The Humble Indie Bundle

Hey. This isn't a review. This is to bring attention to the Humble Bundle. I could explain it to you, but I feel this video they made says it best.

So I'm just spreading the word. Please, don't be a dick and just give a penny. I'll be making a contribution myself as soon as this is posted.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

Looking Out For...Card Hunter

I don't know how this slipped under my Radar...probably cause I don't frequent You Tube enough. But I'll be keeping my eyes open and do a First Look once the Open Beta begins:
http://www.cardhunter.com/

League of Legends: The Field of Justice Welcomes You

I have seen my associate, Aron play this game on and off. I never thought about playing it for awhile, if only because my computer back then was so crappy and running it would make its CPU explode into cyber salsa. Now I have a new machine which is working nicely, though I wish the connection in my area were faster. It’s not a snail’s pace, but still…anyway, let’s get on with the review.

League of Legends is a game of the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA henceforth, which is the widely accepted short hand anyway for those not familiar) games. They boil down to this. You and your team try to destroy this critical structure the enemy team has before they wreck yours. Sounds simple enough on the surface, but once you get into the game this turns out to be a more involved process than it sounds. What do I mean by that? Well, I’m about to tell you.

Gameplay: League of Legends reminded me of those micro managing real time strategy games. I HATE THOSE! I don’t see how people can get enjoyment over having to constantly tell section A how to do their job, and then checking on sections B, C and D with so many units, checking on the resources you currently possess so you can do the really good stuff. Thankfully that isn’t the case here. Sure, there are minions, but you don’t command them. They do their own thing. The only person you have to worry about managing (in terms of building stuff on) is your Champion.

This character has access to four abilities that can be used and pumped up. Catch is you can’t use all of them right away. You got to kill enemy minions, neutral creatures that hide in the forest areas of the map (the term “Jungling” describes that, but it’s a misnomer since as of yet none of the maps in game thus far has a Jungle. So it’s more like “Foresting”, but that’s not as cool sounding I guess) and of course, members of the opposing team for experience points and Gold which is used to buy items (these items do not carry over from game to game) to increase your stats and other good stuff.

The game has always been free to play. Every so often Champions are rotated in and out for you to play with. If you want, however, you can pay some money (or Influence Points (IP henceforth), which can only be earned by playing the game) to keep them in your roster permanently.

If you’re like me, you’re conditioned to click the left mouse key in games to move. Getting used to having to right click could be bothersome at first, but you get used to it in time. As for the curb of the game…it’s not exactly easy to learn, but it’s not exactly a ball buster either. As of now I’m Level 10 in the game (Max 30). Each level grants you mastery points to put towards small changes towards the way you fight. Runes can also have an impact on how you play. Unlike Champions, you can only get Runes with IP, so…you can’t buy power (well, you still have to buy the Runes, but you just can’t do it with cash).

One of things I had the biggest issue getting over was getting used to the camera panning. Starting out, it was a hindrance for me, but now I manage just fine. Fiddle around with it before you really get started ASAP.  The game does provide a tutorial for first timers, which introduces the basics, but it feels rather incomplete when you get to the Co-Op V.S. A.I. A.I CANNOT prepare you for fighting against players. It can vary anywhere from dumb as dirt to very tough (and even then they can get stupid).

No one character is a lone wolf. Not a single one can take the game by themselves. It is highly team oriented. I won’t get into breaking down all the roles available (the Alteil one was long enough as is) but combinations are also key. A Champion that’s a bad fit for the team (even if you’re awesome with them) can wreck synergy and cost you the game before you even fight, and if you aren’t communicating with your team it can be a real disaster (play a Support role character in the random que at your own risk). I don’t have a playgroup as of yet, so it can be a real gamble…I’d like a playgroup, so I need to get to finding people.

