Month: April 2016

Journal

Esport newest drama over porn companies

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YouPorn Esports team has suffered big blow after being kicked out of the ESL.  Adult entertainment industry often suffers from certain business avoiding dealing with it.  Rare to see any sort of sponsorship from the XXX rated world.  YouPorn tried to clean up it image with sponsorship of spanish based Esports team.  Adult entertainment industry makes billions every year yet often has limited opportunities.   Youporn decided to carefully rebrand it Esports team from Pay2Win to Team YP.   Team was quite successful grabbing headlines taking part in various competition under various games.

Electronic Sports League operates series of competitions, over 1,000 teams are linked to the league. Electronic Sports League recently taken action to exclude Team YP due to adult entertainment industry links.  Carefully named Team YP avoids talking about the adult entertainment industry sponsor behind it.  Quick search brings you towards the team safe for work blog avoids talking about YouPorn.  Electronic Sports League operates series of competitions, over 1,000 teams are linked to the league. Electronic Sports League recently taken action to exclude Team YP due to adult entertainment industry links.  Open secret that Esports often gets money from gambling companies and stories of drug abuse are known.  Company far more clean compared to other sponsors who have shady pasts.  Worse still Esports has dirty underbelly like all sports, trying to become mainstream. Esports often ends up dealing with companies which are forced to have ties with porn companies. This brings up the question why did ESL remove Team YP.  Massive failure dealing with various problems within Esports.  Match fixing, drug abuse, abuse have rocked the scene.

Team YP took steps avoid adult industry links being public.  Trying to create safe for work brand image over promoting the site.  Company was willing to rebrand whole team to avoid any issues. ESL declined according to Team YP, just releasing statement saying rule was nothing new.  According to reports the decision was taken direct from the board at ESL.  Game publishers often draw up long contracts that prohibit any participation from pornographic brands.  Team ended up doing some clever censored version of shirts in the past.  Not subtle which why offer was made to do complete rebrand of the team.  Of course moves like that may have annoyed ESL and not helped.

Gambling has been serious problem for Esports with many many competitions being fixed or rigged.  Only adults are allowed to play in ESL games, players have shouted abuse.  Seen some people say that the ban was make the sport more legitimate.  Was the case the ESL would review all money floating around.   Better yet violent is fine however porn companies no?

Find the whole thing confusing and part of the reason why can’t take Esports serious.  Wanted to be taken serious would be letting porn companies in and ditching gambling companies.

 

Playstation, PS4, Smite

Smite inefficient builds – Janus

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Key to better play within smite is understanding even the smallest mistakes.  Building inefficiently can cost you the game without you noticing.   Building items at the wrong time can reduce your power tie up gold in items not pulling weight.  Art to building gods within smite which takes time to master.  Playing as Janus last night had the following matchup Apollo, Janus and Bellona against Ah puch, arachne and Skadi.   Two physical gods and one magical god.

Ah Puch –  Great burst damage with good clear at any stage.

Arachne – Great at boxing with poor clear

Skadi – Great at boxing with poor clear.

Knowing that information helped shape the final build choices before starting the game. Scoreboard shows you opponents builds should shape your build.  Arachne started to build costly crits and Skadi went with standard hunter start.  SKadi turned out to be non issue but still going to be looking at the build.  Let’s review my opponents builds and see what happened.

Arachne

  • Deathbringer – 1st item
  • Stonecutter
  • Warrior boots
  • Malice
  • Bloodforge
  • ASI

Ah puch

  • Reforced shoes
  • Chronos pendant
  • Bancroft’s Talon
  • Breastplate of Valor
  • Spirit robe
  • Warlock slash – Last item

Janus – #1

  • Boots of magi
  • Breastplate of Valor
  • Chronos pendant – Inefficient
  • Void Stone – Inefficient
  • Rod of tahuti
  • Bancroft’s Talon

Only penetration coming from boots is inefficient, opponents building magical protections would make me worthless.  Chronos pendant does not give me enough power to make it worth it.   Void stone suffers from the same issue and Ah Puch not doing enough damage make it worth it.  Final items late game power can be traded around or switched for others.   Overall inefficient on two items could built better against that matchup.

