Around the Interwebs

This week was pretty good for news that interested me.

By which I mean actively blocking most of the political yamhammering.

Game News:
A retrospective on the development of Dear Esther. I've been a huge fan of this guy from the beginning, and it's quite a riveting piece on the turmoil and craziness involved with launching the remake of the mod. Also, he's super talented.

If you don't have enough DRM-free games to play on your Android, Linux, or Mac (I'm gonna assume you have plenty on your PC) Humble Indie Bundle has yet another bundle. I now have games to play on my phone while I poop that aren't Dominion.

Homefront was a AAA-ish shooter back in the day. It didn't do too hot. Here's the story of the poor dev studio. The byline is The long, tortured journey of Homefront, so that kinda gives a glimpse of what it's about. Still a fascinating read of what AAA game development is like.

The Dystopia mod announced patch 1.4. I thought they had stopped developing this! For those that don't know, Dystopia is a free Source game in a cyberpunk future. It involves meatspace and cyberspace, awesome weapons, cool tech, implants, classes, and really inventive maps. Biggest problem is navigating the maps and "solving" each map, due to the symmetric nature of each one. However, it appears they're trying to remedy the map/UI problem once again.

Tech (the future):
Microsoft announced they can not only transcribe your speech, and then convert it based on sentences/context, but then play it back in your own voice. :O

Inspirational:
The Fight by Dustin Curtis. Pairs well with
 

Politics:
In case you were wondering how the map looks for this last election, but setup so the size of a region represents its importance.

Just plain COOL:
Walk off the Earth is a YouTube band. They have several good covers, and have made some of their own songs. You probably know them best from their 5-person-on-1-guitar cover of Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye. They made this video using a single cut, but the parts are all out of order. Fastforwarding and rewinding puts them back in order. WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH?

Install Chrome. Jam with friends.

Blergity

Wednesday, the day I usually write this entry, was July 4th.

There was much cooking and rejoicing. And no writing.

And my other pieces I have sitting around aren't good enough to publish.

Instead, enjoy this video of some awesome music.

Explorations on Google+

OK, blog time about the amazingness that is Google+. Seriously. The only reason I'm not using it 100% of the time is not all my friends have been given the chance to jump over. Thoughts and critiques commence!

The "Friend Request"

While it's easy to say it's "Facebook but not Facebook" I'm starting to realize that's fundamentally incorrect. I mean, yeah, you could use it exactly like Facebook. But that's not its underlying rationale and structure.

Really, it's basic structure is more Twitter-ish. By default you might fire off Public Posts that anyone who is following you can see. But you have some subsets that you share more personal stuff with, like Family or Friends-only, and Google+ is happy to oblige you.

This is different from the Facebook model. Note that to see what others do, you just need to follow them. It's a unidirectional transaction. Contrast this to Facebook where you have to confirm your Friend Request, and then everything is shared between the two parties bilaterally. In fact, I have several people on Facebook I've friended then summarily hid from my feed 'cause I'm using it like a Rolodex and don't actually care about what is going on in their lives, or I don't share things with my "Limited" friends because I figure I'm not as caught up with them, they probably don't care about my stuff anyways.

Obviously you can replicate this Facebook Friend behavior. Google+ tells you who is following (but not what circle you've been placed into) and you can promptly follow back. Friend Request Accepted! Commence 2-way spam! (This is also apparently what most of use are doing right now)

However, really what following someone means is not "are you my friend" but instead "do I care about what you post and share and see what is going on in your life." And perhaps it's mutual. Perhaps it's not.

The Subsets and Supersets of Circles

Google+'s main cool feature is a really, really nice way of organizing your friends. These Circles though allow you to share stuff with specific sets of friends. Some of the obvious ones are Family-Only announcements. Some more creative ones I'm are people making specific lists for sharing a particular part of their life, like music they found or links on the internet. Personally I'm building a "Spammable" circle for my link propagation habits. (These are often opt-in and people will post seeing who wants in. Hopefully a feature will come that will allow us to make these circle opt-in from the other side instead of us manually sorting the masses.)