Concerns: The game is not without its faults. ONE CHAPMION could set you back as much as $10. I really suggest you wait for sales and buy bundles, and this is even before skins (which can only be obtained by purchasing with real cash). They can cost as much as a Champ (only way I get them is from a bundle or one of their giveaways) and do nothing but change the appearance...if you ask me something purely COSMETIC shouldn’t cost as much as a Champion, EVER (and then people buying them rage about how they have to split between champs and skins and worried going broke on Riot Points (RP henceforth))! If you REALLY WANT A CHAMPION permanently, and not clean out your bank account in the process…I can’t stress enough about waiting for bundles and sales (and if you go against that advice, be sure you actually can play with said character).

If any parents are reading this, you might not want your younger kids on the forums. When the servers go down you could easily see crazy stuff like this:

I found it funny, but gross…very…very…very, gross. Speaking of mind numbing things, I hear the server downtime can be rather…insane. The joke is that Riot can’t seem to make an update without the servers going down like a hooker on a cop trying to get out of a parking ticket. Since I have started playing, this has only happened once, so I cannot testify firsthand the history of these issues.

The game only has two maps…almost 80 Champions as of this review, and only TWO MAPS! One for 5v5 and one for 3v3. New Champions come out every two weeks I hear, and new maps…nowhere near as fast. The game has almost been out for about two to three YEARS…and only TWO MAPS! Different opponents each time make the game a different experience, but I would really love MORE MAPS to play on.

Also balancing issues. I see talk of this a lot (though I have yet to feel the effects). One of my favorite Champions, Annie is complained about a lot, and a good deal of people think she’s unfair. I say they just hate the idea of being beaten by a fire wielding girl with a demon teddy bear that’s on FIRE! Also, the communities high tier players (and a bunch of others) can be quite snotty when it comes to ones thoughts on how to improve/nerf a character. You can tell how much of a stuck up fuck one is if they drag your Elo ratting into it to discredit you or bring theirs up to prove a point. Must be a lot of people on that game with tiny penises in this game.

Final Judgment: It’s a casual alternative to other MOBA’s out there, so for that reason I like it. But I also don’t like it because of the lack of maps. I play sparingly because I don’t want the maps to get old and because I lack a group. But if you bring a bunch of friends in your experience should be a nice one.

See you on the Fields of Justice, my fellow Summoners.

Urban Rivals: After the Honeymoon Phase…

I have never been hung over before, but I imagine it being like in a blender set on liquefy yet somehow surviving being diced into bits with a sort of warmth washing over you. When it’s over, you wonder what the hell happened to you, throw off the sheets, see some ugly person beside you and you pray you didn’t sleep with them in your state of poor judgment. That’s how I feel about Urban Rivals.

Those of you who follow me might remember how I gave this game such a glowing review…so why am I taking it back? Well, I ended up going to the game when I had reached the apex of anger with Alteil. The Nerf of 5/27/11 had made me so angry that I left the game for a few months. During that time, I had explored alternatives to get my card game fix without breaking the bank into tiny pieces or taxing my patients.

I had incurred a heavy streak of losses due to a combination of frustration and constant losing because I wasn’t willing a sacrifice my mother, sister and first born to Satan. So, after a particularly devastating lost to Falkow I went to immediately jump on the competition after hearing some high ranking Alteil players badmouth it. So off I went.

The game play is simple…TOO SIMPLE! Make a deck of 8 cards, pill off and see who wins. Even Poker has less bull crap luck involved. It can be funny to see a character win despite being 10 less in power, but when we talk in the 20’s or more, it gets rather insane. I have lost matchups where I had 40 Power more than the opponent.

Death Match is no better at times. If anything its even more luck based…as in you’d be lucky not to have an opponent stacked up with cards that completely overpower you, forcing you into overpilling so much that you can’t adequately defend yourself in the upcoming fights. There’s nothing wrong with luck being a deciding factor, but you got to pull the reigns somewhere.

Tonight was the last straw about it. You either win hard or lose hard. There is no in between. I wish I never bothered with this game. I wish I could sell off the cards for cash. This is that ugly person I took home in the drunken stupor…I resend any praise I had given this game, and I’m starting to wash my hands of it. It’s just not for me, but if you enjoy it that’s cool too.