Two builds could have followed….

Hard carry mage #2 – 657 magical power, 33% penetration,  -20% CDR, protections physical 135, magical 30.

  • Boots of magi
  • Breastplate of Valor
  • Book of Thoth
  • Obsidian shard
  • Rod of Tahuti
  • Soul reaver

Balanced #3 – 511 magical power, 33% penetration, 30% CDR, protections physical 175, magical 70.

  • Boots of magi
  • Breastplate of Valor
  • Book of Thoth
  • Obsidian shard
  • Spirit robe
  • Rod of Tahuti or winged blade

Comparing builds 

#1

Magical power – 481

Penetration flat 10

Protections

  • Physical 135
  • Magical 80

Cooldown -40%

#2

Magical powe 634

33% penetration

-20% CDR

Protections

  • Physical 135
  • Magical 30

#3

Magical power 511

33% penetration

-30% CDR

Protections

  • Physical 175
  • Magical 70

Build #1 had 153 less power compared to #2, 30 less power compared to #3.   Gained more magical protections, 10% reduction on cool down.  Less penetration reducing the damage output even further. Trade off is not worth it given the current matchup.

Conclusion

Original build was inefficient lost out on 30 damage and 33% penetration.  Inefficient when comparing the other options on the table and matchup.  Series of small mistake but damage adds up over time.  Other builds are far more efficient.

On that note why not end with some music

 

Smite, Video Games

Why do I enjoy smite so much?

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Why do I enjoy smite so much compared to other games?

Answer comes from smite core design that every player should be equal and knowledge/skill should be the gap.  Far to long we been given games which seek to limit that gap, like getting my arse handed to me.  Lacked that design concept for so long which why I enjoy smite so much.  Flip side new players can find the game rather hard.

Short sweet and to the point.

Video Games

Blizzard shutdowns fanmade ‘vanilla’ server

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Activision blizzard has issued cease and desist against Nostalrius.  Private server was running WoW before any expansions.  Called Nostalrius aimed to recreate the original game state from 2004. Team behind the server just 30 volunteers with 800,000 players with 150,000 active.  Server provided legacy support for content unable to be accessed or elements removed.  Gamers have long been asking for legacy servers so don’t have to create private servers.

Blizzard reply has been straight to the point Nostalrius broke the terms.

Hello there Polix,

As a number of our helpful forum regulars have already answered for you, playing on (or hosting) ‘private’ WoW servers is always against the Terms of Use, regardless of whether you’ve been a legitimate paid subscriber since the game launch or, conversely, never played the game before.

Ultimately, this isn’t an issue because of ‘lost’ subscription fees from players choosing these illegitimate servers over the real WoW servers – it simply boils down to the fact that private servers are illegal, and that’s that

Team behind the server has called for dialog behind the company and fans.  Helping to come up with solution that both sides can agree on.  Server has been taken offline due to the group being unable to fight the legal action taken against them.

Legacy software brings up various issues about copyright if support is removed. Often old hardware is required to run certain bits of software.  Lines of code disappear if not saved and restored. Legacy software creates many problems NASA used systems from the 1970s until 2010.

Should fans be allowed to run matchmaking servers or servers for old video games no longer supported?

Case to be made for fan supported non profit old video game servers.

Smite, Video Games

Smite hunters opinions

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Disclaimer:  This tier list is my opinion could be wrong and rubbish at smite.

Always disliked Tier lists which say A B C and D what the hell does that mean.  Instead come up with archetype tier list system pairing gods.   Certain gods can do other roles but this general overall of gods within the game.  Certain gods are missing due to not playing them yet or getting a feel for them.

Hunter list 

Tier: High damage 

  • Artemis – Reason highest potential damage outputs within the game.   Glass cannon lacking an escape or crowd control. Require items to give you crowd control.
  • Medusa – Reason her escape is rather bad however can deal bunch of damage very quickly with great ult. Easier version of artemis with easier ult.

Tier: High damage requires aim

  • Rama – Reason his ult,  comes with decent escape.
  • Hou Yi – Reason his kit in general requires you to hit his abilities.

