World of Warcraft – Page 8

New World of Warcraft Animated Short

New World of Warcraft Animated Short Shares More Pandarian Wisdom

Blizzard released today another short of its lovely “the Burdens of Shaohao” series, showing the last emperor of Pandaria on a quest to save his realm.

This time around we see Shaohao struggling against despair with the help of the soaring red crane of hope, that shares some more far eastern (Pandarian) wisdom to help him save himself.

Check it out below. It’s really hard not to be charmed by the visuals and narration of this series of shorts, whether you’re a World of Warcraft enthusiast or not.

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What is up with World of Warcraft?

Some two years ago I got a buddy invite from my brother in law to join him on World of Warcraft (WoW) and play alongside him in his guild. I was hesitant at first until he sent me a video of a World Boss fight with over 40 level 85’s attacking this mighty Boss. I could see healers, tanks and damage-per-second players (DPS) going at it, bright lights flashing in front of my eyes which was all the lovely magical powers in the game. I used to think the open world from Grand Theft Auto (GTA) was big, until I got a glimpse of the mass environments within WoW. If you see a hill in the distance, you can actually get there. Do you want to learn more about honor points powerleveling ?

So, I rallied myself some courage and bought the game and its expansions. Now at this stage my brother in law was living in Holland and playing the game with his wife and other guild members. They had over five years experience in playing WoW. I was going to have to learn just how much time is spent in this massive world. I remember reading an article online that said WoW had over 13 million subscribers, and that at any given time there was about 2 million people playing the game. Now coming from an online gaming community, I mostly played first-person shooters (FPS) such as Call of Duty (CoD) and I have never seen those numbers online. The intricacies of WoW was unfamiliar to me, so it was great having skilled guild members taking me through the game and character building that is needed. I first had to decide on my race, alliance and class, then whether or not I would become a healer, tank etc. I chose DPS because, as I said I was mostly into FPS, this choice seemed more familiar to me.

As time went on, I was able to level up fairly quickly to level 85, then with the subsequent release of Mists of Pandaria I levelled up to 90 in a fair amount of time. The days and nights flew by and it was clear that I was hooked. I did a good number of raids and dungeons, and got to see the ugly side off players online who were clearly too involved in the game and had no ability to teach, assist or speak to other gamers. I know that if you played WoW, you either are/were this player or experienced this type of player. These players would inspect your layout even before a dungeon starts, and if you are even remotely out of sorts with what they feel is needed, you get kicked. Talk about “A Tough Crowd”, they were downright out of line.

Non the less, I ventured on and eventually did as many quests as I could. Then with the release of Battlefied 3 and Black Ops 2, I went back into my familiar gaming click, because at least there I was more comfortable and even if I experienced a rude gamer I was comfortable enough in my playing to retort back. So I left WoW, nicely stored on my PC, my hard earned dragon mount placed somewhere in limbo, perhaps waiting patiently for my return.

I started to read articles of late that indicated that quite a number of WoW players have started to leave the game, and the numbers started to fall more rapidly. Of course there is no real way to determine the cause of this as there are many variables to it. For some of the gamers may have started families, gotten jobs, moved away, refused to pay the monthly fees that continued to rise, or just got bored with the game and were looking forward to Blizzards new game, Project Titan which sadly got shelved, at least until 2016. Whatever the reason, the numbers have almost halved in such a short period of time.

In the beginning of the year, the first three months recorded 1.3 million subscriber losses which was around 14% of its total subscribers at the time. In October 2010 the number of subscribers sat at just over 12 million, but by August 2011 that number declined to 11 million and dropping by another million by November 2011. This year and as at June 2013, the number of still active subscribers is sitting at 7.7 million. That is a considerable drop, and for whatever reason, it looks as though it will still continue to show decline. The Santa Monica, CA based publisher is surely trying its best to bring in new and old subscribers to the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, and they have committed to maintain it for its current subscribers whilst regaining the lost gaming numbers. How they plan on doing this is difficult to see. As I mentioned in previous articles, Free-To-Play games are really doing well, whilst still in a young development stage, they do offer some gamers the free alternative in gaming. Of course there is nothing that can truly compare to the WoW world, and the beauty that it is. Whether or not there is another expansion on the cards, it remains to be seen as to whether Activision Blizzard may remain a force in the MMO genre, and that Project Titan may indeed be their saving grace, it will be interesting to see what transpires in the upcoming year or so for WoW, its gamers and developer. There are some good MMO titles out there, depending on what you feel most drawn too.