Since we can place the same person in several circles, you suddenly have a very interesting potential set of overlapping circles, just like modeling your real life. Currently I've sorted people mostly by my relationship to them, and the Spammable circle is a way to mash a bunch of them together from disparate parts of my social network. This way I still have a network of individuals sorted, but only the closer ones regardless of other circles get my spam.

Of course, if you instead want to use it as originally intended, just push most of your stuff as Public and use Circles for specifically targeted messages and conversations. I'm sure as time goes on we'll see more ideas and structures develop using this feature.

HANGOUT ARE AWESOME

Probably the most badass feature so far are Hangouts. It's group video chat, up to 10 people. Sure Skype and Ventrilo and many others have similar things, but Google+ has 2 major advantages.

Sure, there's video. And that's kinda awesome to see people's faces again and their expressions as they laugh or give you the stare.

The kicker is the natural casual nature of the hangouts. Two people can just be "Hanging out" and a button shows up on Google+ to let you join in. Boom, instantly you're in! THAT'S AWESOME!!! It's like my olde East Dorm Lounge. Walk in, people are there, chill, leave when you want. None of this "setup a call" or "did so-and-so invite me to that group". Well. You could do that via Circles and just not invite people. But still, Hangouts provide a really nice way for people to just walk into the meeting and chill with friends. This feature alone is egging me on to finally buy a webcam. (I know, no smartphone, no webcam, still stuck in the 2000s)

Google Integration

A really, really sweet feature is you can see the notifications on any (well, almost any) Google App page. Your top bar that typically tells you all the Google Apps you can switch to gains a notification spot and a field you can use to quickly share something you just found.

Number shows up for how many notifications you have, you can review them and quickly see just the updates, then resume your Gmail or Google Searching. That feature alone, that I don't have to keep a Facebook Tab open, is gonna be the downfall of mankind's productivity I guarantee you. And instantly sharing? Oh goodness me.

Still some Rough Edges

So, that Google Integration? Somehow it doesn't work on Calendar. D'oh. Also, using the "Share" system on Google Reader doesn't appear to load it into Google+ (yet). And Vimeo video embeds don't work. And they won't let us invite more people. And apparently it hasn't rolled out to Google Apps so go setup a GMail / Google Account if you want to partake. And obviously since it has no data it can't suggest people to you very well yet so you'll have to search people manually.

EDIT: Apparently it doesn't catch my Blogger Posts either! /EDIT

"Better" Privacy

Well, at least it's not randomly popping stuff up like a stalker on other pages and it's way easier to only send stuff privately to a subset of your buddies and there aren't any subversive data mining 3rd-party applications, but you know Google wants all your data. COOOOKIES. OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM

But seriously, even with the Buzz and a slight oopsie here, Google has had a better track record on privacy than Facebook. And while it's still getting out the kinks in letting me custom tailor my privacy settings to lockdown mode, the bonus of using Circles to carefully cull who gets what sensitive info is a huge plus already.

The BIG Question:

Will it beat Facebook?

Dunno. The biggest issue is can you get the adoption rate? Social networks like this only work if everyone else is using it so you use it too. And getting that critical mass is what makes or breaks it. Also, tearing people away from Farmville.

For most of my friends, we're flocking to it ASAP. So, it's gained critical mass for a few of my circles. But there are several other still left out in the cold. Even with some of its oddities and bugs I like it and frankly I bet a bunch of my non-as-tech-savvy friends would like it too.

I Hate Online Banking

So, I try to log into my account today. It claims my password/username don't match and therefore we have a problem. I type it all in again, still no dice.

OK, I'll just reset my password!

Go through the security checks, at the end it asks me to set a new password. I type in my olde password I was just trying.

"Your new password must be different from your old password"

Wait.

You're telling me this is my password on file.

The one I'm typing in now.

The one you JUST SAID was a mismatch.

