Thanks Galadin! The skins look great. Much appreciated.
Wendelius
Codes gone.
What skins were they?
In the past they had different skins, I think the two that I noticed from someone else was arcade Hecarium and Riot Blitz.
The new skins come out at PAX Prime, theyāre just giving away codes for existing skins at PAX East. I believe this year it was Artic Ops Varus, Arcade Hecarim and Riot Blitz.
looks like they also had codes for riot ward skin.
Correct. I have the [GONE] and Riot Blitz codes for the first PM to me.
I donāt know how many here enjoy the excellent Night Visions album by Imagine Dragons ( the one with Radioactive and On top of the world), but they have just released a new song thatās every bit as good.
There is a bit of story behind it. It was written in collaboration with Riot for the League Of Legends world championship currently taking place in Seoul. And, as such, you can also download it for free from here at the moment: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/esports-event/warriors
The tournament itself has just completed the group stages and oh the drama. I donāt play LoL, while my son Tom is a silver ranked player, but we were both up before 7 to watch the matches taking place in Seoul live.
Europe crashed out after our favourite team managed to beat the number 2 team in the world and an incredible 70ā marathon filled with drama (we were one single auto attack away from winning the game before the counter attack wiped us out). 2 American teams are left competing and the rest of the field is, unsurprisingly, Korean and Chinese teams. Next matches are Friday. If you are curious about the game, support NA and watch them, but grab a LoL player to talk you through the crazy complex tactics and character (Champions) interactions. :)
Anyway, enjoy the song. I love it.
Wendelius
League of Legends has been in the news a bit lately.
First, there was an amusing duct-up when some player posted an Open Letter to Parents of League of Legends Players. This shouldnāt have been newsworthy, but Kotaku decided to run a piece on it. You can imagine how well that went over.
(Iāll repost the whole Open Letter forum post here since itās been offline from traffic overload.)
This is an online game. In most cases, your child is playing with real people. Please take a moment to understand how this gameās person-to-person interaction functions. In the past, I have seen numerous stories of children who routinely disconnect mid-game because itās bedtime, or their parents decide that theyāve played enough for the day. Some of these stories have come from parents themselves, proudly stating that they are firm about making their children stop playing at a specific time.
While it is admirable that you are teaching children some responsibility to schedules, please stop neglecting to teach them responsibility to other people. Unless your child is playing a Custom Game, his actions will permanently affect the statistics of up to 9 other people. Donāt enforce behavior that involves disregarding other people. Do you want your child being callous to people in face-to-face situations too?
The average game of League of Legends lasts over 30 minutes. Many last close to an hour. When a game has begun, players have implicitly committed their time to each other until the game ends.
If you have given your child a strict cutoff time for play, do not allow him to begin a game if he has less than an hour left.
ā¢Bedtime in 30 minutes? Donāt allow him to start a new game.
ā¢Dinner in 45 minutes? Donāt allow him to start a new game.
If a game is in progress, do not interrupt it unless it is an emergency. You are affecting up to 10 people, not just your child.
ā¢Feel like checking your e-mail on the same computer? Please wait until the game is over so you donāt completely ruin things for the real people on your childās team.
ā¢Is a game that started 90 minutes before bedtime somehow still in progress at 87 minutes? Please allow him to finish the match so you donāt completely ruin things for the real people on your childās team. Games almost never last that long, and if people lose due to a teammate quitting after spending that much time on a match, they are likely to be more upset than usual.
Now youāre probably thinking, āBut what if my child takes advantage of me and starts a game 5 minutes before bedtime because now Iāll feel guilty about making him quit a game in progress?ā I have an answer for that. Are you ready for it? Itās a two parter.
1.Let him finish the game. This sounds like youāre letting your child walk all over you, but please just let the game finish normally and follow through with step 2.
2.Ground him. Youāre the parent. Donāt let him play League for a while. If your kid tries to exploit you, you donāt have to stand for it. Step 1 is just about showing courtesy to other people and being responsible to the team. However, your child should definitely learn that there are consequences for all actions.