Just don’t expect to see me on much longer. Shadow Era is suffering from a LOOOOONG wait for new cards. At this rate I question…is their really a game out there, on the internet, of an MMO scale that I will ever be truly happy with? Like anything, this will be known in time. It was fun for awhile, Urban Rivals but we must see other people.

Alteil: Game or Farce?

Ah…Alteil. The game that made me came out of my MMO shell. I have so many mixed emotions about you. At times you’re good to me, and at times you’re horrible. If this game were a person, I would honestly have to classify it as bipolar. I’m in love with your concept, but I detest the way you work. Quite a paradox you are. Anyway, I’ll get to the point before I drive you all insane (if I hadn’t already). As you can probably tell, this is going to be the longest review I’ve done so far. Grab something to eat and drink and come back in a bit. This article ain’t going anywhere.

Alteil is a web based Trading Card Game (though it wrongfully has the “trading” in it, more appropriately “collectable” should be what it falls under) built in Flash. Its story driven, but I can’t be bothered to go into the plot since they can’t be bothered to get the stories from the Japanese version translated soon enough so I can read it (they cards are heavy in flavor text, but you need to be a crazy collector to reveal what plot points there are)…also, I don’t really like going into fluff…unlike how I seem to be padding now. BACK ON TRACK! I’ll start breaking this down.

Gameplay: Unlike other card games, this one doesn’t have a deck per se. you use a File in Alteil terms and one file is made up of 30 cards. 25 are the ones that go in the main file, while the other 5 are your Life Points (which will be known as LP henceforth). The LP value can be no lower than 6 and become no greater than 16. The object is to get your Rival Iczer (the term for opponent in Alteil speak) down to 0 HP first. As you drive down your opponent’s LP downward, you will more than likely trigger Soul Skills (referred henceforth as SS) which vary in effect.

Now since the opponent is trying to get you down to a 0 LP, the first reaction might be to stock your SS lineup with a bunch of 3 LP cards. Truth be told, 3 LP cards tend to do anything from minimal effects to doing terrible things to you (or overpriced skills not really worth the trigger). On the flip side, the good effects more than likely land on the 1 LP value or two LP value.

The cards that will be dealing most of this LP damage will be Units. You can controls up to nine of them at ones, placing them in a 3 by 3 area and have stats. Hit Points (HP), Attack (AT), Defense (DF), Agility (AGI) and Range (RNG). HP is your Unit’s health. If this hits 0 or less, they’re dead.  AT is the damage the Unit deals to other Units. DF determines how much less damage a Unit takes when being attacked and can be increased to the point where units deal nothing to it. Agility determines who takes their action first (in case of a tie its random) and finally, RNG dictates how far back your Unit can reach other Units and how far back they can attack with allied Units in front of them.

There is another Unit type called Characters. If you played Magic the Gathering, think of Characters like the Legend rule. For those not in the know, the Legend rule dictates that only one of that particular card can be out at a time. So you can’t control two of the same Character at once and you and your Rival cannot control one each. Grimories (Grims henceforth) are the cards which do various things. Okay, I spent more time on that than I thought, then again, if you didn’t want a lengthy read you wouldn’t still be here (assuming you didn’t just close the window, scroll all the way to the bottom or hit the back button by now…then again, I did warn ahead of time).

All cards range from level 1 through 9. All Iczers start with five Spirit Points (SP henceforth) and they go towards increasing one of the four Spheres or to play cards. These are Gowen (Red), Falkow (Blue), Refess (Yellow) and Lawtia (Purple). Gowen is about raw power and explosiveness. They also possess effect damage cards and are famed for their low in cost, but hard and fast hitting Units. Falkow is the thinking man’s Sphere. They work on the premise of manipulation, forcing enemy Units not to react (and punishing them for it) and of course bouncing stuff back to your Rivals file. Refess is the Sphere of tanking, healing and are known for being slow, yet deadly if they can establish a steady field that works together and Lawtia is the master of death, and able to do what all the other Spheres can do, but at greater cost. They’re quite tricky and have the most flexibility of all the others, but not without a learning curb (though not nearly as bad as Falkow).

