10 April 2013 | |
iTZKooPA
Google suggestions agree!
Sadly, the gaming community at large sucks. Not the community that attends Penny Arcade Expo or DragonCon. They’re amazing. Of course there’s plenty of overlap there. It’s when the illusion of anonymity sets in that everything degrades. The adverse impact of the Internet is that many people act as if there are no repercussions to the vitriol that they spout. I’d like to think that most of them do it as a form of fantasy. That is they troll not to express opinions, desires and state of mind that they suppress from everyday life but for kicks, putting people on the tilt or shock value.
The immature behavior isn’t limited to run of the mill players, drunk gamers or, as many will joke, teenagers. I’ve seen my friends do it and hollered at them for adding to the toxic environment. I’ve witnessed drunk gamers be incredibly supportive of lacking teammates instead of flexing virtual beer muscles. And the bans against various pro gamers in League of Legends have been well documented.
Heroes of Newerth’s MilkFat knows what I am talking about, labeling these players as “dicks” in a recent interview.
This vitriol has ruined more than one game for myself and many others. These days I limit my Xbox Live play to a Facebook group that a friend started to avoid trolls. I partly left League of Legends for SMITE due to the player atmosphere. I rarely touch online shooters unless I find a server cluster with a community culture I click with. The fact of the matter is that I value my time and experience more than I did previously. When I game I game to relax, to get away from the day and decompress. Listening to put downs, racist comments and the like is not what I call fun. Continue Reading
8 April 2013 | |
iTZKooPA
Competition, it drives us humans something fierce. The desire to reign supreme over one another. To flex physical or neurological muscle in an effort to show one’s prowess. Tapping into this human emotion is a major driving force behind the success of the multiplayer online battle arena genre as a whole. It tends to work pretty well.
Heroes of Newerth is one of the games that takes full advantage of this inspirable notion. It certainly hooked Sam Braithwaite, better known by his profession eSports name ‘MilkFat.’ Now the Commissioner of eSports for S2 Games, Braithwaite was happy to discuss the game that brought him so much notoriety during PAX East 2013.
With the season finals going on in the background, Braithwaite details the latest patch for HoN. Focused on quality-of-life changes, including an all-new new player initiative, S2 Games believes HoN 3.0 will be more accessible and enjoyable for all. As MilkFat details, it’s only going to get better from here.
Absorb the full interview after the jump. Continue Reading
15 October 2010 | |
iTZKooPA
Morphling concept art for DOTA 2
Earlier this week, Valve not-so-surprisingly announced DOTA 2, the sequel to the most popular Warcraft III custom map ever created. The success of the mod, which was itself based on an earlier concept from StarCraft, spawned an entirely new sub-genre, the action-RTS/RPG or MOBA. Companies high and low latched on to the concept and have added, or hope to add, their two cents to the mix. Gas Powered Games released Demigod in early 2009, Riot Games released League of Legends in late 2009 and S2 Games released Heroes of Newerth in mid 2010, just to name a few.
Every game named above has made a direct reference to the original DotA Allstars, with Demigod being the only game to dramatically alter a few of the core concepts. Some titles have even had the original developers pinned to the project as designers, consultants, or project leads. As you might expect, this has lead to products that mirror each other in many respects, but possess key differences. Continue Reading