HoN vs LoL (vs DotA) v2

This is an updated version of a previous post comparing League of Legends (LoL), Heroes of Newerth (HoN), and Defense of the Ancients (aka DotA) (or DotA vs LoL, or LoL vs DotA, or... you get the idea). A few new things have come around over the past months, and I wanted to make the guide easier for new players who have no idea what DotA is. So, if you are deciding which to play as a DotA vet or have just heard about these guys, read on. Brief description of the DotA genre in a bit.

Heroes of Newerth

League of Legends

Oh yeah, they're badass.

td;dr recommendation: LoL is probably better for the new player. HoN is excellent for pro gamers looking for an almost perfect clone of DotA, but on a better engine and lots of shiny features. DotA is for those who love the HUGE number of heroes its amassed, enjoy the comforts of knowing every detail, or just don't want to shell out money for something they already have (and love). That being said, I think putting money into either HoN or LoL is definitely worth the investment. Also, Icefrog apparently is heading up a team at Valve to make a new version of DotA so perhaps you could just wait a bit...

If you care about which is more popular, as it stands, LoL is currently edging out HoN as the DotA successor, at least according to the press released data of how many active players there are. Most attribute this to easier access to new players and that they recently have been doing a superb publicity drive showing up at several game expos including PAX and being one of the games at WCG, being the best DotA-esque game from PC Gamer, oh and 5 awards from the Game Developer's Conference including the Online Popularity one. Granted, some also argue that the Wii is popular as heck but that doesn't make it good.

Brief Description of the Game

The best way to describe DotA (and thus HoN and LoL) is a RPG condensed into about 40 minutes. You start at Lv1 and grow in power, get gold, buy items, and vanquish enemies until you eventually storm the enemy fortress and blow up their headquarters. While this is going on, you have lanes where helpers called creep charge out of your base and try to get to the enemy base. However, since the opposing team is doing the same thing, they clash in the lanes alongside heroes like yourself. Of course, these broad paths are only part of the map, the rest hidden in fog where monsters (and maybe enemy heroes) lurk that you can kill for more gold and experience. Kill enemies to gain gold, experience, and make them wait to respawn at their base, missing out on stopping your glorious rampage.

Pick from a variety of heroes. Are you an assassin from afar? A beefy tank who can soak up damage? Maybe someone who spew fireballs and lighting, or throws hexes than stun enemies and buffs your teammates. Perhaps you can burrow through the ground, or can strike any point on the map with ease. Are you powered by the Gods? Or something more... sinister?

Work as a team to kill, level, gather gold and items and buffs, and crush your way to victory.

Feature-by-Feature Analysis

Developers

DotA- A long history of developers starting with Guinsoo and leading up to Icefrog as the current leader. Always been a one-man job, but what wonders they have done with the WC3 engine.

HoN-S2 Games. Same group that made Savage and Savage 2, a multiplayer RPG/RTS game. Overall a solid bunch with successful (albeit perhaps not AAA) games under their belts.

LoL-Riot Games. Includes Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, original DotA All-Stars pusher, as well as other huge competitive gaming balancers, gamers, coders, and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon who started DotA-Allstars.com. Plus a guy I used to game with. He kicked my butt. And now another classmate of mine.

Cost to Play/Purchase

DotA-Whatever you paid for WC3. So, effectively free.

HoN-Single $30 USD payment up front, unlimited access.

LoL-Free to play (with possible microtransistions). There are two meta-game currencies. Influence Points (IP) are gained via playing the game. Riot Points (RP) are bought using real money. Heroes are unlockable via either, and there are always 10 free heroes available. The 10 free ones rotate periodically. Summoner Runes, minor meta boosts, are only purchased via IP. Cosmetic skins and temporary boosters that boost IP or XP gain are bought via RP. There is also a summoner level determined by XP, and XP is only gained by playing. Higher level means you can use more runes and unlocks different summoner spells. You need to be lv12 to unlock all the summoner spells.

Popularity

DotA-While the big king back in the day, the playerbase is shrinking as people move to HoN or LoL.

HoN-Gets steady growth, especially from Europe. Midday peaks around 40,000 online players, at night around 20,000. Up from a peak of only 20,000 when it left the free Beta.

