Taylor

I used to be really hardcore into WoW during Vanilla and was probably the most decked out warlock on our server when TBC released. I also played on the US servers before the EU release and killed Ragnaros 35th in the world or something at 4am. I completely crashed during TBC because it basically removed all of my progress day one (I found about ten upgrades for my Plagueheart shoulders before I finally replaced them) and coincided with me getting a job I liked and generally becoming less of a loser. I didn't even level my Warlock to 70 during TBC, at 68 rolled a rogue who was 100% PvP welfare gear, and when WotLK was announced I stopped playing. During all of this I was also playing with some old college friends and people we met through Diablo 2, and during Cataclysm we all came back and I played a Priest. I have a lot of problems with Cataclysm and I think most of them are summed up by this post on reddit. Someone linked it to me basically saying "this guy is you." http://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1r4jbg/vanilla_wow_20042005_memories_and_good_times/cdjoq9z?context=1 My biggest problem with modern WoW is there's no sense of community at all, the people you play with you'll never see again, and the world is dead because everyone is sitting in a main town queuing. I would also add to this that I hate the way PvP evolved. The original PvP system in WoW, that is to say NO PVP SYSTEM, was a lot more fun, more relevant to the lore, and made you remember people on your server on the opposite side. It was a tenuous pact, this means some people are indifferent or even sympathisers. There was no reason to actually attack someone you saw because there was no reward for doing so, and so being attacked was a lot more powerful and personal. I also want to talk about the end-game and classes merging together but I'll resist. None of these are bad choices, I see the logic behind them all, and I don't think it's a bad game, but it's a completely different direction than I would like. I've always thought the social and drama side of MMO's was the real meat of the experience whereas Blizzard have been trying hard to stamp this out since arguably TBC and definitely WotLK. Didn't play MoP. If my friends want to play this my arm could be easily twisted. New models look nice.

Level Select is an curious feature to add to a traditionally story-based game. Bounties and Nephalem Rifts (which are completely independent and could easily appear in campaign?) sound infinitely more fun than grinding cow levels.

So, what are the AoS games crowding this space? DotA, DotA2, LoL, HoN, HotS is five and one of those isn't released yet. I'm not sure I'd count things like Bloodline Champions or Smite because they play a lot differently. It seems like for a "crowded genre" it's nowhere near the numbers of first person shooters and fighting game franchises out there. I can name single fighting game franchises that have had more than five releases since LoL appeared.

Any plans on returning to the PC version? (Also, I have totes backed this).

Surely as you get older "death awaits" becomes more relevant?

I really hate this Diretide debacle. When developers use phrases like "gamer entitlement" it's often laced with arrogance, but in this instance it's justified. In /r/DotA2 they were even looking for a Volvo courier to commemorate... what? Spamming an unrelated subreddit with a bad in-joke, spamming negative reviews on metacritic, finding CyborgMatt's phone number and harassing him in real-life? Unfortunately this has also given the message that if fans complain loudly enough and disruptively enough Valve will comply. And nobody actually likes Diretide, the draw of the event is it allows you to grind for a higher frequency of cosmetic item drops. Anyway, in other news, the delayed update they were planning to release instead is here now with two more heroes. http://www.dota2.com/threespirits

There's not much chance LoL is going to die overnight and Riot have announced they are working towards other, e-sports (and no-doubt pay to win*) titles. It's certainly true a lot of HotS players will be in the venn diagram of Blizzard fans and LoL players but it's going to stay successful. Although, regarding the graphic, Riot do massage their data a lot. I liked it when they were reporting their total view count for the world finals, opposed to the peak unique views, and you could literally click 90% of the client and accidentally launch the stream. * Taylor, it's totally not play to win because you only have to pay for skins and you can unlock everything else like champions, runes and rune pages by playing the game. And just because you got out a nerdy fucking spreadsheet and worked out even at three games a day with no losses this would take over four years doesn't matter. You can prove anything with facts. Besides you only need two rune pages, even though you clearly need at least three but I'm going to pretend supports don't need GP5, and the boost is like really tiny so it doesn't count.

Aeon of Strife was the original map in SC. It's probably the most useful term but the least used.

