Rob Zacny

Episode 191: Return to Summoner's Rift

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In a perhaps dangerously detailed discussion of League of Legends, Rob and Julian talk to Rhea "Ashelia" Monique and Julian Williams about the recent League of Legends championship. They talk about the new ways pro teams are playing the game, and the connection between the pro game and the regular ranked play. They also talk about the importance of casual play and bringing in new players, and discuss the different ways StarCraft 2 and League of Legends approach that issue.

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I love it! Thanks for talking about eSports and this game in particular. I'm a big League fan and I think it deserves more detailed coverage, so it's nice to hear about it on 3MA.

Taipei Assassins are ridiculous. And both Azubu teams have looked really good all year and I'd love to see them both get into the finals next year.

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With all respect to the scheduling needs and interests of the hosts....

Is this what most of the TMA podcasts sound like to outsiders? It's incomprehensible to me from the word go. I don't play this game, but that's rarely been a barrier to my ability to follow the podcast. It may be the combo of discussion of a specific event, with a specific cast of teams (and players versus characters), but never have I been so lost in the discussion.

If we're going abroad, please at least re-introduce the game, who was participating, and tie it back to the results. This one may be all on me, but I feel like it could have been saved.

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It was a bit of a weird show, in that much of the discussion was about specifics to character builds, coupled with talk about how teams and "celebrities" performed. It was a bit of a shame the game wasn't explained and presented to the audience first - most strategy gamers might have heard about it, and even know the basics of the Defenders of the Ancients (DoTA) style mechanics, but still lane talk and "jungling" wasn't really explained - and having unknown champion names thrown in the discussion with their powers in some shorthand code was a bit confusing to me - and I've played some League of Legends!

My biggest gripe with League of Legends is that the online game is quite hostile to newcomers. I've dabbled a little bit, enjoyed some matches, but ultimately - even low down in the rankings - matches with other players often leads to lots of communicated abuse. I tried, but there doesn't seem to be a place you can play the game, to enjoy it as a co-operative team experience - simply because of the competitive nature of the game's outcome.

When learning the game, exploring the mechanics of a particular champion, you can encounter a tirade of abuse, because you didn't play the min/max expected way, or you did something a little off and you end up getting a bucketload of textual abuse. Nice intro. Unless you have a crew of friends who just enjoy playing the game together, regardless of skill level or outcome, I think you're in for some ribbing. It just spoilt the whole feel to the gameplay for me.

It was an interesting divergence from the normal podcast, but I feel there should have been a lot more discussion about the games design, mechanics, and games of a similar ilk. Instead, we have a nitty gritty "nerd out" on details that only mean something to players who are very familiar with the game. It would be like talking about Magic the Gathering at the card interaction level. If you don't know the cards, you really won't appreciate the discussion all that much.

Looking forward to the 3MA Scourge of War multiplayer game!

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This was the worst Three Moves Ahead show, by a long long way. No attempt was made to make the discussion accessible to anybody who hasn't played LoL. For example, did they ever explain what "jungling" is?

A shame really. One of the reasons I rate Three Moves Ahead is that Troy,Bruce and co are usually excellent at directing interesting discussions which I enjoy listening to, even if I've never played the game. Sometimes, they get me interested in a game I would otherwise never of heard of, and sometimes, I just enjoy the discussion.

I guess the LoL show was just for the l33t, and I'm too much of a n00b. That's basically how the show came about.

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I would simply suggest that, if Rob and the 3MA crew want to discuss e-sports in this kind of grueling detail, perhaps a separate podcast would be a better place to do it.

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While I love the idea of this podcast it really sucked to listen to as a LOL outsider. No one gave any of us unfamiliar with LoL any kind of grounding, the discussion seemed to assume that I was familiar with LoL and all the concepts and terms being thrown around, which I am not. I felt lost most of the time and it was often hard to tell just when a competitive team or player was being discussed or characters from the game!

So while there was still some interesting discussion and I listened to the whole thing this was probably one of the least rewarding episodes for me as a fan of Three Moves Ahead out of all of them. If you do something like this again please give your audience some information and clarify what you are talking about so people are not left feeling totally lost.

