Finally found a (e)Sport I like

I don't watch sport, or partake for that matter. Being a male this somehow makes me in a minority with my gender, for reasons that I don't quite understand. However I am going to MCM Expo again this year, they are having a LoL tournament finals there. Given my recent attempt to play the game, we thought that we would watch the livestream of the quarter finals over the weekend, with the semi's and final on the con weekend. Given my relative inexperience with LoL (I know the basics principle but not the interagency, much like real sport I suppose), it was fascinating and exciting to watch, in a way that I have never found sport to be.

Given the small amount of LoL I had played I couldn't help but being impressed with the players, and almost found myself up on my feet at exciting moments. I could really see me watching replays of matches. So why was this exciting to me in a way that I never found "real" sports to me. I guess it is because I can understand the skill and organisation of a LoL team facing off against each other. However with sport, like our national sport football, it just looks like a couple of dozen people running around after a ball. Hell I know football fans that would willingly agree that a lot of matches are boring, with not much happening.

Got the competitive itch for Guild Wars 2

Following a conversation with my co-blogger Hex I decided to start playing Guild Wars 2 again. I have always had a great deal of affection for GW2, but I haven’t touched it in months. This was down to a mixture of other things to play and it being fun but uncompelling. But when Hex tells me that he is now level 75 (of 80), I think, “wow I need to get back into this”.

I have to confess that the urge to play GW2 again has little to do with the game, though I have had fun playing it again, it is down to the urge to beat, or at least catch up with Hex. I am far from a competitive gamer, however when me and my BFF Hex are concerned, I have always been, if not better, then at least ahead of the curve. Take Skyrim for an example, he only started playing it a couple of months ago, I finished it a year ago. The only exception really being LOTRO, which he is much further along in, but I don’t really like, so I can ignore.

I am happy that Winter is Never coming

Cryptic aren't a great developer, I really truly believe this. Champions Online was mediocre, especially after the starting zone and Star Trek Online is so unappealing that I never even bothered. They are trite and unoriginal, and I have no enthusiasm for their games. So I am now really confused. Why do I like Neverwinter, the new mmo based on the D&D system, and to a lesser extent the pc games Neverwinter nights. It makes no sense, they are journeyman developers at best, but they have crafted such an amazing world (and tools, more on that later), that I really don't understand.

Neverwinter is currently in open beta, so everyone can try it, and there is a free to play store that you can buy the usual xp potions and such from. At the moment at least it has not been very money grabbing, though this may change as I get further into it. In many respects it is very similar to a lot of mmo's there are traditional roles like clerics, mages and rogues, who level up gaining skills. This is unsurprising given the fact that all mmo's and rpg's generally owe a debt to D&D. However the combat is a little different. Rather than tab targeting, you hit what you are pointed at, with a third person shooter style reticle, with no power bars aside from cooldowns and a dodge power bar similar to GW2's. As you level you get points to unlock new skills or improve existing ones. Interestingly to give the game a more action feel, attacks are keyed to mouse buttons and the Q, E, and R buttons, to make using them and moving easier. It is such a simple idea it is amazing more games don't do it. The number keys are for potions and daily abilities (which confusingly can be used more than once a day). These are super attacks that you build up resources to us.

Played League of Legends, there were no lol's

League of Legends is pretty popular, or so the numbers say. 40 million odd accounts and  a million people playing at any given time. I have always been a bit put off from trying it though, for two reasons. One being that it has a notoriously abrasive player base, and that there is a lot to learn and master in the game (these two are probably related). However, at Hex's urging, we gave it a go. We took the wussy option and set up a  5v5 game versus the AI bots, with three random players on our side, with the difficulty firmly set to beginner.

Suffice to say that 20 minutes later and me and Hex are struggling to hold our own, let alone win. Face with another 20 minutes or so of slowly losing, and being quite bored by this time, we reach the decision, quite easily, to log out and play Diablo 3 instead. On exiting we get a severe warning from the game, stating quitting a match results in a temporary ban. We have no problem with this, as it seems pretty damn unlikely we play it again.