Only recently have I tried my hand at Eve Online, and although I rallied to WoW on seeing such a fantastic World Boss fight and its 40 or so attackers, it is nothing compared to the massive battlewhich took place on the 28 July 2013 in the Eve universe, where over 4 070 players combated each other in what was a brutal and magnificent event. With over 2 900 deaths, who can argue that MMO’s are fantastical, enduring, and most certainly games that can take away your hours and days without you even realising where the time has gone.

I hope that we haven’t seen the inevitable decline in WoW, and 7.7 million subscribers is nothing to ignore as that is still a substantial amount more than Eve online’s 500k of active subscribers. Blizzard never attained such greatness for nothing, and I am sure that at their HQ something is brewing, but what it is will only be clear in time. At least I hope so, because the MMO genre is very competitive.

How do assassins work in LOL?

lol nurseakaliold How do assassins work in League of Legends?

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In case you didn’t notice, the title of this week’s column is a question. It’s not because I know the answer; it’s because I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately and don’t have a really good answer.

Assassins are in a strange state when it comes to teamfights. In League of Legends, there’s a period when teams tend to group up to fight over objectives. This marks the midgame in Summoner’s Rift, it happens after altars unlock in Twisted Treeline, and it occurs anytime both teams know where the other team is on the Crystal Scar. We’ve discussed teamfights a lot already, but what is troubling is the presence of assassins in these fights. Assassins are best when they’re able to jump in and kill an unprepared target, ideally before a teamfight starts. Once that’s done, their team can jump in with a numbers advantage and take the objective or wipe out the enemy.

When both teams are grouped up ahead of time, assassins lose a lot of their might. Assassins can’t kill without exposing themselves to heavy risk, which makes them a liability to their team until they jump in. After they jump in, they’re still likely to be the first ones to get focused down.

What do we do about this? What’s the solution? I don’t have a clear answer — but I can still share my observations.

lol kassadinshutdown How do assassins work in League of Legends?

How do I kill people?

It’s no surprise really that I’m a risk-averse player. If I am going to dive into the chaos of a teamfight directly, I like to be an initiator or tanky bruiser with some big survivability tools or enemy team-wrecking tools. If I’m gonna die, I want to die knowing I forced two or three of my opponents down with a powerful initiation or completely shut down the enemy DPS and forced them to flee while my allies ripped apart the tanks.

Up until recently, I thought assassins filled a similar role in that they were supposed to dive in, wipe out a key DPS opponent, and get out, possibly helping to clean up afterwards. Unfortunately, every time I do this, I get smeared into the dirt. Obviously I wait until the fight actually starts, but if even two enemies train on me, I tend to get wiped before I can finish one of them off. Even if I manage to get a kill, at best my team traded DPS for DPS, which is not exactly a win situation.

The problem is that if I wait too long, the enemy team gets to apply all the power of five people; if I’m a top lane character, the enemy top lane bruiser gets to DPS while I wait to make something happen. If I’m a mid lane character, the enemy mid gets to unload his full burst combo or DPS or whatever while I’m doing nothing. Even if I kill him, I also have to deal significant damage to another person to contribute equally to the fight. If it’s a character like Orianna or Cassiopeia with an amazing teamfight ultimate, I basically have to kill her before she uses it or there is no way I am contributing enough.

So how do I make myself useful then? How do I win those fights without just getting “lucky” and picking someone off before the fight starts?

lol dvdiana How do assassins work in League of Legends?