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Lords Management as strategy (as opposed to micro + tactics) is a bit of a stretch anyways...

could just as easily talk about FPS games as far as strategic content goes

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Lords Management as strategy (as opposed to micro + tactics) is a bit of a stretch anyways...

could just as easily talk about FPS games as far as strategic content goes

I agree exactly. Perhaps with the exception of SC2 (although maybe not) I view e-sports in a similar way as "real" sports, such as tennis, squash, boxing, etc. There's very little strategy in those games... most of it is down to perfecting physical skills, and knowing which shots to make when,and understanding your opponents strengths and weaknesses.

And, I'm glad I'm not the only one who was completely lost with this show. The net result of it was it actually turned me off the idea of playing LoL, as what little of the conversation I did understand, seemed to be based around the idea that the game is very complicated and the developers have to constantly release patches to try and keep things roughly in balance.

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Woah. This is the sort of episode that needs to come with a disclaimer I think, "if you've never played LoL then this podcast probably won't mean anything to you".

I was lost in the first 5 minutes given the number of character names, team names (I think) and I assume individuals who were getting referenced. I could hear how enthused Rob, Julian, Julian and Rhea were about the subject matter but I've had to turn off I'm afraid. Any chance of a LoL for beginners podcast to balance it up?

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I agree exactly. Perhaps with the exception of SC2 (although maybe not) I view e-sports in a similar way as "real" sports, such as tennis, squash, boxing, etc. There's very little strategy in those games... most of it is down to perfecting physical skills, and knowing which shots to make when,and understanding your opponents strengths and weaknesses.

is what you described not strategy?

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is what you described not strategy?

I'd say that most of it isn't strategy. A large part of a sport is physical fitness and technique. Sure, there's some strategy in sports. But that doesn't make sports strategy games. Using your implied definition, then doing to the super market counts as a strategy game, as there's clearly an optimum way to run up and down hte lanes, and hopefully spend as little as possible while obtaining the tastiest loot. But, i think you'd agree, unless you really really enjoy playing Devil's advocate, that going shopping is not a strategy game.

This isn't to say I think LoL is dumb or anything. I assume it's just, if not more, as complex as something like TeamFortress 2 which I enjoy playing. But I wouldn't expect TF2 to be talked about as a strategy game.

But, lets not have a big argument about definitions etc. It gets boring fast, and I'll just live with you having your opinion, and I can have mine :)

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Heard and understood. I sat down to edit this episode with the intent of trying to keep it accessible, but our panelists were so deeply knowledgable that it was in-depth from the start. If I had edited out all the really esoteric bits it would have been about five minutes long, so I left almost everything in. Feel free to take my name in vain, at least until the next show.

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I agree exactly. Perhaps with the exception of SC2 (although maybe not) I view e-sports in a similar way as "real" sports, such as tennis, squash, boxing, etc. There's very little strategy in those games... most of it is down to perfecting physical skills, and knowing which shots to make when,and understanding your opponents strengths and weaknesses.

A great deal of most sports is strategy, which translates to tactics. Certainly there is a physical prowess needed to be able to hit a shot to the baseline in tennis consistently, but building up and breaking down certain opponents' tendencies is something that you plan, then execute, then revise constantly as the match goes on. I don't know if you're a football fan, but football offense is ENTIRELY concepts. Even if you don't care about football, if you are interested in strategy www.smartfootball.com is a wonderful games strategy website, it just happens to be about pigskin.

If it were well made and executed, Shopping Strategy '12 could be an awesome game. I definitely have a plan for when I go to the supermarket.

As a person who IS into League of Legends and could in fact follow what the podcast was about, I was interested but also somewhat disappointed that the discussion focused nearly exclusively on the S2 finals, and the final matches themselves. Picks/bans was interesting discussion fodder, but I also felt like there were missed opportunities to actually describe the jungle, what the differences were between S1 and S2 and why jungling strategies changes, and what a rework means for the game as a whole.

I also thought that there was no discussion of Riot's marketing of the players was a missed opportunity. How do you appeal to the casual market and make sure they know professional gaming exists? Tell them about it! Riot has two splash screens with posts and information and is constantly willing to put out info on what's going on in the community AND to market the players. There are professional gamer spotlights on the client that are both little glimpses into how they play certain characters, and also who they are as people. Do you like Scarra? Yay you can watch a match and root for Scarra. Do you think he's a jerk? Boo Scarra, go other team.

