Pepyri

I honestly think this is a pretty big sidetrack to the fact that it's got a strong community that goes out of its way to support it. I'd also say that if you think the majority, or even a significant amount of Reddit was taking part in The Fappening, or approved/condoned of/it, that you couldn't be less familiar with the overall community. It has its shitty elements for sure, and they're large and loud, but they're primarily the latter, and rarely the former. And you can similarly say the same about any popular service, when you cherry pick like that. But it still doesn't get to the fact that they are a community that takes part in making sure the business stays afloat and grows. Now to get that to work via an ad-based methodology is definitely difficult, but it's one of those things where execution is everything.

I think this is a really pessimistic view that doesn't acknowledge the last few years. Look at Kickstarter, Twitch.tv personalities, Reddit- places where communities help fund and keep things alive. How? By working together. Reddit Gold has been a huge success- no, it isn't paying for their staff, but it's cut into costs for the company significantly. Twitch.tv personalities get subscribers in the hundreds, sometimes thousands- each giving $5 a month for nothing more than to encourage that personality to keep going. Kickstarter also works off of this. It shows that people are more than willing to help you out when you develop a strong community, and a sense of trust between the organization and its fans. In the case of a social network, what if they were up front and honest about the kinds of advertising you could get, and work harder at providing an ad platform that isn't just shoved on people, but in fact is a way for the community to take ownership over the product itself. I'm not going into a ton of detail because it's a lot of little things- no one singular idea is going to make it work, but I'm fundamentally opposed to the idea that you can't make users feel like they can trust you with their best interests.

Ouch. I'd love to see a company be more transparent but still have ads. I have some ideas on how you could do that but I also have no interest in starting such a thing, so perhaps I should shut my yap.

I was reading that people liked this thing I heard about a few days ago, and now today are apparently hating on it. What happened to trigger the attitude shift in the community?

Less than frags but still more than enough to be lethal. Aside from my shotgun I could swear they're my #1 tool. Also, they one-shot any AI, period. Spectre, grunt, anything, arcs just completely screw 'em.

Haven't even been around 6 months, already has better wall art than every other developer

Good work you ridiculous people. Jesus, this seriously is the coolest possible thing.

Well, since my old account(quaunaut) still can't post, I guess I have a new account now. Woot. SO HEY THIS THING CAME OUT TODAY. Natural Selection 2. What is it? It's an asymmetrical multiplayer FPS/RTS hybrid where the most important quality is teamwork. It's made by 8 guys, and it took them 6 years. Sequel to a Half-Life 1 mod, that never quite could get that whole "release on time" thing to work out. It's only $25 and you should really try it.

Holy hell rymdkapsel is the first time playing an iOS game, that I thought "This is completely legit as a gaming experience."

So when I read what happened here, I couldn't help myself. I was made late to work by reliving the life of Ragnar's final years. This needs to be a movie.

This news is among the worst I've heard from the games industry, ever, in my lifetime. Just not okay, not okay at all. I'm gonna miss you, Ryan.

So effectively, to make people not feel TOO bad, but still a little bad, they ruin their own rating system? Cool!

Hitting a long stint of games where I'm either losing, or carrying my team so hard that it makes everyone's head spin. I don't mean carrying like "Oh but I helped others win lanes", I mean literally the entire game is on my back like fucking Atlas. It's one of those spots too, where I really hate Riot's new system. In Silver 2, a loss is -28, a win is +28. Graduate just to Silver 1, and a win is +2. A loss is -4. Every. Fucking. Time. I can win 12 games in a row in S1- with the largest + being 4. I lose just one, -16. In short: I sometimes really, really hate team games.

Well, that's reductionist as hell. First things first, bunny outfit: The playboy outfit isn't just just about tits. It's classy sexualization, combined with a pun about her Q(being hops). Now, then, as to what makes her so special: You've got a character who can scale almost entirely off of a single stat- which oddly, doesn't just make her stronger, but actually ends up restricting her in interesting ways as well. Second, you've got the fact that her Q is functionally a melee-range skillshot. This lets you use it without having to face your enemy, and in fact, can use it in such a way that you can curve yourself around your enemy while you use it, with smart control. Doing this perfectly can even let you knock the person back with the 3rd Q in whatever direction you like. Third, you have the way her passive works. And the way the bonus AD on her ultimate works(as well as the bonus range on everything, etc). But this is all window dressing to what it all means. No, she doesn't have combos in the same vein as Invoker, but his are less combos in the fighting game sense, and more combos in almost a rhythm game sequence sense. But the way both all 3 uses of her Q, as well as her E, moves her the small amount- the quick motions, the positioning, the small effects on her enemy. Her shield effectively acting as a block(as it has one of the shortest durations in the game). She plays almost like a fighting game character. Where she doesn't, she still plays unique to any character I've played in any other LoMa. Also, if you don't see what's interesting in that video(in terms of straight-up skill), I'm guessing you just haven't played League? Or Riven? What he pulled off there is impressive to pretty much anybody.