LoL-No released number of player stats, but a press release recently mentioned for about a year the online active players was doubling about every 3 months. That's some serious growth. It seems like LoL is winning the popularity war. Oh, and it won 5 Game Developers Conference awards in 2010 including the Online Audience award (i.e. the popularity contest).

Ratings and Matchmaking

DotA-None inherent, but I applaud the efforts of groups like Throneit who try to add it in.

HoN-Each account has persistent global stats tracking kills, deaths, assists, gold/min, xp/min, and many other factors. Each player has a Pub Skill Rating (PSR) and a Single Matchmaking Rating (SMR) which are used to balance games. Only single player matchmaking available at this time. Does not account for sets of players having better teamwork when playing together. IN fact, it's a common joke that all we want for Christmas is Team Matchmaking.

LoL-There are persistent summoner stats like summoner level and total games won that are visible to everyone. As a player you can see more detailed information about yourself. Your actual ELO rating, used to do matchmaking, is hidden from the player. Ladder ELOs are visible. Team and solo matchmaking available, and algorithms are employed to compensate for a team of players having inherently better teamwork are used to keeps things fair.

Game Types

DotA-All Pick, Single Draft, Banning Pick, WTF Mode....

HoN-Supports all the game types of DotA. All Pick, Single Draft, Banning Draft, etc. Plus some of the wackier ones, like allowing Repeat heroes.

LoL-Currently only supports Blind Picking in generic games. Within a team, no repeats and you can't see what the other team is picking. Within a game, you could have same hero on both sides. This is because not all players have the same pool of heroes to pick from, unlike HoN. For Ladders, they have a clever way to allow picking strategies and counter pick enemy team lineups via a method similar to Banning Pick. They assume since you have to be Lv30 to do this you should have a decent pool of heroes to use.

Creep Denies

DotA-By attacking your own "creeps" or minions when they are low on health, it can "deny" the enemy experience and the chance to kill it themselves. Killing enemy creeps with your attack gains extra gold.

HoN-Same as in DotA.

LoL-Removed to put greater emphasis on pushing forward with creeps and not tower hugging, i.e. keep denying your own creeps to cause the creeps to fight close to your tower, and let the tower protect you from early attacks.

Hero Stats and Item Boosts

DotA-Primary stats: Strength, Agility, Intelligence. These influence secondary stats like attack damage, health, attack speed, mana pool, mana regeneration, etc. You can also buy items to directly influence secondary stats and give new abilities (such as lifesteal). Abilities don't scale with stats, except one item can boost some heroes' spells, so typically late game heroes are more stat reliant, especially on agility heroes since Agility gives them attack speed, damage, and armor bonuses making them damage machines and still able to take a bit of a beating. Since stats influence multiple secondary attributes, including damage dealt and hit points, and primary stats are gained by leveling up, there is a natural progression of the hero. Conversely, high damage spell heroes are more powerful early and mid game since they can put out high amounts of damage quickly without purchasing items, but since they output fixed amounts of damage and everyone's health pools go up, they lose effectiveness.

HoN-Same as DotA.

LoL-No underlying stats. Purchase items to directly increase damage, health, attack speed, etc. You can buy items to give new abilities (such as lifesteal). You can also purchase items for Ability Points (AP) which can scale up the effectiveness of your abilities. Thus, ability dependent heroes can scale up to remain powerful in the late game. Several items can be purchased to reduce ability cooldowns, which is unique from DotA and HoN. This means hard carries have a harder time wiping the entire enemy team by themselves because everyone can get items to scale up every aspect of their character, be it HP, Armor, Damage, etc. It is still possible to take a team one-on-five, but they really have to run away with the game and they tend to work alongside support, ability carries, and tanks. On level up individual stats are boosted to create a natural progression.

Death Recap

DotA-You'rd dead. Wait for respawn or buy back from the fountain.

HoN-You're dead. How nice.

LoL-On death, provides a Death recap where you can see what/who dealt the damage, what items they had, what abilities did what damage. Nice way to understand how you just died, and something to look at while dead. There is no buy back system to spend money and instantly revive.

