My ranked team has inflated our numbers up to 9 people which has caused us to play a lot of ranked games in recent days. I've found myself playing Nasus a fair amount of the time (one of our team set-ups has Yi jungling so we have no one tanky; other times they're playing champions Nasus fares well against) and have had some bad games but some very good games. It's felt like my Q has gotten to extreme values lately and I wanted to compare to the numbers the last couple times I posted to see if things are actually better...
After 20 minutes
Nov - 94 creep kills, +189 on Q
Jan - 123 creep kills, +237 on Q
Mar - 137 creep kills, +300 on Q
pro - ~150 creep kills, +~300 on Q
An even +300 on Q in the first game I looked at! (I looked a few more afterward and they were more around 230-270.) Goal achieved! My ability to focus on last hitting in general and with Nasus' Q in particular has risen to the point where I'm comparable to the pro we looked at oh so long ago. Of course he managed to put up those numbers while getting several player kills and not dying stupidly so he's still way better than I am...
Even when I'm not playing Nasus my creep kills have been up a lot recently. We had a game on Friday where Snuggles pointed out I'd made more money alone than the two top players on the other team combined! (I had the most CS in the game (157 at the 24:44 mark when they surrendered) and was 12/1/4 as Akali.)
But it's not all sunshine and roses. There have been obvious frustrations in the voices of some teammates at me in some of our losses. The reason, I assume, is that I get ganked a lot. It really feels like no matter who I'm playing as if the other team bothers to try to gank me I will die. I get so focused on killing minions that I ignore any sort of map awareness and explode if the come at me. I even tried putting wards down in the last few games I've played and they've pretty much just served to cost me money. I don't notice when the jungler gets to the ward in time. Or they take a different path entirely and avoid the ward. I'm frequently pushed up in lane which makes it easier to get ganked... Definitely something I need to work on next!
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
I'd been doing a lot of reading on the bus recently but having polished off the Ender's game series and the Hunger Games series it was time for another change. Nintendo recently gave me 10 VBA games through the 3DS virtual store (because I was an early adopter and they reduced the price a couple months after release) so I thought I'd play around with those. One of them was a Zelda game I hadn't heard of and I figured I'd give it a spin.
It feels a lot like a Zelda game. It's a straight port so it doesn't make use of the extra buttons or touch screen on the 3DS which is a little annoying (I have to enter the menu way too frequently to change items) but can be dealt with. I've already met Zelda (she is apparently the main character's best friend as opposed to just a strange princess), I've found my annoying sidekick (a talking hat), I've cleared out a dungeon, and acquired a cool item. It feels a lot like a Zelda game.
I've also gotten hopelessly stuck. I feel like I was told precisely where to go early one morning and have since forgotten what it was. (I'm not exactly awake on the bus in the morning.) I've wandered to every NPC I can find to talk to them but none of them are willing to let me know precisely what I need to do. My hat tells me I need to visit some blacksmith in the hills but I don't know where the hills are. The hat won't tell me. The map doesn't tell me. I've wandered completely around the world that I can currently access with no luck. I did recently acquire bombs so it's entirely possible that there's something I can blow up that I haven't thought to attack. Also I've uncovered some musical panels which which I can't find a way to interact.
I've spent 2 days stuck at this point (I've cleared out some side quests in the meantime) and am at the point of giving up. I can quit the game or I can turn to the internets for help. I'm leaning towards the internets but I hate looking up what to do in puzzly games since it really feels like cheating.
It feels a lot like a Zelda game. It's a straight port so it doesn't make use of the extra buttons or touch screen on the 3DS which is a little annoying (I have to enter the menu way too frequently to change items) but can be dealt with. I've already met Zelda (she is apparently the main character's best friend as opposed to just a strange princess), I've found my annoying sidekick (a talking hat), I've cleared out a dungeon, and acquired a cool item. It feels a lot like a Zelda game.
I've also gotten hopelessly stuck. I feel like I was told precisely where to go early one morning and have since forgotten what it was. (I'm not exactly awake on the bus in the morning.) I've wandered to every NPC I can find to talk to them but none of them are willing to let me know precisely what I need to do. My hat tells me I need to visit some blacksmith in the hills but I don't know where the hills are. The hat won't tell me. The map doesn't tell me. I've wandered completely around the world that I can currently access with no luck. I did recently acquire bombs so it's entirely possible that there's something I can blow up that I haven't thought to attack. Also I've uncovered some musical panels which which I can't find a way to interact.
I've spent 2 days stuck at this point (I've cleared out some side quests in the meantime) and am at the point of giving up. I can quit the game or I can turn to the internets for help. I'm leaning towards the internets but I hate looking up what to do in puzzly games since it really feels like cheating.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Theatrhythm Localization!
