Tensei

^^ Analyzing videogames as a medium on a meta-level is not a bad thing. I'd say that the medium has matured enough by now to warrant some serious discussion, so threads like this are always welcome. It's also not like doing one thing (taking videogames 'seriously') and talking about what makes them work prevents you from just sitting back and enjoying them after that. Fuck, we do it with movies and books, why not video games?

Sounds like you need to play some Alpha Protocol. In spite of the setting it's probably the closest a modern RPG has come to the old Infinity Engine games when it comes to immersion. There isn't some arbitrary distinction that just makes older games better, but it's more of a symptom of a shift in trends in the gaming industry as a whole. As you mentioned BGII and PT are underappreciated masterpieces that only really appeal to a relatively niche crowd. Studios like Bethesda and Bioware have 'grown up', and as such, nowadays it's much more a matter of maximizing profits by appealing to a crowd that is as broad as possible while minimizing expenses on aspects that don't appeal to the typical gamer (like an expansive storyline, complicated character customization/skill trees, etc.). The removal of RPG elements and overall simplification of series like TES and Dragon Age is, again, symptomatic. That doesn't mean that there aren't any good RPGs coming out anymore, but you should look beyond the major dev studios to medium-sized or indie devs that still have to truly establish themselves to find the real gems.

We had some great games last night yeah.

That artwork is way too good for Riot.

I don't think he's attacking or defending LoL at a lot of the points you quoted though. Granted, the term 'consolation prize' might seem negative, but the entire sentence on reduced gold bounty on repeated kills looks relatively neutral to me, and it paints HoN/DotA as a bit worse than LoL in my opinion. You're right about the part on the randomness of rune spawns, but the notion that the runes in and of themselves promote a more aggressive playstyle and force clashes in the river is right on the money IMO. I don't think he's defending the randomness, but rather the concept as a whole. Hear me out on the cooldowns/mana regen inlane though. I consider HoN a lot more exciting in the laning phase because spells matter a lot more. You have to be on edge almost all the time because failing to dodge certain skillshots can mean an early death, and it goes both ways. I don't really think spell spam makes a game inherently more exciting because for balancing reasons the spells will obviously have a lot less impact, and I personally prefer powerful spells that can turn a fight in your favor (which in turn allows you to play around more with baiting people while low on HP etc.) to weaksauce spells that you have to constantly poke with to get any leverage out of them. You also mention him defending variable base damage, but the only relevant sentence I could find is: " Variable base damage also means that you can never be exactly sure how much you will do, sometimes causing luck to make you miss (or gain) creep kills.", and there he's basically just describing the differences without voicing an opinion either way. Finally, I think that when he mentions competitive viability, he is primarily referring to the ingame mechanics, overall balance as well as the interface features (pausing, replays, spectator interface, etc.), rather than prize pools, and in that respect I think LoL is really lagging behind the competition. Oh, and Anivias passive is pretty obviously based on the Phoenix' rebirth skill in WC3, which is in turn where the Dota Phoenix gets his ultimate from. E: Honestly, after rereading, I think HoN comes out as the worst. He actually praises the LoL community as the best one, mentions how it has the easiest learning curve, and how the more confusing mechanics are deliberately kept out.

Nymphora, Jeraziah, Parasite and Electrician are contemporary competitive picks though (Nymphora especially, getting banned a lot), and a lot of the other ones you've listed have been rare competitive picks as well to support certain off the wall strats (Warbeast, Succubus). The thing is, you can easily do well in a pub with any of those. In fact, any of the carries in that list can take over a game if you're good at farming. I wouldn't even call Scout a joke hero because you do actually need a coordinated team to stop him, and the same goes for a lot of the melee carries. I don't think it's any harder to play a hero like Martyr effectively than it is to play Veigar in LoL.

The guy claims he's played thousands of games of each, and he pretty accurately points out LoLs advantages, I don't feel like the article is very biased at all. I do know for a fact that Chu voiced similar criticisms (LoL not being a good competitive game), and he soloqueued all the way to first place in Elo. I also don't know where you get the idea that 50% of HoN heroes are only viable as a joke, but you gotta specify whether you're talking about balance on a competitive level or on a pub level. LoL's imbalance at a competitive level stems from the fact that roles are very narrowly defined and there aren't many viable strategies at all, which leads to the question "Why would I ever pick Champion X over Champion Y when Champion X is just plain better at this particular role?". It's not that Veigar is plain bad, it's just that there's no reason to pick him as your AP carry over Annie/Orianna/Brand. I feel like in HoN, the 'tier' of a particular hero is much more a matter of the competitive metagame and flavors of the month than whether a hero is actually underpowered. Remember how Andromeda and Wildsoul went from never picked to suddenly being top tier picks despite receiving no buffs whatsoever? I think a lot of HoN heroes are in this position and a lot of lower tier heroes still fulfill a unique niche (Warbeast, Dampeer, Flux) that just doesn't happen to fit in the current metagame. I'm curious to know which HoN heroes you consider garbage. Now, if we're talking pub balance, none of this really matters. In LoL pubs, the skill difference can make up for the slight difference in power between, say, Ashe and Corki, so you're free to pick Veigar as your AP carry if you feel like it, and still do well. The thing is, though, he doesn't really bring anything unique to the table that would put him ahead of the 'better' AP carries in any situation. In HoN pub level, I really can't think of any hero that I'd classify as a joke. All those melee carries that suck in competitive games? Yeah good luck getting your team coordinated enough to gank them consistently.