Item Purchases

DotA-While outside of base, you can purchase items and they instantly go to your Stash. Your Stash acts as a kind of locker where you can store extra items to pick up later or because you're out of room and might want it at a later time. Local shops in the map such as the Secret Shot and the Outpost have special more advanced items or provide a quick place to grab assorted items respectively. You can buy items while dead, but cannot sell. Can drop and share items with your team. Can purchase recipes as individual items. Larger number of recommended items to fit the variety of builds. Some hotkeys that help make item purchases quick.

HoN-Exactly like DotA. Better hotkeys.

LoL-Only able to purchase and sell while in the fountain or dead. Cannot drop items. No stash. If you are out of inventory room, you must either sell another item or purchase an advanced item made up of several pieces. Buying an item also buys all components if you can afford it, including the recipe. You cannot buy a recipe without the needed components. Easier to navigate item purchase UI to find an item with certain attributes. Only 6 recommended items making the build simpler, but not as flexible. No hotkeys, at least easily visible.

Gold and Kills/Deaths

DotA-Bonus gold for stopping an enemy hero's killing streak. You lose gold on death if you have gold to lose. Bonus gold for getting killing blow on creeps. Team gets gold for tower kills.

HoN-Same as DotA.

LoL-Even more bonus gold to stopping a killing streak than HoN (up to 1000). Do not lose gold on death. Bonus gold for getting killing blow on creeps. More creeps per wave than HoN. Team gold for tower kills. Team gold for killing the Dragon.

Hero Spells

DotA-A mix of hard hitting, high cost, debilitating spells, AoE, single target, spammable, buff, etc. spells just like DotA. Basically, if you think of a spell, DotA probably has it. Including one where you drag your opponent behind you. You get 4 spells to level up to lv3 each, and 10 levels of taking a bonus of +2 to each base stat (STR/INT/AGI).

HoN-Pretty much what DotA does.

LoL-Similar mix, but there is tends to be less stun durations, more slows, lower mana costs, lower cooldowns, and higher mana pools. This means for any character you don't have to have a full mana pool to do you spell combination. That being said, a full spell combo doesn't guarantee insta kills as easily (*cough* Deadwood *cough*), but there are still some powerful spike damage assassin characters. Plus, stacking huge amounts of AP can still give some heroes an insta kill combo. Oddly, some heroes don't have a mana pool. Some either spend health, spend from a smaller (but faster regenerating) pool called Stamina, and some merely have cooldowns. You get 3 normal spells that you can level up to lv5 and your ultimate that you can level up to lv3. There is no option to buy stats on leveling.

Fog of War

DotA-Cannot see higher ground. Juke through narrow gaps in forest trees. Need to learn where all the juke points are on the map. Miss chance attacking unit on higher ground. Cutting down trees potentially strategic to open new paths or remove abilities cast on trees.

HoN-5v5 Maps is almost perfect close of DotA's except for a few juke points. However, they've been able to manipulate a few things to prevent weird behavior and to make life easier for some things like neutral creeps being stackable and the like.

LoL-Uses tall grass, aka Brush to break line of sight instead. While inside the brush, players outside the brush cannot see you. Once inside the brush, you can see other units in the brush. This provides juke points that are clearly shown on the map. No miss chance for attacking units on higher ground. Cannot see up to higher ground, and higher vs. lower ground regions reduced. Cannot modify map, unfortunately.

Runes vs. Glyphs

DotA-Copies HoN. No, wait...

HoN-Uses DotA runes in the river that spawn and can be picked up. Several types: Invisibility, Double Damage, Illusions, Regeneration, Haste. Can bottle runes to save for later and refill the Bottle.

LoL-Certain creep camps have special glyphs. These creeps spawn at the same spots and there is one set (2 creep camps) per forest. On killing that creep, you gain that glyph. If an enemy hero kills you while you have that buff, they steal the buff instead. Three types: Attack and HP regen bonus, Mana Regen and Ability Cooldown bonus, uber bonus from killing the Uber Creep (only 1 Uber creep on the map).