Four months ago I posted about a new Final Fantasy game I'd read about: Theatrhythm. The idea of the game is that you tap the 3DS screen (ala Elite Beat Agents) in rhythm to music from the Final Fantasy series. It looked absolutely amazing but was only scheduled for release in Japan. I'd searched around a bit at the time to see if I could find info about a potential US release but there was nothing. What I did find were a lot of critics and reviews on various gaming websites which were all neutral to negative. The comments on those reviews were even worse. A lot of people really, really hate the idea. Mostly they seemed bitter than FFXIII didn't meet their expectations and felt like Square-Enix was wrecking the series and just trying to milk people for extra money while having no good ideas. Things were even worse when it turned out to be the first DS game with downloadable content that you had to pay for.
And then the game came out in Japan and blew all the critics away. Apparently people lined up at stores in Japan to get their copies and many stores sold out on the first weekend. It's been out barely more than a month and only in Japan and is already the 48th most sold 3DS game. By pretty much any metric it was a success. I had high hopes that it might still get ported...
Then Andrew pointed out to me yesterday that they'd announced localizations! No exact date yet, but it will be out sometime this summer. I find it pretty unlikely I'll be at the end of my marathon by then... I don't think I'll care! Final Fantasy music is too awesome to delay.
And then the game came out in Japan and blew all the critics away. Apparently people lined up at stores in Japan to get their copies and many stores sold out on the first weekend. It's been out barely more than a month and only in Japan and is already the 48th most sold 3DS game. By pretty much any metric it was a success. I had high hopes that it might still get ported...
Then Andrew pointed out to me yesterday that they'd announced localizations! No exact date yet, but it will be out sometime this summer. I find it pretty unlikely I'll be at the end of my marathon by then... I don't think I'll care! Final Fantasy music is too awesome to delay.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Final Fantasy Concert
Today was a great day for discovering things about Final Fantasy music. I stumbled across two amazing discoveries but one of them is relatively time sensitive so that's what today's post is about. The other one will wait until tomorrow...
Distant Worlds is a series of Final Fantasy music concerts that have been going on since 2007. I don't know how they choose orchestras to do the performances but it looks like it changes based on location. The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony did a show a month ago in Waterloo that I was tempted to travel to attend but I got apathetic and didn't get around to it. I found out today that they're doing a second show, in Toronto, this weekend. Even better, they've managed to get Nobuo Uematsu to come along, likely to play keyboards for some FFVI songs. That's insane! Nobuo is the composer for almost all of the music for almost all of the core Final Fantasy games. He's awesome and I now have to go.
There are still around 600 tickets available on Ticketmaster so I figure there's still a bit of time. I'll likely be buying a ticket tomorrow night. Does anyone else want to shell out ~$100 to go to an awesome concert?
Distant Worlds is a series of Final Fantasy music concerts that have been going on since 2007. I don't know how they choose orchestras to do the performances but it looks like it changes based on location. The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony did a show a month ago in Waterloo that I was tempted to travel to attend but I got apathetic and didn't get around to it. I found out today that they're doing a second show, in Toronto, this weekend. Even better, they've managed to get Nobuo Uematsu to come along, likely to play keyboards for some FFVI songs. That's insane! Nobuo is the composer for almost all of the music for almost all of the core Final Fantasy games. He's awesome and I now have to go.
There are still around 600 tickets available on Ticketmaster so I figure there's still a bit of time. I'll likely be buying a ticket tomorrow night. Does anyone else want to shell out ~$100 to go to an awesome concert?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
AD Kennen?
I played a couple of games yesterday where I first picked Kennen and then my team went crazy and refused to take anyone capable of going AD bot. AD Kennen had been used at IEM Kiev so I knew it was feasible and I'd wanted to give it a try. So two games in a row I was AD Kennen and we got blown out both games, but I don't think it was because I was AD Kennen. Both games the idiots who refused to pick a ranged carry fed the other team. One of the games Ryze was 11/0 and we lost our top inhibitor before we'd lost anything bot. But it did give me a chance to get a feel for it and it felt quite reasonable.
I look at his abilities and I see a lot of similarities with Tristana. They both have one ability that scales directly with attack damage and then a bunch of abilities that provide utility and scale with AP. Tristana has a jump, Kennen has a run fast. Tristana has a dot, Kennen has a nuke. Tristana has an AE knockback. Kennen has an AE stun. Tristana eventually gets longer range, Kennen has lots of stuns. I could maybe see the argument that they should both be AD, or both be AP. But that people seem convinced that one can only be AD and the other can only be AP seems a little odd.
Here's the thing... AP Kennen is pretty strong and probably better than AD Kennen. AD Tristana is pretty strong and probably better than AP Tristana. But the comparison should be between AD Kennen and other ADs. It should be between AP Tristana and other APs. And I think that comparison actually works out reasonably for AD Kennen. Having every 5th attack do an extra 80% damage is pretty strong when you have a lot of AD items. He has a lot of stuns in order to live long enough to farm up and to be a good part of team fights.