How not to be an assasssin

Recently I fought against some wonderful Shacos and Teemos who would hide, wait for the teamfight to end, then come out and ambush in the hopes of cleaning up. Even if they got a singular kill, almost always their silly attempts ended with a quick death and my team still taking whatever objective we were after (typically an enemy turret). I’m pretty sure that is waiting a bit too long. If the perfect storm occurs and everyone on the enemy team is really weak, this trick might work, but even then the assassin has to survive the alpha strike of three to five surviving people. He might not even get to attack more than once before he is CCed and killed.

Another option is to try to come from an unexpected direction and attack from behind. I’ve had to deal with that, and while it does zone me out, I usually end up killing my assassin by kiting him — at least as ADC. If the assassin doesn’t kill me, as the ADC I can just go back and shoot at the closest easy target, or if there isn’t one, shoot minions or jungle creeps to lifesteal enough to get back in the fight. It might be different for mages, of course, but if it happens to an ally mage, I tend to just shoot the assassin in the face (or tackle him if I’m a bruiser), and if it happens to me as a mage, I tend to lay down whatever CC or burst I have and kite the assassin, and allies tend to collapse on him. It rarely ends with anything better than an even trade.

In fact, what bothers me the most about assassins is that any time I see a successful assassin in teamfights, it’s always one on my team. League of Legends is a game about concentration, and it’s incredibly hard to think about what my assassin is doing when I’m trying to focus on what I should be doing, what my enemy is doing, and what my other key teammates are doing (initiator being #1). I generally don’t pay attention to other DPS allies, and even then I generally only watch the backline to see if I need to respond to someone diving on our damage dealers. Then the fight ends and we aced the enemy team with no deaths, and our Akali has picked up a double kill. Did she just jump in at the end and kill steal? I don’t think so, to be honest. She did something to end the game at a positive kill-death ratio, but because my concentration is on doing everything I need to do, I can’t really watch to find out what she’s doing.

Unfortunately, LoL Replay doesn’t like my new computer, either.

lol tangocneve How do assassins work in League of Legends?

Successes with assassins

Astute readers will note that I play Kassadin, who is an assassin and pretty much can’t be played any other way. However, Kassadin is a bit different than other assassins in that he is a ranged mage assassin. His gap closer, Riftwalk, can be used to hop into spell range without making him stuck in melee. Because his spells also have good range, he can hold Riftwalk to hop out after throwing his nukes. If he’s against an isolated foe — especially a mage — he can toss Null Sphere to silence, then Force Pulse and Riftwalk on top of the mage and swing away with Nether Blade. However, if there’s a big teamfight, he can just Null Sphere the best easy target, Force Pulse the enemy group, and Riftwalk back to safety. He’s an assassin built for my kind of play.

The other assassin I actually do well with is Evelynn. To be honest, I would play Eve regardless of how well I use her (I play Akali and I’m horrible with her), but Evelynn holds a special place in my heart. In teamfights, I tend to hang out on the edge of the main fight and spam Hate Spike and run away if anyone tries to attack me. If anyone bunches up, I slam my ultimate and DPS like crazy until I notice my shield starting to take damage, then run away while hammering on Hate Spike. Overall I end up doing pretty well, and I have the bonus that I am also an assassin who can catch and kill individuals who are out of position. Evelynn also is an amazing scout, since she can approach the enemy closer to provide vision for her team. Her stealth is a fantastic tool in the early stages of a fight, since Eve can frequently provide intel on where her opponents are without giving up too much about her own team’s positioning. It also usually means that, despite being a close-range character, she is often nowhere near the event horizon of a teamfight, avoiding many powerful initiation abilities.

Other than those two, I’ve had little luck with real assassins. I’ve played terribly as Diana since she was nerfed (not complaining; the nerf was kinda warranted), and even though Akali was my first assassin, I am still horrible with her in any situation, whether it is in a lane on Summoner’s Rift or roaming on the Crystal Scar. I tend to do better as the “assassin” approaches the “bruiser” category, characters like Jax or Poppy who have gap closers and burst damage but are not really assassins. I also do just fine with mages that have the assassin tag, such as Ahri (who totally isn’t an assassin at all). In fact, the main reason I can play Kassadin is due to the fact that he has mage-like tools, even if he is built to be an assasssin.