Minimap/Map Features

DotA-Uses the WC3 engine's pings. You can tell your friends stuff, and maybe even make them pretty colors.

HoN-Supports pings. Shows where players are teleporting to via Homecoming Stones (TP scrolls).

LoL-Supports Pings. Draws your intended path via pathfinding on the minimap over long distances. Can target and mark enemy heroes and enemy towers to have team focus them down, and highlight friendly towers to defend. Marking also shows up as a ping on minimap and in team chat. Definitely helpful to compensate for lack of voice chat.

Map Teleportation

DotA-Use Teleport Scrolls to warp to any friendly building. Also a specific version of Boots allows teleportation to any non-hero friendly unit.

HoN-Use Homecoming Stones to warp to any friendly building. Also a specific version of Boots allows teleportation to any non-hero friendly unit. (sound familiar?)

LoL-All summoners have the innate Recall spell. After the cast time, immediately return to the fountain. During cast time, any damage taken stops the spell. You can also take a summoner spell Teleport to teleport to any friendly non-hero unit/building. No consumable warp item.

Unit Control

DotA-Select as many units as you can and control them as a giant blob of death. Or tab through them to fire individual spells. Mmmm minions. Mmmm heroes who's whole job is get and then run around with 5+ minions...

HoN-Like Dota, can select and control as many units as you can.

LoL-Can only directly select own hero. Other minions can be directed to attack something or move, but cannot not directly controlled via selecting them. However, if you start to run away or move somewhere or attack something, they typically will follow your lead. Granted, this makes running away and letting your minion do all the attacking for you a tad hard.

Jungling

Definition: When a hero doesn't stay in the lane and instead goes around killing neutral creeps. Potentially lower XP gain, but overall team XP and gold gain goes up provided the extra solo lane doesn't die horribly against the two enemy heroes.

DotA-Potentially amazing. Heck, some heroes seem designed with this job in mind. With careful timing you can pull these monsters into your lane to slow down your creeps, helping keep the action near your tower where it's safer. Plus, if you time it right, you can pull the creeps out far enough so that the game thinks it's OK to spawn more creeps there, thus doubling (or more depending on how many times you do it) your XP and gold gain. Sometimes done by another player or by a minion to get it ready for your team's carry to clear out in one shot and reap the benefits.

HoN-Like in DotA, a powerful strategy for certain heroes. Can use Creep Pulling to slow down team's creep waves and to help tank neutral creep damage.

LoL-Jungling has much lower gold payout than laning and will leave you a level or two behind the rest of the team. Requires specific summoner spells to perform properly on most heroes. Low GP payout. Still, in theory allows two solo lanes to gain levels and gold more efficiently as a whole team. No creep pulling into team's creeps, but can pull into brush to hide that you're killing the creep.

Uber Creeps

DotA-Roshan. Kill him to drop the Aegis, which will revive the hero when they die. Also, bonus gold for your entire team. Kinda awesome. Maxed out teams kill it with ease. However, you are in a vulnerable spot on the map making ambushes oh so tasty.

HoN-Kongor. Once killed, drops Token of Life. The hero that has this, when killed, instantly respawns. Huge gold bonus for entire team. Melee only neutral creep. Again, maxed out teams kill it with ease, and again you're right in the middle of the map.

LoL-Baron. Once killed, all heroes on the team get uber buff. Not transferable to enemy team on death. Hefty damage, movespeed, and regeneration boost. Some gold bonus to entire team. Mostly melee but also creates spouts of acid and has ranged rain that fall on heroes. Spouts are dodgeable, making it a bit like a MMO boss fight. Even at max level Baron can sometimes take a team down to half health, making them perfect targets for an ambush by the enemy team. Not quite the middle of the map, but pretty ambush-able.

Consumables

DotA-Eat a tree for HP. Drink a potion for mana. Vision wards and ward that reveal invisible units but have a small vision range on their own. Teleporting Scrolls.

