new to the community
 

Hi, I'm new to LoL and just wanted to introduce myself to the community. I found this game in a tucked away corner of gamespot, downloaded the demo, and played the crap out of it. Now I just have to wait until my full copy gets delivered.

I really hope this game does well, because the design seems truly worthwhile and you gotta support the indie games. See you all online.

Re: new to the community
 

Yeap, just waiting for my full copy too. Hope we can get a few games in.

Re: new to the community
 

Yeah, I'm really wondering what the online play is going to be like, and looking forward to the figuring out all the differences in the races. I wonder how easy it is to find an online game, or if you have to schedule them in the forums before hand.

Re: new to the community
 

Apparently the game has a built in lobby for online play - so I'd imagine it won't be too hard to find opponents.

Re: new to the community
 

Yeah, we spent a lot of time on the online lobby, trying to make it as easy for our customers (and us!) to find and start games against online opponents.

The one thing I'm worried about is critical mass -- i.e. if we can't get to a point where at least a couple of people are hanging out in the lobby at pretty much all times, then people will log on, see nobody else is logged in, and then log off.

Especially right now when the game is relatively new, you might have to camp out in the lobby a little while to find an opponent, but if you play in windowed mode and alt-tab, you can be doing other things while waiting...

Hopefully we'll eventually get enough people that own the game and like playing online that finding opponents will be much easier.

-Hiro_Antagonist

Re: new to the community
 

I'm in the lobby, but it's empty. Where are the people?

In the future, it would be better if people were ranked based on whether they win or lose they way it's done if you're playing Yahoo Chess for example. This would make every game important and also ensure that you play against people of your own skill level.

Of course, right now, I'd settle for there being just one person.

Re: new to the community
 

Well, it only shipped recently. My copy was on order before release, and it hasn't arrived yet, so maybe give it a couple of days. I'll definitely be on there, although I'll familiarise myself with all the races first.

Also, Shrapnel isn't known for its huge marketing campaigns, so word of mouth and a few player reviews couldn't hurt.

Re: new to the community
 

I plan on trying MultiPlayer after I get a little more experience with the game. I'm currently playing the campaign, where I'm up to the Gnomes.

Re: new to the community
 

I would encourage people to not worry about not having experience and just dive into the internet play. The person you wind up playing against won't have much experience either.

It seems to me that the real point of this game is being able to play against human beings. That's the reason why the map is so small, so you can finish a game against a human in an hour.

Re: new to the community
 

We had originally planned on doing a USCF-style rating/ranking system, but eventually realized that system has a number of shortcuts, especially where customers only have access to 1 purchased account.

In a rating/ranking system, half of the players will suddenly be at a ratings disadvantage (below the starting point) after one game. On average, half of the players will remain below that starting point. This is a major morale hit to many players, and many players will simply stop playing if they feel their rating is hosed.

It's not as big of a deal on Yahoo Chess, beacuse any player can recreate an account once they feel their skills have improved and want to start over.

So we have decided to follow the trend of other major/popular strategy games and use an experience system. People who usually win will advance much more quickly, but even a player who has trouble winning will feel a sense of advancement rather than punishment.

I understand that many players like rating/ranking systems, and we're among them. In fact, a few years ago we built a USCF-style rating/ranking web application for counter-strike clans.

But when it came down to it, we felt our customers would be best served, and want to play more games, with this system. And that's in everyone's best interest. =)

-Hiro_Antagonist