Tier: Early game

  • Xbalanque – Reason found him to have good early game however…hard to land all your abilities.  Ult makes for good stun blinding people into traps.

Tier: Versatile

  • Chiron/Neith – Both are good in dozens of matchups within causal games.

Tier: All rounder

  • Neith – Reason she an all rounder hunter easier version of Ullr.  Does not make her better compared to Ullr.
  • Ullr –  Reason his kit is all rounder with potential high damage output however not easy to play at all compared to neith.  All about switching stances due to his ult.

Gods missing

  • AMC – High damage?
  • Anhur – Early game?
  • Apollo – ?
  • Cupid – All rounder?

May create list for other god classes soon 🙂

Doom, Video Games

DOOM Closed Beta Feedback

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DOOM Closed Beta Feedback

DOOM started back in 1993 created by ID software helped defined first person shooter genre.  Last title was released in 2004 under the name DOOM 3.  Newest title is DOOM 4 however treated as reboot so known as DOOM.  All marketing material is referencing the game as just DOOM.   Basing the game off the source material drawing heavily on the core concept of doom.  Genre has changed in radical ways with ID software making some radical changes to DOOM.

Based on the multiplayer got some hints on the story direction.

General feedback:

Spirit behind DOOM is first person shooter based on arena style within the genre.    Arena style games often have focus on competitive fights between players within small arena.     Arena style maps lack places to hide or many directions.   Easy to understand which direction the next fight is going to happen.  ID software have created modern arena style first player shooter within the genre.   Sticks to the roots of the series adding new concepts to the series.  Arena shooter has come to console comprising many modern standards.   Getting the concept to work on console required some compromise.  Series is slowed down due to the controller compromise.

Arena style games have disappear DOOM trying to be it own game. As an arena style game DOOM feels slow compared to other games.   AAA quality as you would expect from the major release.

Complaints:

  • Gun sounds – Shotguns fired behind can’t hear them.  Player feedback problem all weapons suffer from it.
  • Footstep sounds – Lack of footsteps when you can hear your teammates is odd.
  • Damage indicators – Features sounds with vision clue, sound is easy to miss.
  • Matchmaking – High ping players getting into lobbies
  • Demon spawns – Should be random all over the map.  TDM matters loads about who has control of it.
  • Damage numbers – Every bit of damage is displayed not fan of that.
  • Server browser – PLEASE 🙁

Modern elements 

ID software have added various gameplay elements which are standards within shooters these days.  Changes impact the game within big way.

  • Loadouts or classes – Older arena style games have often had weapon pickups within DOOM this has been removed. Players can now pick whatever weapons they want and equipment.
  • Customization options – Select armour or color options theme of the game does not match up with some of the options.

Final feelings

Hybrid shooter cross between modern military shooter with arena.  Takes couple nods from various other shooter styles or genres.  Shooters come down to gameplay mechanics with weapons.  DOOM features limited number of weapons bringing to the table high amount of variety.    ID software have hit the right balance between old shooters to new style.  Don’t get me wrong the game is fun but fans of arena shooters may hate it.  Enjoy the game not sure how long it going to last. Progression system however is done right apart from the weapons being included.

Expect the game is going to hang around for 3 months before disappearing.

 

Doom

Doom Closed Beta FIrst impressions

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Doom having short closed beta with no NDA only lasts for 72 hours. Group together my first impressions in bullet point form of the title on PS4.

  • Customization options within a doom game that an interesting choice given the theme.
  • Health pickups and armour neat
  • Arena style maps
  • No weapon pickups just loadouts not sure how I feel about that
  • Gore loads of it and taunts
  • Causal friendly doom reboot feels like it
  • Game feels slow pace even if you move little fast
  • Progression system 🙁
  • Strange hybrid shooter that mix between modern titles and arena shooters
  • Failing to see the doom within this game given some of the design choices like paint jobs.
  • Playing against high ping players?
  • Hate to see the PC version play speed given how slow console feels…
  • You don’t instant kill people that good
  • Announcer does not fit into the theme
  • Pink Demon hello
  • Announcer sounds bored…..

Only played for couple of games just my first impressions within bulletpoint form.