HoN-All the usuals from DotA. Healing items, mana restoration, map teleportation, and vision wards.

LoL-Healing and mana regen items are still in the game, and the mana one doesn't dispell upon taking damage. Vision and anti-invis wards available. Also introduces several buff potions that last for a set period of time, including one that gives True Sight revealing invisible heroes until you die. Takes the place of the Gem of True Sight/Bound Eye used in DotA/HoN.

Replays and Spectators

DotA-Available. You just have to use WC3's horrible interface.

HoN-Available, and there's even a mod that makes the UI extra awesome for spectators and video commentators.

LoL-Not available (yet). There is a weird hack that lets in a single spectator, but the UI is kinda meh and no replays makes this an annoying endeavor.

Competitive Scene

DotA-Giant tournaments and cash prizes, including being one almost every major gaming circuit. However, it feels like this has been drying up recently.

HoN-Almost weekly HONCAST.com tournaments, and several huge prize tourneys have already been played. With the spectator and replay features, shoutcasting is easy and fun to watch. Plus, they are the game of choice at Dreamhack, one of the Largest Euro LAN events, and have a league going on in the newly rebooted Cyberathele Amateur League.

LoL-Several tournaments occurring, but less notoriety of individual games due to the lack of integrated spectator modes and replays. Thus, no live streams nor game commentary outside of fraps captured gameplay videos. There is currently a special hack that allows a "spectator" to watch the game, providing a few casts and replays to be found in the web now. Recently Season One, based on their Laddering system, finished up at the WCG for massive prizes. Also, several other groups have had LoL tournaments, including PAX.

In-game Voice Chat

DotA-Ahahahahahahaha. No. Use Ventrilo/Teamspeak/Mumble/Skype/etc.

HoN-Supports both whole team and local voice chat (i.e. only to nearby friendly heroes). Still waiting for global so you yell at the enemy team.

LoL-Not available (yet). Use Ventrilo/Teamspeak/Mumble/Skype/etc.

Leavers, Surrender, Kick, etc.

DotA-Bnet is stupid. However, using a cool tool called Banlist lets you monitor if that guy that just joined is a jerk who is a known leaver and ruiner of games. Drop out of a game, you can't come back.

HoN-No longer supports kicking except for idlers, but still supports Remaking a game, Surrendering, Pausing the Game, and maintaining a personal Banlist. You can rejoin games you left, as long as you rejoin within 5 minutes of game time. Also, heroes left by a leaving player can be controlled by a teammate, but rarely are.

LoL-Supports Surrendering. If a player leaves a bot takes control of the hero and tries to teleport them back to the fountain. You can rejoin games within a reasonable time.

Modability

DotA-Lots of WC3 engine hacks like Banlist and Voice Overlay, but not really that moddable.

HoN-Very open API, and some stellar mods. I personally have 5 different mods for my HoN client, so you can change the UI to your whims making it simpler or more complex.

LoL-None, except perhaps the hack to allow an observer.

Spell Range UI

DotA-Sorta not really. Mostly only AoE shown.

HoN-AoE area shown, but no range markers. Can mod in ability range displays.

LoL-Range, cones, AoE Area, all shown.

Team info. at a Glance

DotA-None.

HoN-Hotbar shows team heroes' HP, Mana, all abilities whether ready, on cooldown or not enough mana. Can also see how many points are spent in which abilities on teammates.

LoL-Hotbar shows team heroes' HP, Mana, and if their ultimate is ready.

Final Recommendations:

If you are a DotA veteran and only want to play more DotA, Heroes of Newerth is solid. It's basically DotA, but with better UI and way better engine. Plus, no BattleNet. It also tends to feel more frantic and visceral due to the extremely influential spells and grittier graphics. The purchase unlocks everything all at once, no grinding to unlock heroes and plenty of game modes to play them in. If you do some advanced forum hunting you can also modify your UI in wonderful ways to give you every bit of information you wanted, on the screen where you want it. Some may balk at the $30 price tag, but I think it's worth it. It appears the community is growing slowly and in the evening on the West Coast there's usually around 20,000 players online.

