ArmadonRK

When you fire up a typical game, not LoL or SC2, and hit the "Play Now" button, does it throw you into a competitive game with a team of focused players, or does it throw you on a random server with a hodge-podge of people who want different things from the game? When you want to play competitively in such a game, is there a button for competitive play, or do you have to find like-minded players and an arena for that competition? Let's at least accept that casual play is the default state of play outside of LoL. That casual players outnumber competitive players in most games, and that, traditionally, competitive gaming has been the niche, and has required one to go looking for it. So from that point of view, I find the design philosophy of LoL's ranked system to be flawed, since it wants the entire playerbase of its system to be competitive. That may be a noble intention, but I don't believe it works. In my experience, the number of people taking something seriously on the internet are vastly outnumbered by those who don't. I find it funny that you're treating me like one of the people who doesn't take my gaming seriously. I absolutely do take it seriously, but it's irrational to expect the majority to bend to my desires as a serious player. I'm trying to advocate that point. The example in question is far from "messing around in the item shop". And what in my posts has indicated that? I'm talking about someone playing legitimately, albeit unconventionally, and that this is considered improper just because it's not "the way things are done". Go back and re-read that post that instigated this and tell me if that lands under your umbrella of "going to an open party and trashing it". As I said, casual play is the default state of play, and competitive play is the niche. When you're outnumbered 10 to 1 as a competitive player, how can you rationally expect a matchmaking system to match you with 4 (9 if you care about the fairness of the teams) like-minded players? No, I stand by my statement. If you want to play with limitations and restrictions, you're going to have to take the effort to find people willing to play the same way. Matchmaking is not conducive to this. I don't know what you mean by "widely accepted and successful". They are accepted and they work in a handful of games. Definitely not widely, and their success is arguable. I don't believe that their acceptance or success is necessarily indicative of it being a good idea that will work in the long run. It's clear that you've misread and misinterpreted me somewhere along the line, since I never said or implied anything of the sort, so I'll leave it at that. Understand that I'm arguing against the use of matchmaking in competitive play, not competitive play itself, and that I disagree with developer integration of competitive tools, not the usefulness of those tools on their own merits. Your enjoyment is not detrimental to the community. But I believe the way some developers, such as Riot, are handling the integration of competition into their games is. I would ask that you re-read my posts with that in mind.

I know exactly how big competitive gaming has gotten. My brother is big into competitive Starcraft, and I myself have played competitively in everything from Counter-Strike to World of Warcraft to Team Fortress 2. I stand by my statement: competitive matchmaking is an idiotic notion. Maybe I'm wrong about it dying out, but I still don't think it's good for the community or the game. (I compare it to paid DLC in that way. Though it's gaining popularity, I believe it's detrimental to the community and industry.) That's totally backwards thinking. Randomized play is casual, period. When I want to play competitively, I find a group of likeminded people and play a competitive game, and I don't worry about griefing, or fooling around, or anything else. But this is the internet, and any matchmaking system is going to put you with people who are not contributing to competitive play. Ranked matchmaking is far less effective than the simple act of finding like-minded players who want to enjoy some competition in the game, such is my experience from years of light competitive gaming. Matchmaking is useful for casual play, but I find it works less often than not for anything competitive. Coding in a ranking system, with leaderboards and stats, is great. Those are things I think Riot has done well. But leave matchmaking out of it. I don't think matchmaking, or a tribunal system, work in the scope of an online game like LoL. Now, I don't know much about the Tribunal system works within LoL, but I know the idea of it rubs me the wrong way. And I don't have anything against competitive play or rankings, but these things don't mix with matchmaking. These things don't work in tandem. They are useful tools separately, or in a properly moderated arena. I don't believe that the developer-side of LoL is that arena. And by that I mean, Riot has created this ranked, matchmaking system regulated by the Tribunals. Whether or not the Tribunals are in the hands of the players is irrelevant, since the system as a whole is determined and regulated by Riot. Changing the system requires that change to come from Riot. How can that work? Competitive gaming has always been self-regulating in the past, and I believe that moving away from that is taking steps backward. (To compare, I have similar criticisms of Starcraft II. More, even.)

Ranked matchmaking doesn't work, period. I've played a fair amount of League, it's a fun, well designed game, but the developer philosophy behind it is flawed. Moderating outright cheating is necessary, and fixing exploits and rebalancing the game as you see fit is fair, but penalizing players for behavior that you have coded in, have no intention of fixing on your end and therefore, strictly speaking, allow? Bull****. Competitive gaming needs to be left in the hands of the players and the leagues and out of the hands of the developers. The blurring of those lines is not good for the development of the game and the growth of the community. If you really want to win, want to play competitively and in a serious environment, then you find players who want to do the same and play with them. Any matchmaking system, essentially random play, should be assumed to be for casual play, and expecting anything else from it is an idiotic notion. Regulating it as such can only backfire. I really enjoyed LoL when I played it a lot earlier this year, and late last year, but the attitude of other players in unranked matches when I was experimenting, improving, and trying to have fun was at times, but not always, appalling. If that was unranked play, I can't imagine what it's like in ranked play. Anyway, I think developer moderation of play and the notion of ranked matchmaking are two of the dumbest things to appear in online gaming recently, and I suspect they'll die out as soon as people realize that they are ineffective and inefficient. So endeth the rant.

Shariq's comment about the "summertime vibe", pretz's mentioning a "throwback/vintage rock vocal arrangement" made me think the exact same thing. And given my deep and well established love of Hale-Bopp's mix, I must pay this song the highest compliment I can after mentioning it: This did not disappoint. <3 Joining my oft referred to playlist of great OCR vocal mixes.

http://imson.deviantart.com/art/Savant-Vario-Cover-278924668 That's the cover artist.

