November 5, 2015

LoL Preseason Breakdown, Everything you need to know

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

League of Legends preseason is coming up, and that means everything is about to change. We have a lot of official information from their site and unofficial information from the PBE.

Most champions with Mana as a resource are getting new mana pool sizes and scaling to adjust for mana pots being removed, and several less viable champions are getting reworks. This article will be focusing on the item changes.

The first thing to note is an item overhaul for what they’ve dubbed “marksman items.”

This is a misleading name as these same items are also used for many auto-attacking/AD scaling champs.

The reason it’s about “marksmen” is this is Riot’s personal name for what most people call the AD Carry. These item changes will affect every single physical damage based champ in an overall, probably positive way.

Riot has realize that ADCs have one or two correct item builds per Champ, and most of the champs all share the same item build. Infinity Edge is almost always first item, because almost all ADCs build Critical %. This is not changing, IE is still the prime crit item, but they’ve buffed MANY other items to make them viable starting choices

Some recipes have been changed, some items have been removed, but I’ll start by focusing on the item changes for top tier, complete items, the ones you’ll be getting end game.

Masteries have been overhauled, there is a free example mastery editor out here: http://efferentinc.com/wp-content/lol6calc/index.html#

league of legends LoL Patch Notes Preseason Season 6

News PC

We Know The Devil

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Broken Joysticks

We Know the Devil?

Well, let’s start off with some warnings. This game hurts. It might not for you, but it hurt for me. You’ll probably look at one of the characters and before they even talk about themselves, think something about them. It’s very short, and plays in your browser. It’s a VN, more than anything else. I finished all three endings in a day, and it tore me apart.

This game is gonna make you feel things, if you let any of those characters be something you look at, and think “that’s me.” There are three “main characters” and your choices dictate the ending. As such, I had to play it through multiple times to be satisfied. On to agency, the game has a notably small amount of player agency; the only choices you make are which two characters are going to interact at each point in the game. You learn a lot about the characters that you choose to make interact, and it can be very heartwarming. It has queer characters.

I’m trying very hard to be vague, to avoid spoilers, because there’s a lot to be spoiled. This game hits hard, and then leaves you be to decide if you want another round. It has multiple endings, is fairly short, and immensely satisfying to finish. I’m at a loss as to what else can really be said about this game. It’s amazing. It’s got an engaging story, lovable characters, which are simultaneously hate-able. They’re real. They feel human. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators sat down and wrote characters based on each other, because they feel so incredibly real.

Not going to play? Time to spoil it for you.Read More

Queer Story The Devil VN We Know The Devil WKTD

Recognizing Trouble in VR

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Renee Gittins

I recently wrote an article on my favorite virtual reality games. I think that ensuring people experience the best virtual reality games is extremely important to the health of the medium– a bad VR game is all it takes to make someone lose interest in VR and maybe lose their lunch, too.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to identify the component of a VR experience that sends you in a rush to the nearest trash bin. I wanted to share my knowledge of core issues for both gamers and developers to keep an eye out for when playing and working in VR.

Frame Rate

Bad frame rate on computer games is noticed quite easily when it drops below 45fps. However, due to lagging frames when you turn your head, a framerate of 90fps is recommended for VR. While you can’t really tell the increased framerate when you are still and watching objects, it becomes apparent when you turn your head to look around a scene in VR. Unfortunately, with 60fps having been the standard for so long, rendering not one, but two screens at 90fps is quite the challenge for developers. This is why you’ll find that most VR games trend towards simple graphics.

User Interface

User interfaces (UI) have to be completely rethought to work well in virtual reality. While the standard for most games are active UI elements around the edge of the screen and locked position menus, neither of these work well in VR. Your peripheral vision is very sensitive to change, but is unable to focus on elements. Thus, a health bar to the side of the game would be distracting when it changed and impossible to see in detail. Locked menus in the center of the screen suddenly feel far too much like someone enthusiastically shoving a paper in your face. Certainly, you can read it, but it would be much more pleasant if they handed it to you and let you hold it at the distance that’s best for you.

The best solutions I have seen in VR for UI are systems that use the world space to host the interfaces. A particular favorite of mine are the menus and displays in Elite Dangerous. The displays are prominent on and in front of the cockpit’s windshield, far enough from your face to not be obstructive, but close enough to see clearly. The menu system is what blew me away, though. You simply turned to look to either side of the main console and a holographic menu would pop up in your spaceship in that location and become interactable with the controls. It really felt like I was using the control systems of a future space craft.

Another cool example of an ingenious virtual reality UI system is in Bazaar, where the sky acts as your inventory and your items save as constellations. The sky above you is so often unused in games, so it is great to see that space being put to use in VR and, especially, in such a creative way.

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