing, but, well, christ it's a competitive team game and if you're the asshole who doesn't know how to play your champion then you're ruining the fun of others. One wouldn't play Chess without knowing the rules, eh?

Between the tutorial and AI games anyone with a head on their shoulders should be able to learn the ropes.