Yeah, their design over the past year, year and a half has gone from "Pretty good, at least matching DotA's quality" to outright "Holy cow everything they release is gold." Lissandra is a squishy yet short range CC-heavy mage who is forced to all-in with every fight because of her range. Zac is one of the scariest ganks in the game- a jump with the range to jump the whole river? Nuts. Also, the 'collecting pieces of yourself' mechanic is super fun. Quinn I've already spoken about, but the idea of a character who is that mobile, that much of an Assassin, yet that wildly difficult to play well, gah. Vi is like you said. Nami isn't as popular in the west, but in Korea she's nearly as popular as Sona- mostly 'cause she has insane teamfight power that puts most supports to shame, but NA/EU can't stop fapping over early game. Zed. Elise. Kha'zix & Rengar. Syndra. Diana. Zyra, Jayce, Draven. I mean, what the fuck. Each one of these has awesome design choices behind them that really feel a step away from the standard. Only after all those do you hit Darius(who is a trainwreck of design). That's just good shit. Also, once again, Riven is the best thing that's ever happened to LoMas.

For any melee getting sent there, yeah. Except Zed- he'll probably still beat her. But she'll also be strong top- and I think with an aggressive support, she'll be fantastic bottom too. Still will lose against a Caitlyn, but eh, range is range.

One thing that should be added, about that League of Legends post that is about 'fun' and game design: They've said frequently, you can break these rules, just that you should know what you're doing when you do. Some of them are more stringent than others, such as the burden of knowledge rule(which ironically, is broken at least lightly, by the champion named after him, Zilean- his bombs mean you really don't want to go near friendlies with them on). But they've willingly broken or twisted their own rules several times- even with their own examples: Oh, wait, isn't that the perfect description of Quinn? Huh. (And before someone says 'Yeah but Quinn sucks', just watch the upcoming Summer LCS, I guarantee she'll be featured heavily. She's got spells nearly as powerful as Ezreal's and has Vayne's passive damage output, plus monstrous mobility and an even-better gap creator, now that it's been changed). I'd also really say that I disagree rather heavily with Brad on League's champion design. I can understand some of the complaints about Champions being samey, such as the "Every melee has a gap closer" one, but haphazard design is almost assuredly one that I could never share.

Is Timbersaw's gameplay modeled off of Super Smash Brothers? I DIDN'T THINK SO. We gettin' fighting game gameplay in your LoMas

The biggest thing to take into LoL, is that if you get the feeling there's less depth to something, you're probably not seeing all the pieces. Both games have an incredible amount of depth, and for all the claims that the skill ceiling is lower in LoL, few who start to play it still think so for very long. They're two really different experiences, that really just speak to different kinds of people. DotA is a bit slower overall of an experience, but carries a lot more strategy too- the size of the map really contributes to that in some incredible ways. Similarly, LoL seems to lose depth in that you're not punished nearly as hard for screwing up a combo or a spellcast, but it makes up for it where there are things like Skillshots or in the second to second teamfights, where you get punished a lot more for small amounts of CC than you do in DotA(as with DotA, most CCs last quite awhile, whereas most in LoL are pretty dang short). They're both spectacular. They both suffer from God Awful communities. And one of them has the best character in any game ever <3.

I do actually watch a decent amount of pro DotA. A bit less than I do League, but eh. And the '15 minutes' I said isn't all at once- it's generally divided in spurts around the games. But it's still there, and there's a lot. It's more tolerable when you're really into what's going on, but that doesn't exactly make it forgiveable(or interesting). And as to the dodges: For one, if you don't have as many skillshots, you're not gonna get it as often. Dodges like that Cait dodge are something that happens in nearly every pro game you watch nowadays. However, I'd also say that you don't get dodges like that out of any of the cases you named except Puck and Storm Spirit. Yes, they can dodge abilities, but there's a difference between being able to simply keep moving in the direction you're in, or halfway close to perpendicular, and full 180 dodges. Turn speed matters. The same dodges in DotA would take nearly an extra half second minimum.