When you place SP into a Sphere, you can’t get it back once you have played a card or skipped a turn with any SP in Spheres. Speaking of plays, no one has a “turn” per se. Both players play cards (set) and activate them at the same time. Grims get priority over Units (assuming the Unit has an Open Skill). Alright, now that I got the basics out of the way, onto the main event.

The Good: The game is strategy based and since you aren’t using a deck in the traditional sense, you can’t draw into a bad hand. Only real luck in this game is Soul Skill timing, hoping to win the AGI roll so your unit acts before the Rival Iczers does.

The game also has its own little way of trying to discourage same tactics in matches. If you and your Rival play the same card it creates a Backlash. If you get into a Backlash, both of you have to send the card to the Cemetery. Still, this won’t stop people from playing the exact same file but it does try to enforce a diverse Metagame and causes you to play your cards carefully.

As an added bonus, an average game can be anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes at most.

The Bad: The game is too reliant on its opening. When it comes to starting plays for the first few turns, only Lawtia seems to have the most diverse and makes the opponent unsure of what exactly they’re up against (as opposed to the other three where you can hazard a guess before the file really gets going). If your opening is bad, or if you’re disrupted within the first few turn, it can easily be game over (Falkow is excellent at this via sending your Unit back to your file).

The Ugly: This is where I place all my emotion that I was attempting to hold back through the first part of the review to prevent going into bipolar territory.

First off is the upkeep of the game. As of now, you convert Pot Cash (Pot Games currency) into Gran. Gran can be earned by either doing this Mini Game called Mirage Master once a day or just by playing once at least once a week. Now, before I go further into that, you need to know how much Gran is in dollars. One Gran is akin to one cent, so that means 100 Gran is a dollar. Packs on average cost 150 Gran ($1.50). Those packs contain on average 5 cards…that’s right, nearly $2 for five cards. That adds up REALLY QUICK when you know that in order for certain cards deemed good to be ran (and honestly, this game has balancing issues up the Yin Yang that would make League of Legends players GREATFUL their game isn’t as bad as this could be, and they are LOUD about balancing), you need THREE COPIES OF A SINGLE UNIT. Grims, you can get away with two or even just 1, but do that with most Units and you get nowhere. No character is under 3 Stars…higher stars means less chance of getting a card. Now I dare you to complete a playset of 5-Star Units without spending no less than say…$200.

Normal set boxes cost roughly $21. Those yield 75 cards. Sounds good, right…WRONG! Even in the Gold and Silver boxes you have zero protection from getting more than 3 copies of cards a pull (the only plus about Gold/Silver boxes is that you’re guaranteed at least one 5-Star card). Sure, you say you’ll just trade them off for things you need from other players. Remember when I said the “trading” part in the game was undeserving? I say this because YOU CAN’T TRADE CARDS WITH PLAYERS! The only way you can “trade” in the cards for new ones is Recycling them. The rate of recycling is scaled horribly against you (yes, they need to make money, but this is too much when you consider other factors) .

1-Star = 5 Gran

2-Star = 10 Gran

3-Star = 30 Gran

4-Star = 150 Gran

5-Star = 300 Gran

EX = Either 30 or 300 Gran

But don’t worry they got a way to circumvent this. Point Cards. You get these with Fight Money (FM henceforth) which is only obtained by fighting. It costs 2500 FM. If you win, you get 60 FM and if you lose, you get 20 FM. Assuming you have one hell of a hot streak it would take you about 42 wins to get one Point Card. If you happen to be a punching bag it would take 125 losses to get that much. Wonder how many Point cards it takes to get ONE card? It varies.

1-Star = 10 Point Cards

2-Star = 20 Point Cards

3-Star = 30 Point Cards

4-Star = 50 Point Cards

5-Star = 60 Point Cards

EX = Cannot be obtained with Point Cards

Now isn’t that some bullshit? I’m not even going to bother to crunch the numbers on how many games you would need to play to get 180 Point Cards. They have events you can partake in now and then to get at least 5 point cards, but good luck having the tolerance for it.