If you are a parent and canāt figure out why this is a problem, take some time to read how people react to children prematurely abandoning games.
If you know any parents who make their kids leave mid-game on a whim, please direct them to this thread.
Today, RIOT posted this unrelated official news about a League managerās misconduct.
On January 23, 2015 Wolski reached out to LCS officials stating that he had been threatened by MYM management. He also informed LCS officials that he had a recording of the conversation. We took this matter very seriously and continued our open investigation into the mistreatment of the player, although given legal concerns regarding the recording which was obtained without all partiesā knowledge, we did not request or use it to inform our ongoing investigation. The severity of the situation has since emerged through the recording being made public by Wolski, showing that he and his immediate family were threatened with legal action by MYM manager Sebastian Rotterdam.
Our investigation found fault on behalf of both player and management. Despite Wolskiās claims that payments had been withheld, we found the only missing payments stemmed from the Supa Hot Crew (SHC) organisation, of which Wolski was a player in the 2014 season. As we understand it, the failure to receive payments from SHC arose due to Wolskiās own failure to provide requested tax documentation, and this problem can be resolved once Wolski produces these documents. As a separate organization, MYM has provided us with documentation verifying that they have not withheld any payment from its players. As such, it appeared that by leaving the team ahead of the beginning of the spring split Wolski was breaking an active contract and commitment to MYM.
It is not our intention to create a precedent that discourages teams from discussing legal issues or informing players of their liabilities should they seek to disavow an existing contract, as in Wolskiās case. In fact, teams and players should have these conversations and negotiations independently and with full context and knowledge of the legal commitments and restrictions. What we also believe, however, is that teams have a moral commitment to treat players - who are often inexperienced and vulnerable - with dignity and respect. Rotterdamās actions in conversation with Wolski when addressing this contract break were both unprofessional and unjustifiable.
As confirmed by the team earlier today, MYM, of its own accord, has taken action against Rotterdam and fired him from his position as team manager. Rotterdam will also be indefinitely suspended by Riot from competing within the LCS as a manager or any other team position.
Overall, not a great week for LoL.
DJ Sona gonna fix everything.
The growing pains of a company continuing to learn, and grow a escorts league. Stuff like this is probably why most take a more hands off approach and just run one off tournaments still.
I guess I did this last year but hereās 3 more LoL codes. Something about a VelāKoz Skin.
Please post youāve taken them so others know.
Code 1: RW1644PBSTGDP8DGTE8BRCZKN
Code 2: RW1644KY88TM4HZ2HJR67EWNR
Code 3: RW1644NWW3RZ4UCFWGC34SA54
Iāve taken RW1644KY88TM4HZ2HJR67EWNR (code 2).
Thanks!
Wendelius
RW1644NWW3RZ4UCFWGC34SA54 (code 3) is gone. Thanks, looks like you get the champ if you didnāt already own it.
Overall, not a great week for LoL.
The latest outrage has been over the addition of a 0.75s delay to Veigarās E, event horizon - and if you cite Fakerās performance on the champ as an example of the lack of counterplay offered by a long range instant stun, it doesnāt seem to cut much ice, as heās Faker after all.
Anyway, hereās a couple of pre-rework Veigar games I recorded, first a Twisted Treeline game I played before they removed blackfire torch a couple of months back:
And a special salute to deathfire grasp (22:10 to 29:20 is the best part if you like triple kills):
Hereās my first VelāKoz game against human opposition (thanks again KiloOhm), also featuring new champion Bard:
Well, itās April 1st, and League has surpassed their other efforts.
Witness NURF. The official riot stream here: http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames/b/644514591
Iām not much of a League of Legends player. I simply donāt have time for the learning curve.
My son Tom is in Gold league though and teaches me a lot of the subtleties of the game when we watch a match. And Iāve started really enjoying watching the seasonal tournamements and world cups.