I donno. I think I'm going to try him again at some point and see if it doesn't work out in the late game when the rest of my team isn't incompetent!
I look at his abilities and I see a lot of similarities with Tristana. They both have one ability that scales directly with attack damage and then a bunch of abilities that provide utility and scale with AP. Tristana has a jump, Kennen has a run fast. Tristana has a dot, Kennen has a nuke. Tristana has an AE knockback. Kennen has an AE stun. Tristana eventually gets longer range, Kennen has lots of stuns. I could maybe see the argument that they should both be AD, or both be AP. But that people seem convinced that one can only be AD and the other can only be AP seems a little odd.
Here's the thing... AP Kennen is pretty strong and probably better than AD Kennen. AD Tristana is pretty strong and probably better than AP Tristana. But the comparison should be between AD Kennen and other ADs. It should be between AP Tristana and other APs. And I think that comparison actually works out reasonably for AD Kennen. Having every 5th attack do an extra 80% damage is pretty strong when you have a lot of AD items. He has a lot of stuns in order to live long enough to farm up and to be a good part of team fights.
I donno. I think I'm going to try him again at some point and see if it doesn't work out in the late game when the rest of my team isn't incompetent!
Monday, March 26, 2012
What Is Gambling?
Something I've been mulling over for a while is "what counts as 'gambling'?". Does the level of skill matter? The level of randomness? The stakes? The expected return?
When I think of things that are certainly in the gambling category I think about the lottery. There's no skill in playing the lottery. There's an entry fee and the house takes a guaranteed cut. Buying a lottery ticket is a terrible idea from an expected value standpoint but every now and then someone does get very lucky and hit big. I buy a ticket every few months because I like to daydream about being rich enough to quit my job and having a ticket helps bring power to those daydreams. But every time I do I know I'm just pissing money away.
Roulette is the exact same thing. No matter what anyone with a 'system' may tell you there's no way to beat roulette. If you sit and play roulette long enough there will be only one winner: the casino. Some people will get lucky and swing into the positive realm but it isn't sustainable.
Bingo scratch cards are the same as well. What about actual bingo? It's impossible to be a great bingo player but you can be bad. If you're too distracted to stamp some of the numbers your odds of winning will plummet. Find a room with enough suitably distracted people and I suppose it's possible for the normal dude to realistically make money... Is he still gambling? Does it matter that the circumstances are hard to set up?
Along that vein, what about playing Barbu for money? I played a fair amount of money Bu in University (the stakes were practically peanuts but when you're a starving student peanuts can taste pretty good) and I won way more than I lost. It may be illusory superiority speaking again but I'd like to think I was really good at the game and certainly in terms of all the people who played in the Lounge if we'd been playing for real stakes I'm sure I could have made a living at it. Barbu has a lot of randomness (it is a card game, after all) but it also has a lot of skill. If you can be good enough to win most of the time does it stop being gambling? Is it possible for a game to be gambling for most of the players and not gambling for one of them?
On another line entirely, what about McDonald's Monopoly? You're getting tokens for buying food you'd be buying anyway. There's no cost at all to play and you might win a lot of cash. (Realistically although they don't charge extra for the tokens they expect more people will go to the restaurant and buy the specific things with tokens on them, like large pops. So while there isn't really an entry fee... They're not being charitable!) But it's all luck. Is this gambling?
How about playing Diablo III? After you buy the game there's no cost to keep playing. You can sell items to other players for real cash so it's possible that you'll kill some boss and get a rare and valuable item. Is getting the item gambling? Is killing the boss? Is playing at all? It feels a lot like McDonald's Monopoly in that you can just be doing what you'd normally be doing (eating a Big Mac, playing a game) and suddenly you win some money.
Does it matter that playing and gearing optimally will increase your odds of getting fat loots? One could argue that investing more time into eating Big Macs is comparable to playing more Diablo 3. I'd certainly like to think video game skill is more meaningful than Big Mac eating skill but is there actually a difference between the two? Even if there isn't, is either one gambling?
When I think of things that are certainly in the gambling category I think about the lottery. There's no skill in playing the lottery. There's an entry fee and the house takes a guaranteed cut. Buying a lottery ticket is a terrible idea from an expected value standpoint but every now and then someone does get very lucky and hit big. I buy a ticket every few months because I like to daydream about being rich enough to quit my job and having a ticket helps bring power to those daydreams. But every time I do I know I'm just pissing money away.
Roulette is the exact same thing. No matter what anyone with a 'system' may tell you there's no way to beat roulette. If you sit and play roulette long enough there will be only one winner: the casino. Some people will get lucky and swing into the positive realm but it isn't sustainable.