Through Levels 1 through 14 you get to choose a card from the four Spheres to add to your collection. They’re quite pathetic on average. Once you reach level 20 you will only get a gift card every 10 Levels. The higher you get, the more rare the cards you can pick from (remember, Rare doesn’t necessarily equal good). Once you get to Level 100, your choices are all 5-Star cards. Sounds good in theory, but it also locks you out of the possibility of getting those missing (and essential for some files) 3 and 4 Star cards. Also, leveling is slow as HELL in this game. Level means nothing in terms of collection, but just an indicator of how long someone has been playing. RP determines on average how much a person has won/lost.

Another thing that got me, when I was searching for reviews, a lot of them are dated. A good deal of the ones I found were GLOWING with praise. I’m convinced to this day that those who did praise it were either super rich, were employees, bribed or so blinded by their love of all things Anime that they couldn’t see the rotting core!

What further leads me to believe that is the balancing issues. Faeries use to be quite viable, now they’re not so much. Faeries were fairly cheap (in Alteil terms anyway) to put together and make a winning file with. I barely use them now. I’m convinced that they were picked on because they were popular (the Faerie faction pack got in stock, and let all sorts of people get and play them) and affordable. The testing team claims they said this was for the best of the game. Honestly, I think they just throw their feces at random cards to buff and nerf and how much. It would explain why Return is still a nuance.

Lastly, the Replay slots. They give you 5 of them so you can save your battles and show them off. Great for getting file help and tactical advice. Really, you get 10, but since Alteil is like “let’s make them bleed out their bank accounts more and have them pay to access ALL the replay slots even though the cards cost an arm and a leg! HERP, DERP!” its really only 5. Thanks, you bastards.

 Judgment: As of now, I’m just playing sparingly. I had much love for this game during the beginning, but I can’t say I love it now. Then again, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself at any point (that would be a lie). Before I decide to flee fully I await the Alteil 2 format to come to the States. I expect some major changes such as much lower prices on everything, more cards from a single pack (without the cost hitting the roof), Tanking being an actual tactic and requiring either a lot LESS Point Cards to get a single card.

Only time will tell if I will stick around. I feel my faith in this game has been unrewarded. It has a long way to go to become viable, but honestly, I cannot recommend this game for anyone to play as is. I’ll keep my eye on the game now and again…waiting…watching for Alteil 2 before I give my final judgment.

I apologize for the Ugly side being so long just feels so good to let it all out in the open in a place where I can’t be banned for it (not sure how trigger happy the testers are to criticism, but at least they can’t have me banned for telling them off offsite. The 5/27/11 Nerf/Buff rounds made me believe retarded monkeys test these things out.

Parting Wisdom: If you wish to try this game out, and quite possibly become a lifer, please take my advice. It’s too dangerous to go into that game without it (for your wallet and sanity).

-          Avoid picking Refess (the Yellow Sphere) as your starting file. It sucks as of posting this review. It might be fine at first, but once you get to the common area (and unless you’re willing to spend) you will struggle tremendously.

-          Only buy boxes (Gold or Silver) and packs (Faction and Gold ) during sales.

-          The Card Lotto is only your buddy during the beginning of your Alteil life and only when your collection is small. Even then, wait for Rarity Up and Hyper Rarity Up before you go really crazy on it. If you plan on buying boxes from different sets you REALLY need to stay away till Rarity up.

-          The EX Lotto is a LIE! It might offer you cards that were once only available through older EX packs, but unless you’re loaded you’re a fool to pursue this venture. This is for high rollers and morons only (since we’re talking 100 Gran a pull Take 99 Spins on that and not get what you want, you’ll hate yourself).

-          Take it slow in Folrat (the starting area). Pick mostly private battles so you level up slowly, so you can start to get a feel for the game. Once you reach Level 15, you’ll be tossed to the wolves. The Gowen deck will have the easiest time fighting in there with the least amount of modifications.