If you thought DotA was awesome but the core mechanics could use a bit of tweaking or are a new player to the scene, League of Legends is the way to go. Much better UI to find items, great overlays, and the Death Recaps ease newbies in. Plus, the limited number of available heroes at the start lets you become familiar with them instead of trying to learn 80+ all at once. The persistent summoner with levels and runes also adds a bit of progression keeping you looking to grow as a player even more. Don't worry, summoner stuff only accounts for about 10% of the battle. Hero choices are another 20-30%. The rest is skill. It also currently has superior (i.e. team) matchmaking capabilities. Plus, you can't argue with free. It's also winning the popularity war, so if you want to join the teeming masses LoL is the way to go.

Granted, if you're a DotA vet, that means you already have DotA. So, why spend money on a new game? You already know everything about DotA, and DotA currently offers way more heroes than either HoN or LoL (but they're catching up soon). So, while I have kissed DotA goodbye and never looked back, maybe that's your fit. Or you're just waiting for Icefrog's Valve version.

I will continue to play HoN and LoL for now mostly playing with friends from each side.

Inceptionauts+BIG BANG

Psychonauts + Inception Trailer = AMAZING!!!

Minor potential spoilers involved from the game, but I recommend you watch it anyways.

You should probably play Psychonauts. The last level is painful, but if you stick with it the ending is sooooo good.

Also, OMG THESE GUYS ARE EPIC. Stop motion of amazing.

Yeah, I have nothing interesting to say this week.

I Think We're Too Creative

when it comes to screwing with our brain chemistry.

I mean, music that makes you high? REALLY?

Guess it was only a matter of time really...

http://gizmodo.com/5587249/help-teens-are-using-digital-drugs-to-get-high

Adorable Otters

In lieu of epic post (I've got like 3 really fun ideas right now and no time to write them up) here's a cute video of Otters learning to swim.

What Motivates Us

Lovely animated piece about what motivates us.

It might surprise you.

TL;DR Metric

How to tell the forum you're viewing isn't super serious? Or, at the very least, filled with people who aren't seriously invested in trying to make life/the game/logical thinking/etc. better?

Step 1) Post a lengthy well-thought out detailed post about some component.
Step 2) See how many people just go "tl;dr"
Step 3) Higher score = moar fail.

Primer

According to Google Analytics, I have had 1 visit. And It was me checking the formatting of the blog. Woohoo!!!!

Anyways, this little post is a way to organize my thoughts. Here I am posting a bunch of labels that I am thinking I might use. So, if you're interested in what all these labels might mean, here are the explanations.

Categorization

• current event - let's face it, my life isn't all that interesting. I'm no Rex Morgan where everyday something new and exciting and probably deadly is happening, and trying to soap opera my life would be miserably painfully long in written form. Plus, the last three days of my life can be summarized as mostly eating, sleeping, and perusing internetz/gaming. HOWEVER, on the fun chance that awesome-ness occurs, this blog might see a post and this label shall be applied.
• op-ed - this will probably be the majority of the posts. Random opinions, observations, analysis, that kind of stuff. Think of it as potentially enlightening musings about the world around us.
• school/work - these should be obvious.

Extras

• internetz - should I include something from the internet that I find interesting, be it video, comic strip or etc., this label will be applied
• wall-o-text - this is applied to a post of extremely long length. So, it is either deeply detailed and insightful, or rambling. Considering the law that every person thinks of themselves more highly than they should, it's probably rambling.
• not super serious - I prefer to be a bit snarky and satirical. If something is written for the benefit of entertainment or in a particularly funky style, this label will be applied. If you try to quote me on something from a post labeled with this and try to argue that I'm wrong, I will shrug and ignore you.
• games - it could be game theory, or about an awesome game I've played recently, or a review, or complaining about game development and where the industry is going.... you get the idea. Other labels might appear pertaining to stuff like music or movies or (heaven forbid) POLITICKs as well.

I'm sure there will be more labels that will pop up in the future, but for now enjoy this little quick sampler.