Re: League of Legends

[Frost]

Herfacescaresme: http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-reveal/jinx-loose-cannon-revealed

Of course it does. She's ripping off inspired by The Joker, just like so many other champs are ripped off inspired by other franchises

[CamoBadger]

Herfacescaresme: http://beta.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-reveal/jinx-loose-cannon-revealed

Of course it does. She's ripping off inspired by The Joker, just like so many other champs are ripped off inspired by other franchises

What are you talking about, they're super original with EVERY character.

Especially the Scarecrow ripoff, the Poison Ivy ripoff, the League of Shadows ripoff(s), and of course the Batman ripoff (doesn't look like it, but Vayne's backstory is EXACTLY. THE. SAME). Methinks someone has a hard-on for Batman...

And this isn't even including the skins...

[Frost]

I think they were just running low on their quota for scantily-clad, improbably slender females with enormous, impractical weapons. And, as you know, if the fanbase doesn't have big ol' titties flashed at their face every few minutes, they might step back and look at the characters, the lore, and indeed the very world in which the game is set. Then they'll poke it with a stick and it, being a paper-thin farce, will be knocked over to expose the Riot team, snorting coke and doing fuck-all to make anything about the franchise coherent.

[Frost]

Nah, take a look at her backstory. It's exceedingly obvious that she's The Joker dressed like a stripper and wielding a weapon designed by someone who's never used weapons.

Although "X* dressed like a stripper and wielding a weapon designed by someone who's never used weapons" is pretty much LoL's standard female character design.


*The "inspiration" is to be determined by taping comic books to a wall and throwing darts after two lines of coke.

[CamoBadger]

Nah, take a look at her backstory. It's exceedingly obvious that she's The Joker dressed like a stripper and wielding a weapon designed by someone who's never used weapons.

Although "X* dressed like a stripper and wielding a weapon designed by someone who's never used weapons" is pretty much LoL's standard female character design.


*The "inspiration" is to be determined by taping comic books to a wall and throwing darts after two lines of coke.

Eh, kinda. It's missing a big part of the Joker backstory (or at least the most accepted 'confirmed' one). But if you go with the "nobody knows his story" option that a lot of people choose because it's more 'Jokerish' that way, then yes, she's the Joker without a doubt.

[Frost]

You'll notice a good number of champs lack an actual origin story (and even more lack a sensible or well-put-together one). Some would argue this is an effort to increase the 'mystique' of the characters, though I would argue that this is an effort to increase the mountains of coke on their concubines' chests without having to think for more than ten minutes, because that makes their head feel all hurty.

[Frost]

I hope I'm not being too subtle here--I don't hold the game in very high regard.

[Frost]

Though, to be fair, they're sure to give the guys their own pants-on-head retarded skins (like the one that turns the centaur into a magical robot), which has the net effect of making the game's overall tone something you'd expect if Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Prachett all got together and went completely off their meds. Even the most dramatic of backstories seem like they were written by a 14-year-old who grew up on Image Comics.

[Frost]

Right. All the characters are one-dimensional, and all have equally thin excuses for being included in the League. I'd say they could improve the game drastically by stripping away all the extraneous bullshit and taking the core characters and core plots (like the Noxan/Demacian war, for instance) and actually putting some effort into fleshing out the characters and factions into more than stupidly two dimensional self-parodies, and adding more abilities, upgrade paths and variety to those core characters so you can still play the game as you want, but, really, that's not going to help anyone get engaged in the game at all--it's the sort of game where you hover fifty feet above 'your' character, pointing him along like a bored pet owner with a laser pointer. It's not the game anyone turns to for depth, decent world-building, engagement or (judging by the sheer number of videos and articles breaking down every play bit-by-bit like football analysts) fun.

[Guest]

Frost, you're kinda wrong about this, only correct inasmuch as both the darker depictions of the Joker and this character are based on nihilistic anarchists. I take Jinx as a genderbent version of Nechayev combined with an '80s/'90s underground punk rock aesthetic (because early 20th century Russian fashion is... not as interesting). Revolution for revolution's sake, violence for violence's sake, total chaos.

[Frost]

Frost, you're kinda wrong about this, only correct inasmuch as both the darker depictions of the Joker and this character are based on nihilistic anarchists. I take Jinx as a genderbent version of Nechayev combined with an '80s/'90s underground punk rock aesthetic (because early 20th century Russian fashion is... not as interesting). Revolution for revolution's sake, violence for violence's sake, total chaos.