Bingo scratch cards are the same as well. What about actual bingo? It's impossible to be a great bingo player but you can be bad. If you're too distracted to stamp some of the numbers your odds of winning will plummet. Find a room with enough suitably distracted people and I suppose it's possible for the normal dude to realistically make money... Is he still gambling? Does it matter that the circumstances are hard to set up?
Along that vein, what about playing Barbu for money? I played a fair amount of money Bu in University (the stakes were practically peanuts but when you're a starving student peanuts can taste pretty good) and I won way more than I lost. It may be illusory superiority speaking again but I'd like to think I was really good at the game and certainly in terms of all the people who played in the Lounge if we'd been playing for real stakes I'm sure I could have made a living at it. Barbu has a lot of randomness (it is a card game, after all) but it also has a lot of skill. If you can be good enough to win most of the time does it stop being gambling? Is it possible for a game to be gambling for most of the players and not gambling for one of them?
On another line entirely, what about McDonald's Monopoly? You're getting tokens for buying food you'd be buying anyway. There's no cost at all to play and you might win a lot of cash. (Realistically although they don't charge extra for the tokens they expect more people will go to the restaurant and buy the specific things with tokens on them, like large pops. So while there isn't really an entry fee... They're not being charitable!) But it's all luck. Is this gambling?
How about playing Diablo III? After you buy the game there's no cost to keep playing. You can sell items to other players for real cash so it's possible that you'll kill some boss and get a rare and valuable item. Is getting the item gambling? Is killing the boss? Is playing at all? It feels a lot like McDonald's Monopoly in that you can just be doing what you'd normally be doing (eating a Big Mac, playing a game) and suddenly you win some money.
Does it matter that playing and gearing optimally will increase your odds of getting fat loots? One could argue that investing more time into eating Big Macs is comparable to playing more Diablo 3. I'd certainly like to think video game skill is more meaningful than Big Mac eating skill but is there actually a difference between the two? Even if there isn't, is either one gambling?
Sunday, March 25, 2012
MLG Columbus Conclusion
The last game has been played and we have a winner! MarineKingPrime followed up his win at the winter arena with a win at the winter championships in Columbus. He didn't lose a match this weekend with an 8-0 overall record. (Having a bye into the pool play and then not losing in the double elimination bracket means not playing very many matches!)
The events had a pretty wide split in terms of winning nations:
StarCraft II - South Korea
Halo:Reach - USA
King of Fighters XIII - Mexico
Soul Calibur V - France
Mortal Kombat - USA
I was happy to see Johnny Cage get played in a MK match. He still has the crotch punch!
The events had a pretty wide split in terms of winning nations:
StarCraft II - South Korea
Halo:Reach - USA
King of Fighters XIII - Mexico
Soul Calibur V - France
Mortal Kombat - USA
I was happy to see Johnny Cage get played in a MK match. He still has the crotch punch!
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Fighter Demographics
There tend to be long delays in the SC2 coverage between games at MLG events. It takes a few minutes to set up the next game in a match and between matches it takes even longer to get the casters into the next match. Normally I'd just flip to another SC2 stream but this weekend I've been checking out the fighter games which seem to have absolutely no downtown between games and a low amount between matches. As such I've caught a bit of talking about the fighting communities but not all that much...
One interesting thing I heard was that a bunch of players flew in from Thailand to play in the King of Fighters tournament. The casters mentioned this because no one had any clue what kind of players these guys were because they didn't stream their games on the internet so no one had seen them play. I watched one of these guys lose near the end of the losers bracket which I believe put him 5th place for a $1000 prize. Pretty sweet, but I looked at the price of a flight from Thailand to Columbus and it's a lot closer to 2k than 1k. And I believe the top 4 (which has not yet been played out) are all from the US. But I figured there were still two other fighting games to go so maybe those guys would be able to make more of that money back in those.
I've watched three matches of Soul Calibur today (I used to play a little of previous versions in the arcade so at least I have some understanding about what's going on) and was really surprised by the demographics of the people playing. 5 of those 6 players were African American and the 6th was an Asian woman. I've watched a lot of SC2 events in the last year and I'm struggling to remember ever seeing anyone who wasn't a Caucasian or Asian (mostly Korean) male. There was one Caucasian female in the open bracket of an MLG event last year but she didn't do terribly well. Obviously the Soul Calibur sample size is really small compare to the StarCraft one but it's still really a stark contrast.
Even looking at the crowds for the SC2 event (there don't seem to be anyone watching the fighters at the event) it's overwhelmingly male. It's almost exclusively Caucasian/Asian. 42% of video game players are female so it has to be something about the culture of an event or of SC2 in general that's keeping the women away. I don't have any ideas or answers here. Just sad observations.
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