Reyturner

I'm still feeling pretty good about a dark souls "style" game coming out annually.

boy, that Google image search gets darker and darker the further you scroll o.OAlso, that dumb face the Google car is making is totally the face a secretly sentient car would make to avoid having its budding personality wiped.

Interesting. Playing it like Diablo / Baulder's Gate is what fixed the feel of it for me.

Agreed. It is an amazing pain to figure out who's even playing. This week seems very sparse.

Playing with a mouse and keyboard (after switching the attack and move inputs to LMB and RMB respectively) has eliminated the fuzzy disconnection I was feeling with the mechanics. I've also discovered that using the functions in different slots (upgrades / passives) unlocks more of the story, giving me that kick I needed to go beyond my comfort zone with the attacks. Dark Souls has trained me to be excited about lore attached to items edit: what Merus said

Dota is about mastering a scaling but ultimately static set of abilities. I feel like there is a lot more Diablo 3 DNA in the ability systems, both in the customization and in how they play, which is not a bad thing. I'm only an hour in and the systems are giving me a pleasant brain tickle, but so far the encounters haven't had much depth. Every fight feels rather samey so far. I would actually love a super granular fight summary, with letter grades and challenges, as I haven't felt the need to explore the skills much. Since you either just win all the fights or die, leaning on the same old same old seems perfectly effective. I love the Turn() system, but I feel like I can't achieve the level of fidelity in my attacks that the system seems to allow (not without a lot of undoing anyways). I'm playing with a controller. Is it different with mouse and keyboard? Gah! I feel like I'm being so negative... I'm going to finish Transistor, if only because it's gorgeous and the music is cool and I love the themes and I'm actually getting invested in the story. Also, dragging giant swords so that sparks fly off of them is cool. If I had a big green sword, I'd drag it around like that too.

Regarding Ground Zeroes I feel like 90% of the discussion on podcasts, twitter and tumblr was about the gross sex stuff, with most of that from people who heard about it and didn't play it. At least I'm pretty sure they didn't play it, as they usually included some variation of "and that's why I won't play it". I think there wasn't a wider outcry because the vast majority of the people who played it didn't see it. I played through it twice looking for it (without a guide) and didn't see it. The surgery scene was harrowing, but not particularly gendered (if you were unaware of that other content). I'm not saying that makes it better, just that a lack of a wider outcry despite it selling more than a million copies might not be cause to lose faith in humanity.

Become a master of pings, chat wheel and drawing on the map. Either for good or for evil.

Russia wants lots of autonomous fighting robots.

While it isn't quite what you're looking for, check out Purge and Merlini's YouTube channels. They have tons of vods where they go over tge basics, usually focusing on a single hero.Purge's Welcome to Dota, you suck is also invaluable for new viewers and players.

I get the impression that NBN basically stands for nothing but greed and control (their acronym doesn't even stay consistent). I'd love a Scientology flavor to any god ICE they get. Also, I'll be at Starlit Citadel tonight in case any other thumbs are going.

You can change daily, but only on days more than 24h into the future. You can also swap players for free agents at a rate of one a day.

Liquipedia is a one stop shop for tournament info joinDota is also good.

My clever plan to load up on Chinese Qual players would have panned out much better if I'd loaded up on players who were either: a. Chinese b. in the Chinese Quals >Game is hard

You should check out the Jojo's OAV from the 90's (it randomly drops you into the back half of the 3rd series with no context, which almost makes it better). I think the new show has almost caught up, but that older version is unironically one of my favorite animes ever.

DotaMetrics does great analysis of builds and win rates, with some insight as to how he uses the stats the API spits out.

I LOVE (reading about / watching other people) PLAYING DWARF FORTRESS!

This game does not have autosave...

Access to HBO Go (or some other high profile TV thing) with PS+ Account on PS4 and Vita.

Awesome! Sounds like everyone will at least be in the league by tomorrow. The Draft will start at 11am PST, May 17. Thanks guys! I know its been a pain in the butt for a few of you.

I want to believe that all of those titles conform to the ubiquitous "Property Name: Subtitle" format.

I'll lock the draft time in tomorrow night based on the feedback you guys leave.

Yes. If you miss the draft, you'll be assigned players by default by the system. After that you'll be able to trade your players for free agents (players not on any other team) or with other players at a rate of one a day. It's not impossible that I might miss it myself (toddlers are notoriously disrespectful of their dad's dota duties [no love for doto dad :V]).

Ah, I stand corrected. An account can only host one league but can join any number of other leagues, but each costs a ticket.