This was going to be a thread for a new jam game, Shumping, but I feel bad making threads in Work Release every time I pop out some 2-day game. So I am going to create an arrogant and vain thread here for all current and future junk. This is just my solo work from 2013 and not my industry stuff. Apologises in advance. Edit: I accidentally nuked all the images in this thread. All the descriptions, images and videos are now arranged nicely here though: http://alexandertaylor.net

Everyone I play LoL and DotA with is very interested in this so we'll definitely be checking it out. Sounds like the objectives will take it different routes than existing AoS games... THAT'S RIGHT I USED AOS. This genre has more names than games.

CHECK OUT DEM PIXELS.

A lot of discussion boards forbid linking to gawker sites.

RockPaperShotgun is really good, although I do avoid one writer there. Eurogamer is still mostly good but they seem to be getting more and more Kotakuy. A lot of sites I don't actively visit, but I follow writers on twitter so I can read what they write. This is mostly for indie game coverage.

Nope , League segregates.

Yeah, I've been playing Pokemon Y. I'm right near the end of the "main game" although looking at my Pokedex that's still a while away from anything approaching 100%. I've not played a Pokemon game since Red/Blue except for some brief messing around in Gold so I'm not really sure how the game has been, err, evolving. It certainly feels like a polished version of the older games although perhaps on the easy side (although I'll take that over having to make specific squads for each Gym). If there's some kind of mapcore DotA going on let me know! I actually ended up booting League of Legends last night because it's what people play. Queuing solo in ARTS/MOBA is just a frustrating experience. I used the client as an e-sports TV while I was working so I've racked up some impressive "hours played" but I've only really had about 32 games (( Edit: PRO FORMATTING.

I believe this was posted before in the Shadow Warrior thread but it's still a good video. Although, whenever I see Total Biscuit talk about modern conventions all I can remember is him complaining about the lack of them in Volgarr while taking literally five minutes to walk two screens. There was also an interesting breakdown of Bioshock: Infinite's combat mechanics. It's rather long but fortunately was inadvertently summed up by this comment.

A team of six and management still knows nothing about the game. Shout outs to management.

Yeah, if I remember correctly I was there for four and a bit years and left in early 2011 for Climax Group.

I'm not sure how much this has changed since I left CA, but it was looking really good and you should get the hypes. As far as I'm aware no new information has actually been released yet, but the trademark application has caused Kotaku to repost some rumours from half a year ago, some of which their source has said are possibly maybe true.

PoE tree always amuses me because I imagine some of its players are PC Master Race types who hate consoles and JRPG's, and yet here they are unknowingly on the FFX Sphere Grid. I also notice PoE gets a free-pass for always online but it's apparently one of Diablo 3's biggest failures? While I'm still cool with Diablo 3's skill system and not allocating attributes I don't see anything released so far that addresses skill build and item build being completely divorced and this is one of the larger differences between it and D2. Currently you always want the same stats (which are all infinitely scaling) regardless of what you're going to be mashing. I would rather they killed the end-game bandaid Paragon System completely and possibly raised the level cap instead. It's only there because Inferno was badly balanced and required you to grind out lottery-chance drops (read: play the RMAH).

Crytek can't be indie because it make games about shooting mans. Team Ico and thatgamecompany aren't (or weren't) really published by Sony because they make arts.

Denied creeps give 18 exp split between eligible units, which is then doubled for melee. Now it could be considered 36 exp split as it's doubled for everyone. As a comparison melee/ranged creeps usually give 62/41 when not denied. So it's not negative but it is heavily reduced. This will mitigate its importance in mid-lane but allow off-laners to soak up more. Fair warning: This is three hours long.

Yup, Darkstalkers, one of Capcoms older fighting game franchises, although it was recently re-released on XBLA/PSN. A real sequel has been requested for a while but Keiji Inafune wasn't behind it and it would get the Yoshinori Ono treatment anyway. Still, the potential for a really good Darkstalkers game is there. Awesome characters and system was the foundation of most modern "air-dasher" fighting games.

I recall the recent Splinter Cell said it would support both stealth and a shooter approach because blah blah modern audiences. How did that turn out?