I'm just gonna leave this here:

Is that Josh Whelchel I see slipping some dubstep into his track? That, I will admit, was unexpected.

I absolutely loved Fight the Current, and this just feels like that and so much more. Utterly incredible work. This just hit the top of my playlist, knocking Katana Blaster (Constantly Playing Mix) and HappinNES down to spots 2 and 3.

I got really excited, then remembered that I don't live in Europe anymore and that it's not just an hour by train anymore. I picked the best time to move back to the US... Good luck and have a blast, everyone!

I clicked on this thread expecting a reason to "beware djpretzel". I find myself sincerely disappointed.

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "legit". Any reasonable hacker is doing something more productive with his/her life than this childish bulls--t. Maybe they are/were associated with "Anon", but these vocal, publicity grabbing attention hounds are what Anon represents, and the childish antics they have been responsible for is what that have represented for a long time. Some supporters will grow out of it, some certainly have and have gone on to do productive work in network security and software. Some won't. But I don't think there's a "legit anon" out there with common sense and good intentions. Just these clowns.

I lol'd. This is the real anon. It's a bunch of immature kids and similarly childish 'adults' with delusions of grandeur or a misguided sense of e-purpose. And every time they put themselves in the public eye, they open themselves up to being found out by the system they so despise. I welcome their idiocy, and the entertainment I get from watching the authorities pick them off one at a time.

I'm enjoying the weapons so far, but did they really need to give 2 new sets to a class that has way too many weapons as it is? I haven't kept track of which has more, but the soldier and demo get way too much love from Valve.

Forgive my thread necromancy, but Reiki is now long overdue, and while it's a shame that you didn't reach your donation goal, news on disc 3 might be an opportunity to take a second run at raising some dolla-dolla-bills-yo! *winkwinknudgenudge*

Just letting you know I've thrown in my support, and keeping this thread at the top where it belongs. This is an incredible track, and I wish you the best of luck in getting everyone [in the world] to buy it! (It could happen.)

That's the controller? As in... the only one? I will likely never, in my life, play a game on that thing. It's hard enough finding a comfortable controller on the current generation of consoles, that thing will NOT be comfortable or convenient in any way shape or form, and frankly, it's shamefully disappointing. Please tell me I can plug my Gamecube controllers into this thing [without sacrificing important functionality]. (It's kind of sad that in ten years nobody has designed an equal or superior controller...)

No more %$&^ing reboots! What they did here was exactly what the film industry needs to do everywhere else. "Okay, we screwed up badly with X3 and Wolverine, so let's keep going, but let's get it right this time." And then they did. Beats the living hell out of another sorry, unnecessary, money-grabbing reboot. For that, I applaud them. When they made a mistake they picked themselves up and powered forward. Compare that to Spider-Man 3 - "Oh !@#^, REBOOT! REBOOT!"

First Class was great, it's definitely not one to skip. I didn't catch Stan Lee in the movie, although considering this movie could have been called "X-Men: Attack of the Cameos" it's likely I just missed it. The number of big names and well recognized actors in small roles and bit parts was ridiculous. One cameo, in particular, stood out as the film's best. You'll know it when you see it. The rest of casting was fantastic and even James McAvoy, of whom I was most skeptical, did an utterly superb job in his turn as Xavier. Comic enthusiasts and purists might take issue with the inevitable mythos changes a movie like this incurs, but I thought it all worked really well.

Motion thirded.

Thor was awesome. I, personally, enjoyed it more than Iron Man. (I also didn't think Iron Man 2 was at all bad, even if it didn't quite live up to the first one.) I may have been biased going in, being a Norse mythology buff, but you would think that would just make me more prone to picking at all the mistakes and inaccuracies in the movie. Nope. Loved it.

My physical copies finally showed up today. Yay! Although, I do feel guilty for getting my second free copy of SftC '10, after the Valentine's Day promotion. I'd ask where Reiki is, but mostly I'm just disappointed that the album hasn't raised more money. Even though I shamelessly pimped it out to everyone I could get to listen, it doesn't seem to have helped. I guess we just keep on with it until it does.

Does anyone else think each update brings less useful and less inspired weapons? The individual updates were all great, and Polycount was also great, but controversial. Then the Australian Christmas update was disappointing, and finally the Rift and Shogun weapons which completely and totally underwhelmed. I don't have much hope for future weapon updates.

Bumping this, because it needs to be on the first page. Also, some sonofabitch beat my Roboflamenco score in Audiosurf while I'm on vacation. When I get home...

Well, to be honest, I don't know if I'd be interested in a game like this. On the other hand, I see the appeal of this kind of throwback game. It isn't something a lot of developers, if any, are doing right now, and I'm sure there are people who would play it for the nostalgia element. I think it's safe to assume that it's for a niche market, but at the same time, this seems like the kind of game that could explode from the right publicity. That's not something that can be counted on or predicted though. I just imagine that if the right person at the right gaming news outlet found out about it, the news would spread like wildfire. Then people would come for the novelty, and hopefully stay for the good game. It seems like that kind of game to me. But, like I said, it's unpredictable. You might just end up with your small, niche playerbase and realize it wasn't necessarily a worthwhile endeavour.

Almost, but not quite. Sonic Adventure 2 released just under ten years ago, making that the best Sonic game in a decade. Didn't we already do this when Sonic 4 was coming out? I swear I've vehemently advocated the underrated SA2 before. It's okay though, we can go through it again for the next Sonic announcement as well, we never seem to get tired of it.