-          The Return mechanic is busted in this game. If you see Falkow (Blue Sphere) know that your Level 1 through 3 units are highly susceptible to these files. They could make you weep tears.

-          If you get angry at the game, do not try to recycle cards in hopes of getting something that might help (known as Ragecycling by some) .Luck is a harsh, cruel mistress. Her loyalty is only to the Alteil staff and she has no reservations proving this to you, especially if you think you can beat her.

-          Do not fall in love with any 5-Star cards. The odds of pulling them are not only low, but most require to be played in 3’s to be any good. You could spend $100 in packs/boxes and still come up short.

-          Do not invest in the Potions in shop. They’re not worth it at all. Your Gran is better spent on cards.

Well, I prattled along with this longer than I thought. If only I had the money to review something more…fun for me. Alteil has its moments, but I await the shift to Alteil 2 in the States. If nothing improves, then I wash my hands of the game. Still if you enjoy it that’s fine, but I stick to my convictions on this matter till something changes for the better in my eyes. Perception…isn’t is a hoot? Don’t take my word for it, try it for a bit, then tell me if you agree or disagree and why.

There are things I left out, but I try to keep my reviews short. Exact rules and such can be found on site. To its credit, the community is small, but friendly.

First Look: Rusty Hearts

Nexon is still giving me grief, so it’s time to bust out a new segment. Here with First Look, I’ll be reviewing games which I get closed beta access to. Here’s hoping this will be the first of many for me. Now, down to business.

Unless you missed the title, the game is called Rusty Hearts. Rusty Hearts is a story driven beat-em-up in cel shaded 3D with RPG elements. At this moment you are limited to 3 pre made characters (think of it as one of those old school Arcade games). Each one of them has their own stats, attack styles and powers.

I won’t go into the story here (since I have not revealed that much of it in game) but long story short you’re a part of this team trying to hunt down a Vampire named  Count Vlad that the lead wants to kill for personal reasons.

Since this is the early stages, I’ll just stick to the raw info and cut out the fluff. The game is in 3D, so this could be problematic for underpowered machines. There was earlier yesterday an IP ban on certain regions and half of Europe was affected (and much rage, bellowed forth on the forum about it). The game plays by default by keyboard. You use the arrow keys to move, Z to block, X to attack and C to grab and throw foes (except bosses). A, S, D, F, G and H are hotkeys for skills while numbers 1 through 0 are item hotkeys. Q, W and E are camera controls and the Spacebar is the jump key. This key configuration is rather hotly despised on the official forums for the game (they can be reconfigured and you can do what I’m doing and use a joypad), but not NEARLY as much as the stamina system which limits how many dungeons you could do in one go (there’s a petition going around to get it removed as we speak).

More about the controls. As of now, the combo’s don’t feel too fluent. Some lag is noticeable at points when you’re attacking. Then again, this is a Beta, so issues are to be expected this early in localization. Still, it hasn’t deterred me any, I just try to adjust for the expected lag between buttons.

The stamina system reared its head by the time I thought about doing a small video with a Dungeon run, so instead, I leave you with some PvP action (I didn’t fare too well here). Sadly, I’m still a newbie  with Hypercam (HEEEEELP!!!) so the sound from the video didn’t carry, so I inserted some music of my own.

I’ll update with more stuff when possible (and a dungeon run when my stamina builds back up.

OH! They still have some Beta keys. Why not try getting some before the "closed" part lives upto its name?

First Impression: Heroes of Newerth

I figured while I’m trying to figure out how to wrap my head around how to attack the Mabinogi article I’d make this blog a little less dead by filling it with more…STUFF!

So here’s a segment where I just make posts quickly. Any game I try on a mere impulse will be documented here. With that out of the way, let’s get started. Heroes of Newerth is one of those games in the genre of Defense of The Ancients (known as Dota for short). Now, before I heard the term mentioned I had no clue what this kind of game was. What it involves in a nutshell is you and your team rushing towards the other side of the map and destroying your critical structure before they do the same to you. I’m a CASUAL gamer, so I don’t really know about this genres history (and I plan to go into further depth once I decide I’m ready to cover League of Legends).