This is the dev team that releases bunny outfits and 'sexy santa' costumes for its female characters at Halloween and considers a void-demon affecting a British accent to be the height of humor. When considering whether the character is inspired by a 19th century Russian Nihilist or ripped off of the same source they've ripped several other characters off of, forgive me if I make the cynical choice.

[Guest]

They already did the Joker/Mad Clown archetype, though, so they can't rip it off again. =P This is more Borderlands than anything else (which itself is punk).

Also, this character at least isn't being sold on sex appeal, at least not from what I can tell (they've been working on getting away from that, despite horrifyingly irritating backlash from a vocal bunch of people - most of your complaints date from several years ago). I'm not a fan of their writing department, at all, but this at least seems to be done well. I do think a clockwork skin would be a good idea, I just hope they're willing to go that dark with it. Maybe some sort of gearpunk/clockwork orange hybrid.

[Frost]

You mean Shaco, the IT ripoff?

If it's not a poorly thought-out money-grab, then do me a favor--look back through Jinx's backstory and tell me how she came to actually fight for the League. Tell me why she would fight for the League--an organization dedicated to keeping order--at all. Tell me how she and the shadow-man and the sentient fucking tree are, in any way, related to the idea that the League prevents wars with Combat-by-Champion fights supported by each nation involved.

It took about ten minutes of play and thirty minutes of browsing the wiki for me to realize that the Riot team cares as much about LoL as a trailer-trash 19-year-old cares about dick-sucking--it's something that they've gotta get off the couch and devote 20 minutes a week to, begrudgingly, to keep the smack flowing.

[Guest]

@Frost
Enslavement, potentially, or just to blow shit up or to fuck with Vi and Cait. They haven't given a damn about the original story from League of Legends for a long time - I just wish they actually accepted that the original concept was dumb and did a total lore rewrite, because, sad to say, they really are trying. I know you're being hyperbolic and all, but seriously, they put in effort. Most of your problems with their lore are from the original version of the game, which sucked.

The current version still sucks, but for different, less sucky reasons. They had... like, about a year where the lore was actually reasonably good - too politicky, and still too devoted to the dumb original concept, but reasonably complex and 100% gray morality characters interacting with one another in interesting ways. Now, they do two things: create large-scale, interesting conflicts that never resolve (because the game-world necessitates that nothing change), and create characters that, with a bit of nudging could be considered interesting, but which are never fully fleshed out because the only space for that to happen is with the aforementioned large-scale conflicts and with later character releases. For instance, before this Jinx character was created, there was Vi (stands for: vice, violence, vicious, etc.) - essentially the "good guy" version of the punk grrrrl aesthetic. Vigilante who joins up with the police, likes punching things, makes inappropriate jokes, all that. This new character is the "chaotic neutral/evil" version (depends on your definition of "evil") of the same rebellious, we-do-things-my-way, in-your-face style, and thus acts as a foil for Vi.

Now, I fully expect they're going to fuck it all up, because they always do one way or another, but I give them credit for trying a lot harder than they need to, and for making some pretty cool things happen.

EDIT: Well, chalk this one up to me once again seeing more potential in a character than Riot does. She's based on the Joker, Helena Bonham Carter, and Gollum. They may stem from the same roots of the darker side of anti-authoritarian "dispossessed" stuff, but she's an homage to the products, not the source. Still funny in game, though.

[Ironmonger]

Cho'Gath is my favorite character because his concept has some promise, and he is pretty nasty in the game. It's hilarious when the 30-ft monster lumbers out of the jungle to appear right next to the enemy ADC.

I'm seriously considering turning a Tyranid Carnifex model into a scarier model of Cho.

LULZ:

[Guest]

Well, I just had the best jungle Nasus game I've ever had when playing with 9 strangers. This despite the enemy team having a fed Tryndamere. In fairness, I specifically picked Nasus because they went with Trynd, so... good planning is good. Had a pretty good team (apart from a Sona who either did not understand that she was squishy or had poor map awareness at critical moments) and there were basically two things that happened every fight lategame: either I was left alone, and by the end of the fight I was killing everyone 1v3; or I was being focused, and still dealing tons of damage, but our Twitch and Malzahar were lighting up the enemy team freely, and I still wasn't dying. Nasus is basically a giant asshole dog of cripples, slows, and one of the best "free stat" ults in the game.