I almost had a pentakill with Dunk Yi last night by the way. It's not that the build is much good (the DPS is not optimal with 4x Zeal), but people just don't seem to be able to handle a jungling Yi very well. I also took the enemy Riven to school, so I didn't get to see her supposed OPness. E: I stumbled across a decent article on reddit, comparing the three current big Dotalikes. It's a pretty interesting read. http://wingflier.blogspot.com/2011/09/comparing-lol-hon-and-dota-and-what-it.html

Hell, I think any type of minion controller type champion would be a breath of fresh air. And I'm talking TRUE control, like having activatable abilities on your minion(s), being able to exactly control their movement and attacks, not having a leash, unlimited lifespan, etc. Yorick should have been this.

Well I'm not saying LoL should have a Tinker knockoff (it already has it btw, namely Heimerdinger, so you were right about it being lame ), but I meant that both HoN and Dota are still releasing heroes that bring entirely new concepts to the table instead of rehashing older abilities like Riot does. One of Dota's newer heroes can copy spells from enemy heroes with his ultimate, and another one can turn into a snowball that grows as it keeps rolling and drags allies along with him. Considering that they're achieving all of this on a 10 year old engine, I believe there's still plenty of room for creativity in the genre as long as you think outside of the box.

You'd be surprised by how much creativity there is even in DotA, despite being on an outdated engine. One of my favorite DotA heroes, Tinker, has two high damage nukes and a powerful AoE push skill, but his ultimate completely changes his playing style, because it resets all his cooldowns, including those of most items. This, among other perks, gives him the ability to use the Dota equivalent of Teleport nonstop, which makes him an amazing pusher and lets him farm superfast to the point where he can actually carry. Each of his abilities is extremely simple conceptually, having no CC whatsoever, but his playstyle is completely unique and deceptively deep. There was actually a 20 page long thread on the LoL forums (it eventually got locked, but there's a newspost about it) where people started complaining about the blandness of LoL champion designs after watching a HoN hero spotlight ( )

Malzahars ult only lasts 2.5 seconds. WEAK! It does do a lot of damage though. Also, it's not so much that the new champions all have different builds, but they basically bring no new concepts to the table. If you compare a champion like Talon to champions like Karthus (global damage ult and casting after death are both really cool concepts that hadn't been used before) and Orianna, you'll see how Talon basically just mix and matches a few old abilities with a very very slight twist. The problem is also that none of the new champions have any truly unique roles on a team, and in most cases get outperformed by older champions that fulfill the exact same role.

Overpowered doesn't mean not-boring though. Ever notice how every recent champion has some kind of blink/dash, an attack modifier and something like a shield/invis type escape mechanism?

Just wait until free week. She seems like another boring champion with a dash, a shield and an AoE stun.

Followed this build, went 22/9/16 + a win because of insane split pushing. Bonus enemy Gangplank QQing about my 'nooby' build. Replay here. Also, the Q ability on Zircon's hero consists of the exact two things Riot will never put into their champion designs; Manaburn and Bloodseekers Rupture. Both of those were used as examples of 'anti-fun', which I thought was pretty amusing.

The graphics are honestly not as bad ingame as you might think from the concept art, but what baffles me is that they released it with a pool of only 12 heroes (or 'immortals'). Other than that, it's pretty much a LoL clone as far as I'm concerned. The skills are possibly even more vanilla than LoL though. edit: This concept art makes old Riven look amazing.

Oh my god. Rise of Immortals came out of beta, and it has some of the most unintentionally hilarious concept art. Anyone want to give this piece of shit a try with me?

Oh, my bad, I misread. But yeah, LoL in general isn't very good at gender equality in champion designs. Come to think of it, the only game in a similar genre that IS good at it is Bloodline Champions, where heroes range from normally proportioned to obese, and where every female version has the exact same proportions as the male counterpart. WTB female Gragas. E: Isn't Talon melee?

Ezreal. 10char

That is a lot better. We already made fun of the old art on IRC.

Original Lux is just bad taste, Riven is a whole new level of awkwardness though. E: I'm pretty much always idling in HoN and I can be convinced to play LoL through IRC or something.

Every champion requires more or less equal farm to be effective though. Vlad is definitely a threat with just boots, hextech revolver and a maxed out Q. Also, yeah, the only way to get significantly better at these games is to just play a lot. E: Riven has some fugly concept art. There are so many things wrong with that picture on an anatomical level that I don't even know where to start.

step two: lose your lane step three: blame your team step four: queue up a new game and actually pick miss fortune this time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIajWHzhtwY

Nope. It's okayish on agility heroes that want unitwalking without giving up Steamboots (Valkyrie) and on minion controllers (Ophelia), but the problem is that instead of getting an okayish item, you can get actual GOOD items. Sol's Bulwark is way too good to not be an early pickup on Ophelia.