This is the game which has sold me on eSports. The amount of planning, skill, strategy and ability to react to your grand plan collapsing that go into each game make LoL a lot of fun to watch. Also, the professional coverage and commentary Riot offers help a lot.
As a European, Iāve gotten to really enjoy watching Fnatic play. Or I did, until the team imploded last year.
But they are back with a new line up. And just like for a regular sports team, they have to learn to work together and become competitive again. Something which they have somehow managed with very little preparation, winning the European LCS last weekend.
Which leads me to the reason for this post. An excellent 4 parts article has been posted about the fall and rebirth of the team. Itās well written, intelligible to non players and goes to show what goes on behind the scenes in those eSport leagues. I thought some here might be interested as well.
Rebuilding Fnatic, Part 1: The offseason break up
Rebuilding Fnatic, Part 2: A Korean odyssey
Rebuilding Fnatic, Part 3: Putting a team together
Rebuilding Fnatic, Part 4: Facing the Future
Wendelius
For those of you intrigued by LoL as an eSport, the first mid season invitational game is about to start (in 15ā) and opposes Fnatic (EU team) vs Team SoloMid, aka TSM (North American team).
It will be streamed and commented:
- on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames
- on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asU2YQPUZ7s
The learning curve is steep and it might not make a lot of sense during the first match. But you get an in depth commentary to take you through whatās going on. I enjoy having those high level clashes playing in the background at the end of a long day. And I donāt even like watching regular sports. :)
Wendelius
This is delicious. Riot is going to deny Season 2015 rewards (skins and the like) to people that have bans and infractions ongoing at the end of the season. Jeffrey Lyn, the social design lead, explained:
In the last season of Leagues play, we excluded some of the Ranked Rewards from players that were excessively toxic (so, exhibited severe offensive behaviors such as racism and sexism) or were persistently toxic (so, exhibited moderately offensive behaviors in a large number of games). Weāre going to continue this policy this year; however, there are some slight changes:
One, we always want to encourage reform, and celebrate players that successfully reform by the end of the season. So, players that got a Chat or Ranked Restriction during the season, but manage to reform and DO NOT HAVE active Chat or Ranked Restrictions by the season end cutoff will still get their Ranked Rewards. Players that still have active Chat or Ranked Restrictions by the season end cutoff will not be eligible.
Two, players that have received a few Low Priority Queues will still be eligible for Ranked Rewards because we do not want to punish players who may have gotten a few queues due to ISP or hardware issues; however, extremely chronic leavers that have left a huge fraction of their games or hundreds and hundreds of games will not receive Ranked Rewards. These are players that have ruined hundreds of thousands of games, and have had multiple 20 minute Low Priority Queues.
Three, players that have received escalated bans (so 7-day or 14-day bans) for excessive toxicity at any point during the 2015 Season will not receive Ranked Rewards. Players that have received these types of bans have shown some of the most egregious behaviors in the game, and we have a zero tolerance policy against things like racism, sexism, homophobia and other kinds of hate speech. These players WILL be eligible for Ranked Rewards in future seasons if they reform and are not flagged for excessive behaviors in future seasons.
Naturally, League players are going nuts.
I like the changesā¦ the players that are most vocal (aka. those going nuts) are those that have the most infractions.
Those that enjoy the game and like to play should be eligible; those that want to act like dicks arenāt!
now back to my Heores gameā¦
I might be one of the very few here who cares about LoL competitions, but Iām feeling pretty happy right now. Because the Worlds 2015 semi-finals are taking place in Brussels and Iāll be there with one my sons who plays the game quite a bit in ranked mode.
And we get to see 2 European teams who made it out of the group stages (leaving behind North America, China, the wild cards and other EU and Korean teams) take on 2 Korean teams. Itās the semi final nobody was predicting and itās going to be awesome:
Itās also been interesting this year because the BBC got in on the act and streamed all the quarter finals, complete with in depth commentary by Deman, a very well liked LoL caster who now comments other games, and coverage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0356nrb
Wendelius