Final build (in order of building): Spirit of the Ancient Golem, Ninja Tabi, Iceborn Gauntlet, Spirit Visage, and the components of a Randuin's Omen (Giant's Belt and Warden's Mail). Basically, their AP was pure burst (AP Tristana) and was thus almost no threat to me, so I could afford to stack armor with my first items, shutting down Trynd, their ADC (Cait), and their jungler (Rengar, who went for a BotRK first and probably regretted his decision). Spirit Visage midgame let me tank their whole team, and is strong on Nasus anyway, giving him CDR (super great), health (great), and the passive works with his passive lifesteal - I did win some fights by just getting enough health back to survive constantly.

So! Jungle Nasus. If you can last hit with his Q reasonably well, and can swing either triforce or iceborn gauntlet (I prefer IBG), you're gonna have a pretty good time.

[Ironmonger]

That's great to hear, Cobalt. Now for a little battle report of my own. I went for a quick bot game on Twisted Treeline, I went as Cho'Gath because he's just so useful, and the others with me went Yi and Lucian. I went top with Yi, and he immediatley parks himself in a bush. Naturally I think that we're going for an ambush, because Yi is an asshole character and Cho is a nightmare opponent. However, he stayed there for five minutes and then disconnected, leaving me to get beaten to death by Xin Zhao and Ezreal. Xin gave me the most problems because he's so freaking fast. He could run me down quite easily, and his naturally high movement speed made it difficult to land my Q, which caused all sorts of problems for me. At a certain point I learned that it was best to play it safe and farm, because inhuman reaction time or no, Cho'Gath is still Cho'Gath, and his endgame is murderous. Eventually I could 1v1 Xin and and Ez (but not 1v2 them), and thankfully Lucian carried me through the game since I had a horrible early game.

Overall, I find Cho'Gath very easy to play. He has enough utility to let him fill most if not all roles, making him quite unpredictable, and he's pretty scary regardless of what he does. His ult can be used to discourage enemies or end them, which is made even better by its relatively low cooldown.

[RoboRed]

[Ironmonger]

I'D TOTALLY EAT HER!

[Aonee]

By the way guys, League Worlds Semifinals just started. You can watch the livestream at lolesports.com.

[Guest]

Well, those games were... kinda disappointing. I won't spoil them, but yeah.

Anyway, I finally am S4! Yay. I brought Aatrox jungle in without any experience, and stomped hard as a tank/initiator with BotRK for damage. So, yeah, riding that OP train as far as it goes. Also managed to win a game despite having a jungle Heimer and support Shaco on my team (they were duo), but that was with Vayne.

EDIT: Seriously, winning four games in a row just makes you feel super duper pumped. Definitely going to actually play my promo matches when I reach them from now on, rather than playing them the next day - being on point from the getgo is really nice. Making plays for days while listening to depressing Anathema songs. Seriously, Aatrox just feels so freeing to play, because of that OP passive and his very strong mobility. I can't believe we (the LoL community) thought he was UP just because his knockup is kinda hard to land.

[Ironmonger]

Congrats! I bet it was at least slightly amusing seeing Heimerdingus and Wacko go borderline troll. On another note, I'm looking into getting more mages and tanks since they seem so undervalued from what I've seen so far. Sure, have fun with that assassin character, schmeeple. Viktor will just be over here shuffling and shoop-da-whooping ass.

[Aonee]

Goods news everybody. I finished my promo matches, and got placed in Silver IV. I'm happy about this, because it means I get the ward skin, which is really all I wanted.

[CamoBadger]

well, I'm trying to start playing this again, but it'll be on my laptop trackpad so we'll see how this goes...

after it updates...which will take a good hour...

Update: NEVER AGAIN

[Ironmonger]

Something go wrong, Camo?

@In other news

I've decided to master Cho'Gath. He's not as flashy as some champions like Riven, but his utility is incredible.

[Aonee]

[Guest]

@Aonee
"But... is he Diamond 1?" I laughed. The trials and tribulations of soloqueue. Also, rabbit. =P

[Aonee]

In other news, the World Championships Final has started. Poor Monte, all alone on the Hype Train. I'm joining him, though.

[Guest]

@Aonee
Watching it now.

Also, for those more inclined to watching terrible plays instead of great ones... link. Made me laugh, a lot.

[Aonee]

Game 1 Spoiler:

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