In the end, I might just not be cut out to play assassins. I know there’s some key skill I’m missing, and I think that’s what bothers me the most. More than anything else, assassins are sort of a black hole for me, a gap of knowledge that I don’t really understand. Even with other people’s guides, I feel like there’s something fundamental missing that good assassins take for granted but is key. Either way, I don’t have that skill, whatever it is.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to wear that Nurse Akali skin without embarassing myself.

Teaching ourselves League of Legends matchups

lol tpaskins Teaching ourselves LoL matchups

I’m always looking for things to teach players in the Summoner’s Guidebook. We have, however, covered a lot of the low hanging fruit in one way or another. In League of Legends, and virtually every other asymmetric competitive game, matchup knowledge comprises the huge bulk of information that is truly useful to read about. This week was originally going to be a counter-Ryze guide, but then I decided to cover a broader topic to help reach more people.

I don’t really like discussing specific character matchups largely because the character you’re using matters almost as much as your opponent’s. What does Ryze do against Kassadin in lane, for instance? The answer is not a whole lot if the Kassadin is decent. I could write a counter-Kassadin guide, but a lot of it wouldn’t be usable by Ryze. Instead, this week we’ll discuss how to think about the opponent’s kit and develop a strategy to win on your own (or at least survive).

lol ashechold Teaching ourselves LoL matchups

Size of the zoning bubble

A character’s zoning presence is probably the single most important thing to know when laning against him or her. You don’t have to know exact range numbers, but knowing really, really helps. Let’s go back to Ryze: The biggest reason for all of his problem matchups is his relatively short spell range. Anyone with a way to harass Ryze from safety has a good chance against him, but the characters who really hurt are those with superior range on targeted abilities. A character like Ashe (as unlikely as that lane matchup might be) can zone Ryze safely since both her autoattack and Volley reach much farther than his spells and she applies slows on both, while Ryze has no gap closer other than Flash (though he could Cleanse, too).

The closer you know a character’s guaranteed range and his or her “fuzzy” range, the better off you’ll be. Knowing Graves has 25 less range than most standard carries is a huge deal. Knowing at which levels Tristana begins to outrange other characters is also really useful.

It’s also important to note how much relative distance advantage something is. As Graves, I know that 25 range is not very much, and I can walk that distance in a little under 1/15th of a second, so all I need is a bit of mental distraction to weasel in. On the other hand, it takes around a third of a second to close the range gap with Caitlyn, which is very difficult to do since most people can make some reaction in a third of a second. In order to get in on Caity as Graves, she needs to make a positioning mistake.

In general, under 50 range advantage is not really reactible, but you can use it to poke safely in some matchups. Around 100ish is pretty significant, but someone can still sneak in if you aren’t dilligent. More than 200 range advantage generally keeps your opponent from getting in without eating damage, and even that’s not guaranteed. If someone has that much more range than you (typically via skillshot spells), you will have to bait skillshots or use gap closers.

Ability harmonics

Most characters’ kits, especially those created in the past year or so, tend to have unifying gameplay elements that work together. It’s sort of uncommon these days to have characters who lack a lot of internal synergy. If you’re suddenly thrust up against Syndra or something, it’s really important to know what those harmonics are.

Way back when Elise came out, I was not particularly scared to lane against her because I understood the harmony inherent in her set. Even on the first day, I was sure she wasn’t going to do something unexpected because I had thought of things like spider dive into girl mode into stun into spell combos into spider mode already. It’s hard to trick me with new stuff these days.

When I was a tiny nublet, I didn’t understand Ryze’s mechanics, specifically the concept of using non-Overload spells to create Overload chains. I looked at his passive and thought, “Oh, he must want to spam Overload to get his other spells back faster!” Fortunately I’m a little less bad now. Always look for unusual ways an ability can be used, and try to read into the letter of an ability. Kha’zix can use his evolved spikes to harass while healing himself if he aims one of his sideways spikes into the minion wave while he throws the center one at the enemy. As Khaz, you might want to look for opportunities for free healing like that, and against him you probably want to try to angle yourself so he can’t do it.