Here's my view on the LoL v DotA debate, from the distinct PoV of someone who really loves LoL(and thinks DotA is pretty neat): Small mechanical differences annoy the hell out of me. In LoL, I feel like if I have two skillshots coming at me, slightly staggered, that I can dodge from one way to another incredibly fast. The abundance of skillshots in general. When you see a skilled Lux, Ezreal, Orianna, etc- or just that single, brilliant Nidalee spear from max range, you can separate the men from the boys. There are even other kinds of 'skillshots' that aren't missile-based, but instead have more to do with positioning- similar to Windrunner, if you will. A good example being Riven- her Q lets her pass through targets while swinging, but you can also hover 'over' a target to hit them with it like a wall. Knowing how to actually curve through and around them so that you're positioned perfectly, or knock them back just slightly the way you want, can make or break the whole thing. Pixels win lanes with her, and many other champions. Different resource systems on champions. Katarina for example, has none whatsoever but her cooldowns, which reset on a kill. Most characters use mana, but some prioritize it more than others- Ryze actually has damage scale off of it, Kassadin needs a huge pool to be able to get his ultimate stacked up enough, etc. With others, it's simply a limit to keep you from spamming spells all day. Even then, there's Energy(small pool that regens quickly), Rage(builds off of auto attacks), and some character-specific ones, such as Rengar's Ferocity or Rumble's Heat meter. Real magic scaling. It's not necessarily better than DotA's, but I prefer it, especially considering 'carrying' as a spellcaster against a traditional Agi Carry can get pretty tough lategame in DotA. On the other hand, there's a handful of things I really like about DotA: A heavier emphasis on items with active abilities. League has several, and they're all incredibly powerful. But with DotA, there's seriously a ton of the things. I'd kill for a Force Staff in LoL, even if it couldn't jump walls like in DotA. I just like the DotA art style a ton more. God damn, it's a beautiful game. The surrounding infrastructure and client are just better built. That's sorta what happens when you have money even when you're first starting. The innovative ideas that are in the Pennant system, bringing back HLTV(and even supplying an external client!), in-game team skinning, the in-game guide system- it's all pretty damn magical and forward-thinking. Lastly, some differences that not many bring up, where my preferences shine through: Map size and mobility differences. Mid/lategame, shit takes time in DotA. Just going from fountain to the center of the map takes foreeeeever. In League, it's ~35 seconds. 25 or so if you grab Homeguard boots. Furthermore, champions on the whole are way more mobile in League, in means of being able to hop over walls given proper situations, and in general mobility is just something that seems to be taken much more aggressively in League. Then again, the small size of the map and the high mobility means we'll never see someone like Spirit Breaker, who is just fucking incredible to play to any League player. The idea that he can do that on such a low cooldown is nuts. Skins in League, for me at least, are just flat superior than DotA's option. Yeah, you're not able to earn them ingame, which sucks a bit- but when I wanted to spend money on DotA items, I found that I couldn't even recognize the difference between the default and the new item. Whereas you never have that issue in LoL, and especially on the more expensive skins. Something as simple as iBlitzcrank(~$8.75 USD, maybe less, been awhile since I did conversions) is a massive difference from his normal skin. Same with Redeemed Riven, Fisherman Fizz, Queen Ashe. Then you've got your legendary skins, which are practically a total cosmetic(including audio) change from the default. And that isn't even mentioning the crazy class, like Pulsefire Ezreal, which has multiple in-game tiers to the skin itself. The speed of the games is pretty drastically different. Pro DotA can have some rather... long... pauses. Generally in League, pauses don't last that long- it's pretty rare for pauses in the action to exceed 5 minutes. Your average pro DotA game has at least one 5 minute pause in it, and it's fairly frequent to get more than 15 minutes of downright boring shit going on. However, this also keys into much more going on 'behind the scenes' with DotA- the posturing can make the whole game. And sometimes, that can be pretty interesting. Item variety. In League, you've got a few different build paths for each character, but it's more about deciding between types of all-out damage, or how to itemize against the enemy team. With DotA, there's a lot more variety there. Now granted, most of it is going to be utterly worthless, even if you're playing a Mage support and you're looking purely at items for Mage supports. But then you get weird niche cases like your carry picking up a sheep stick because they can get legit usefulness from it. WOO. THERE. WROTE IT ALL OUT. The one thing I won't go into: Runes and Masteries. Masteries I'm fine with, no big deal there, and it can create some pretty wild differences that are pretty fun. So can runes. But rune pages being so prohibitively expensive is kinda nuts to me. Hell, I'd even rather they be free- I can't imagine doing that would diminish their income that much, as most of it I know comes from skins. Edit: Oh, and I can't imagine something as fucking nuts-crazy-fast as this(the superfast double hop late in the clip) happening in DotA:

All us LoL players are gonna bitch and moan every week, guaranteed. But we'll listen anyway, because we'll love to hear about your horrible-turn-speed related pain.

I haven't finished the episode, but I find it hilarious that Congrats Nick Breckon is back, and almost never talks now.

I kinda paid attention to this since before the Kickstarter, but my excitement wasn't turned to fervor until I found out the guy who did the Homeworld Soundtrack was on the team. Then I started frothing at the mouth, and pounding on my desk, wanting it now.

Fucking best. The fact that Sean and Jake are up there is just hilarious. Could've used a Baboo, but I'll take it. Congratulations, guys.