League Of Legends

I really need to try Shaco again. Maybe I'll get drunk enough tonight to play, but I was never that good with Shaco. I end up just feeding or being ineffective.

I got stuck playing 5 man normals last night with some friends. While it's fun, the competition we played against was pretty lack luster. As someone with 3 Riven games under his belt and completely forgets to attempt to animation cancel on my Q combo, I should not be able to 4-0 a Nasus top in 9 minutes.

Why not? Nasus goes up to Q something and you roll your face over your keyboard. If he doesn't use all his abilities to fight you than his trades are terrible. If you uses his buttons to fight you than he soon runs out of mana.

Repeat until Diamond.

Wizardhawk_sl said:

So are you implying the MLB, NHL or NFL wouldn't have an issue with their stars playing all 3 sports simultaneously?

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It's happened before, Deion Sanders & Bo Jackson were in the MLB & NFL iirc.

Arbitrary_sl said:

Why not? Nasus goes up to Q something and you roll your face over your keyboard. If he doesn't use all his abilities to fight you than his trades are terrible. If you uses his buttons to fight you than he soon runs out of mana.

Repeat until Diamond.

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Because normally I would expect him to fight under the tower after I killed him twice, but he kept feeding. It was pretty boring but fun for a short while.

and then the game goes on another 20 minutes, you're still crushing top but it doesn't matter at that point because Nasus has Iceborn Gauntlet, Randuins & SV and can just press R, Wither your ADC and probably penta at that point.

Ahhh Nasus, I love that guy.

Well that game, our mid laner fed talon and by 35m in he had like 8 bloodthirsters.

bixxby_sl said:

It's happened before, Deion Sanders & Bo Jackson were in the MLB & NFL iirc.

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Pretty sure Bo Jackson turned down his initial opportunity in the NFL to play MLB because the team who drafted him fucked him, but he did not play both sports professionally at the same time. Not sure on Deion Sanders. Just like Michael Jordan played NBA and MLB but he didn't do them at the same time.

Both Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders were playing their two sports at the same time.

It's a pretty bad analogy in my opinion because it's not the same thing at all. I think the better comparison would have to be in the realm of broadcasting rights and marketing contracts.

Comparing this to actual professional sports in this day and age is a little silly. If anything you should compare it to Baseball in the early 1900's or Football in the 1940's when both of those sports were still trying to gain a foothold and were in their professional infancy. Lots of growing pains to be had still in the realm of e-sports.

The "athletes" will get more and more rights as they wisen up to collective bargaining. It's also an entirely different beast because as games Football, Baseball, Soccer, Hockey and Basketball haven't changed much in the last 100 years. There are small rules changes but fundamentally the game is played the same way. The games are driven by human interaction and technology plays very little role. There isn't a single video game that will ever be made that will be played competitively and have a mainstream following like those sports and stay relevant for even a fraction of the time they do. New games will always be released. That's because technology drives the platform and technology will never stop advancing. The players are slaves to the technology rather than being the driving force to stardom themselves. You could argue that sequels could keep the mainstream crowd over a longer period but we've all seen what happens in the world of video game sequels.

Players won't unionize until there is enough money to be able to support paying dues and hiring lawyers. Until then, it's Riot's game because the majority of the money is coming from them (tournament prizes and infrastructure).

Once again, the barrier for entry is so low that the players wield fairly little power. The only thing you have to do to establish yourself as a dominant player is to actually be a dominant player. The only thing you do to be a successful broadcaster is establish yourself as a dominant player. There is a lot of transparency.

Nobody said it will happen overnight. But it will eventually happen. And it may not be as formal as a player's union. The Sponsors might actually throw their hat into the mix to protect their "athletes" as well.

The Ancient_sl said:

Once again, the barrier for entry is so low that the players wield fairly little power. The only thing you have to do to establish yourself as a dominant player is to actually be a dominant player. The only thing you do to be a successful broadcaster is establish yourself as a dominant player. There is a lot of transparency.

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How do you figure the barrier to entry is low? How many people play LoL? How many are at the professional tier of skill? As more and more people start to play the professional seen will only get harder to break into but it certainly isn't "low" right now. Unless you honestly believe that anyone can make it to challenger tier if they just "play enough". And challenger tier isn't even good enough. It's the minors.

The barrier for entry for someone who has the talent to be a professional is low, compared to conventional atheletes who have to partake in some sort of farm system. If you are a pro caliber player it's very easy to make yourself noticeable.

Khane_sl said:

Nobody said it will happen overnight. But it will eventually happen. And it may not be as formal as a player's union. The Sponsors might actually throw their hat into the mix to protect their "athletes" as well.

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Unless you're inventing some future problem, why would Corsair or whatever company care if Riot told a streamer they couldn't play a certain list of games? Sponsors will go where the traffic is. They don't give a shit.

The Ancient_sl said:

The barrier for entry for someone who has the talent to be a professional is low, compared to conventional atheletes who have to partake in some sort of farm system. If you are a pro caliber player it's very easy to make yourself noticeable.

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This is a good point. If I want to be a pro NFL player, I have to be physically gifted, go through high school, college (3 years) and then be drafted. That's pretty difficult. Conversely, if I want to be a pro League player, I just have to download the game and start playing it and be good at it. I don't have to hire trainers, get accepted into a good college, go through interview processes, get a good agent etc. It's a 10+ year process that starts early. A 22 year old kid can't just decide to walk up to the NY Jets practice field and say "Hey I want to play Quarterback!" Especially never having played the game before.

Draegan_sl said:

Unless you're inventing some future problem, why would Corsair or whatever company care if Riot told a streamer they couldn't play a certain list of games? Sponsors will go where the traffic is. They don't give a shit.

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I was talking more about team sponsors (because they are akin to team owners right now, think Azubu for instance) I'm not saying it would definitely happen, but it's not something that is outside the realm of possibility.

The Ancient_sl said:

The barrier for entry for someone who has the talent to be a professional is low, compared to conventional atheletes who have to partake in some sort of farm system. If you are a pro caliber player it's very easy to make yourself noticeable.

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The barrier to entry is lower yes but that's because way, way more people play professional sports in a competitive capacity than e-sports. But Football doesn't have a farm system. Basketball doesn't either. Baseball has a ridiculous farm system and hockey is a different animal all together but they all find the talent the same way. Scouting amateurs with raw talent before they ever get to the professional scene. The barrier to entry might be lower but it isn't "low". Pretending it is low is like saying anyone can do it with enough time, and that just isn't true.

Draegan_sl said:

This is a good point. If I want to be a pro NFL player, I have to be physically gifted, go through high school, college (3 years) and then be drafted. That's pretty difficult. Conversely, if I want to be a pro League player, I just have to download the game and start playing it and be good at it. I don't have to hire trainers, get accepted into a good college, go through interview processes, get a good agent etc. It's a 10+ year process that starts early. A 22 year old kid can't just decide to walk up to the NY Jets practice field and say "Hey I want to play Quarterback!" Especially never having played the game before.

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You have to be gifted to be a professional video game player and last. Look at how often these rosters change. A 22 year old can't just waltz into an AMA with TSM and say "Dudes I'm gonna be your new mid". What the hell are you guys even talking about? You get to college through raw talent and having that talent get noticed, it isn't any different than having your raw talent noticed by pro gamers as an amateur in Diamond. You're going to have to try out and perform. You might be able to get there sooner because you don't need to physically develop but stop acting like people can just download a game, play it for 3 weeks and turn pro. It doesn't happen that way unless the game is brand new and thus the pro scene is non existent.