I saw this game a few days ago on the League of Legends forum and thought about trying it. Then I saw the fact you needed to pay $30 just to make an account on the game and I said “FORGET IT!” despite how interesting it looked. Then I saw it tonight for $10 (probably a bid to get new people) to make said account. I still didn’t want to try it. Then my silent partner offers me $10 to try it and I told them I might as well.

Now before I go further I should mention that what little experience I do have in the genre is in League of Legends. Some out their might not consider it a “true” representation of the Dota genre. If you feel that way that’s fine, I’m working with what I know.

My associate, Aron told me that he/she/it has tried that game, and warned me that the learning curb was far more vicious than what League of Legends had to go through. With League of Legends I had an in game tutorial to play around in, at least a couple of Champions to play with to try to learn the game. They people seemed fairly nice and somewhat understanding of the newer players (also it’s FREE).

Heroes, however…not too pleasant to say the very leas- Okay, no bullshit, it was TERRIBLE! First off I let my group know right away that I was a new person (the game even ANNOUNCES IT) I didn’t get any slack from my team. The map they use to show who’s where isn’t the most stylish. In League of Legends you could see who exactly was where as long as Fog of War wasn’t hiding them. In Heroes of Newerth  you get no such thing. You don’t know exactly who your enemy might be, so you could be running into a fight you got a nice shot at OR (like me) you end up running to assist in a fight you have no hope of winning.

My second complaint? A kick feature that could be easily abused. Sure, you could get rid of dead weight but if you’re like me, you’ll get people left and right trying to kick you from the game just because the learning curb is steep and you’re TRYING YOUR HARDEST NOT TO DIE BUT GET KILLED ANYWAY BECAUSE SOME CLOWN JUMPPED YOU FROM THE BRUSH! No, they don’t understand that, they just see you as a fucking bother! Telling you to STAY AT THE WELL! I got similar treatment in LoL, but there was a drastic difference. The first match I played in LoL, they at least waited about 20 minutes before they told me to stop fighting. Want to know how long it was in HoN before they told me…? FIVE FUCKING MINUTES!!! This is why I usually try to shy away from ANYTHING with a steep learning curb because these types of games tend to breed elitist fuckwads who seem to have forgotten that they were once scrubs/feeders/noob themselves!

The last nail in the coffin was a lack of an in game tutorial. A little something I could play around in before I get tossed to the lions would be nice, so I’m not dying so quickly. Everything happens so fast it not even funny. Sorry, there is an in game tutorial, but it’s busted and you need to close the client to get unstuck

Difficult to learn, hostile environment created by ass players and, oh yeah, having to pay for an account are major turn offs here. I hate games with a difficult learning curb. Who wants to go through all that abuse just to learn the basics? I should not have to read a textbook to get a handle on the basic workings of a game. When you got to do that much work it becomes a JOB! I also hate games where you are required to make a purchase before you can even try. Again, if not for my silent partner AND the sale I would have never paid it any mind. I also hate asshole “pros” who like to treat the new guy like crap since they aren’t automatically able to be ruthless killing machines off the bat (I can see why the Korean MMO model seems to be catching with some kinds. I mean who WOULDN’T want to consistently Player Kill some asshole who’s been making your E-life Hell?). Mix all three together and you got a recipe for disaster. Friends could make or break the game if you got people willing to work with you, but since you need to pay to go in, odds are I won’t be suckering persuading others in joining me in getting murdered online so we could learn together.

By the time this is posted I will have uninstalled the game. If you really enjoy games that merge RPG and RTS elements, then by all means, TRY League of Legends first if you have little to no experience in this field and if you enjoy it, go play Heroes of Newerth. I’m just saying that I will never play that game again. First impression is everything in games. It had its chance, and got my silent partners cash. So why do they need me around anymore anyway?