And there was no real discussion of the ultra-casual. There IS a level Riot has to appeal to where the meta-game that coalesces at even the basic 1000 elo level simply doesn't exist. My father plays League of Legends. He is in his (early) 60s. He plays about 5 characters. If one of the ones he was going to take top/bottom lane is taken, he'll pick another one... and end up in that lane anyway. He's played some pvp. He's 50/50, even (matching system works!). But he also found some guys who play intermediate bot matches, and damned if he doesn't play organized PvE 5 man bot matches. This is a guy who plays Civ, plays XCOM, all the Total War games. I am pretty sure he was talking to me about playing Master of Magic within the last week. But from what I can tell, he plays more League of Legends than anything else. And while he grasps the game, he's bad at it. He's bad! And who cares. If he has more kills than deaths and they all beat the bots and everyone gets honor, that was a GREAT game.

It would have been nice to see more broad concepts, and the panel tended to end up discussing specific tactics, or even specific players or moments when a general discussion would have probably served the audience better.

Holy shit I wrote a lot of words.

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Heard and understood. I sat down to edit this episode with the intent of trying to keep it accessible, but our panelists were so deeply knowledgable that it was in-depth from the start. If I had edited out all the really esoteric bits it would have been about five minutes long, so I left almost everything in. Feel free to take my name in vain, at least until the next show.

Well how much do you really want to shape the show through editing anyway? It was, I hate to say it, mostly the host's fault. He should have been the one making sure the audience knew what was being discussed.

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As an outsider to LoL and DotA and LoMa games in general, I was not alienated by this episode, but rather fascinated. It's a very intriguing category of games that has exploded so quickly into a vibrant and detailed subculture of gaming. Sure it took me a google to figure out exactly what Jungling is. But hearing the knitty gritty of strategy in the game from people who love the game was amazing, and ultimately might have afforded me a slightly better understanding of the games.

What I anticipate now is a Cannon Fodder LoMa clone.

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Heard and understood. I sat down to edit this episode with the intent of trying to keep it accessible, but our panelists were so deeply knowledgable that it was in-depth from the start. If I had edited out all the really esoteric bits it would have been about five minutes long, so I left almost everything in. Feel free to take my name in vain, at least until the next show.

I don't think anyone here is really blaming the editing, Michael. This is pretty clearly a content problem. Well, "problem" is perhaps overstating it, this is an episode whose content is really only interesting/accessible to a specific cross-over group of 3MA listeners. It's a bit like the racing show, except great pains were taken there to ensure that non-racing gamers understood what was being discussed.

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I don't think anyone here is really blaming the editing, Michael. This is pretty clearly a content problem. Well, "problem" is perhaps overstating it, this is an episode whose content is really only interesting/accessible to a specific cross-over group of 3MA listeners. It's a bit like the racing show, except great pains were taken there to ensure that non-racing gamers understood what was being discussed.

Exactly, it was not a bad show and even though I understood approximately 1% of what was being discussed I still listened to the whole show. I am sure if I knew more about LoL I would have found it much more interesting than I did.

The odd thing is the Rob is usually such a good host. I don't know if he felt cowed by the depth of knowldge the guests and other panelist hold on the subject or what, but usually he does a good job of keeping the show on track and accessible.

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One of the worst shows of 3MA I've ever listened to. If they cover E-Sports again they should go into some lengths to explain the game, the terms etc. This way this was simply absolutely incomprehensible for people who don't know anything about the game.

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I've played just enough LoL and DotA to enjoy this episode. I like to see a deep drive once in awhile. If they did a show like this on Chess and they stopped and explained what pawns and what a fork is it would be excruciatingly boring to people really into Chess. But go into the intricacies of openings and modern metagame and everyone else would be lost.

I can see how it sucks if you have no idea what the terms even are but I think a simple warning in front of the episode would have been fine. Or better, refer people to this earlier episode which DOES go through the basics of the genre: http://flashofsteel....2-for-the-lols/

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I've created an account on IT just to voice my dislike of this episode.

This one was impenetrable, needlessly specific and made no attempt to explain, enlighten or enrich listeners who are not highly familiar with the game.

I've stopped listening midway through, even though I'd just run out of podcasts to listen to.

This is not the first time a TMA episode has been about a game I don't play, or a genre I'm not familiar with, but always before you guys tended to explain your points, make allegories and so forth. This episode was like listening to two chess experts arguiong a specific match or the pros and cons of certain openings.

I would expect this kind of content from a podcast called "This week in LoL", not one called TMA.

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