Trying to figure out how your opponent’s moveset works on the fly is a pretty hard skill. Look for obvious combos (like snare or stun into combos) and try to deny the opening move. A good example is against Vayne (or Poppy), who can hit you into walls and stun you. Keep a good eye on where she is and don’t give her a good angle to hit you into a wall. I almost never get walled by either character, but in virtually every game where they are opponents, I see teammates get wallstunned over and over. If you know what the opponent can do, try to use that knowledge to figure out what she wants to do, then stop her from doing it!

If you want to develop this skill, I highly recommend playing collectible games like Magic: The Gathering or deckbuilding games like Dominion. I actually took a lot of skills from Magic into MMOs, which I then took into board games and then into League. Any game where you have a lot of different elements to evaluate and choose from helps you develop this skill very quickly.

lol shyvgank Teaching ourselves LoL matchups

Working together makes this harder than it needs to be

The one thing that really tests my valuation skills in League is not lane matchups or anything 1v1. Full team compositions are what really put your ability to the test.

A long time ago in my League career, I got blindsided by a Shen top/Nocturne jungle/Twisted Fate mid team. It would have been even worse if their support had picked Teleport. In case you don’t get the comp right away, they basically ruled the post-6 laning phase because all three of them could be at the site of any confrontation. It was dangerous to even go out into the middle of the lane because Nocturne would ult in with Shen’s ult going and TF would teleport behind you with a stun card ready. For me as the bottom lane carry, it was terrible because it usually ended up as a 5v2 if I ever tried to last-hit. It didn’t even matter that their late game comp was kind of weak; they wrecked us so hard early that we didn’t really get to play.

Looking at a team composition and trying to make sense of it before the game is really helpful. Not every team fishes for something like Lulu/Shyvana, but enemy players aren’t picking their characters at random. Heck, even when they are (because of ARAM), understanding what your team and the enemy team can do together helps create predictions for how to play.

In my support article, I discussed a lot about how the support really needs to pick to work with her lane partner. Sona/Vayne is not the greatest lane comp ever, so if you see your partner pick Vayne, it’s probably better to pick another character. On the other hand, it’s also important to adapt. I’ve played Soraka/Vayne (as Vayne), and rather than whine about how Soraka is a terrible teammate for Vayne, I just went super-aggro with Tumble and did a lot of shoot-Tumble-Condemn three-hit combos. As it turns out, having infinite mana and a license to trade hits can work out for her. I’d still rather have Taric or Leona or Blitz, but I’m not going to yell at my support. If my partner wants to play Soraka, I’ll change the way I play to fit what she can do.

Adaptability is really the key to rapid improvement in LoL. New champions come out every couple of weeks, and even old ones that you rarely see pop up every now and then. The first time I laned mid against Swain, I got totally buchered because I didn’t know how to deal with Torment at all. Do you?

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League of Legends:Fog of War

fogofwar League of Legends:Fog of War

Fog of war refers to the obscuring effect that takes place on areas of the map that are not within the vision range of your allies. This means that, while you can see the topography of any area on the map, you can only see enemy units located near allied units or your champion. Take note of the areas surrounding your allies. Notice that these areas are brighter. These brighter areas are within the sight range of your champion or one of your allied units. Also notice that the rest of the map is somewhat shrouded. These shaded regions are covered by the fog of war. Enemies in these shaded regions cannot be seen until they enter the sight range of one of your allies. When enemies enter the sight range of an allied unit, they will be revealed, unless they are able to turn invisible or they are hiding within brush.

Note: There are ways of revealing areas on he map that would normally be shrouded in fog of war. The first is the summoner spell Clairvoyance, which can be placed anywhere on the map to reveal that area for five seconds. Stealthed users are not affected by this spell. The second is to buy consumable Vision or Sight Wards, which place invisible wards on the map that reveal enemy units (vision wards reveal stealthed units) for three minutes. Additionally, certain champion spells, such as Karthus’ Wall of Pain or Corki’s Phosphorus Bomb will reveal portions of the map shrouded by fog of war.

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