Groups A and B finished playing over the weekend. From an NA perspective it was a pretty soft weekend. Group A didn't have any NA teams, so we only had TSM playing in Group B. TSM did well, about as well as I expected. They came in second in the group, overcoming a soft SK (missing suspended jungler Svenskeren for 3 games) and a soft TPA. They had a chance on the last day to tie SHR and force a tiebreaker for the top spot, but they totally choked against SK.

You definitely got to see the best and worst of TSM this weekend. When Dyrus is playing well the team is really really strong and can compete with B tier international teams. When Dyrus is weak/shutdown early they just don't have enough playmaking from support/jungle/adc to compete at even a B level. We'll see if they can manage one A tier game against SSW in the next round. I hope they have a good showing. Even taking a game off of SSW would be a major accomplishment.

Super excited for LoL to be back. Watching EU has been fun. Alliance off to such a bad start, new champs being picked (Warwick, Trundle, Galio). Missed all of this action.

I just started playing Card Hunter today.  It's charming, a total flashback.  Enjoying it so far, 20 minutes in and I've got two characters and I've bought some loot and killed some golbins and kobolds.  Not sure where it's all going yet, hoping for some multiplayer aspects at some point.

The recent announcement of an entirely Korean LoL team moving to NA to compete in the NA region poses some interesting challenges for LoL and the NA LoL community.  It has been generally regarded as a flaw or problem in the SC2 WCS system that residency or citizenship was not required for region participation.  Namely, a competitor can be South Korean and compete in the European or North American division.  The result was that the winner of each region was Korean, and the local talent was marginalized by foreigners.

The "problem" here was one of marketing and interest, namely that viewers are less interested in following players who don't look like them, speak their language or "represent" them in other superficial ways.  Viewership and interest levels certainly support the claim that SC2 is slowly dieing.  Whether this is caused by the influx of Koreans to local competitions is unclear, but the Reddit community certainly thinks so.

What does this mean for LoL?  In the short run, probably nothing.  There are 5 teams confirmed for S4 already, all traditional NA teams.  The remaining 3 spots will be determined early next year, but the bulk of the challengers have already been determined.  At most, there could be one Korean team in next year's Sprint split.  That's 9 months of "true" or "pure" NA competition.

The summer split, almost a year from now, could potentially see 4 Korean teams.  For that to happen, the new Korean team would need to qualify outright, and the 3 new challenger teams would have to be all Korean as well.    Even in that case, the NA region will have 1/2 "pure" NA teams and 1/2 Korean teams.

It would be a full 16 months from now, going into S5, that any real domination of NA from Korean teams could be possible.  And in eSports, a year is a really long time.  In between now and then, Riot will have plenty of time to study what the impact of the foreigner influx, and change the rules if they don't like what they see.

Worry not, NA, TSM isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Getting addicted.  I've started watching a ton of Trump's stream and I'm just more and more engaged.  It's a good thing I don't have a beta key, because otherwise I don't think I'd get a lot of work done.

Watching LCS today - and TSM just advanced over CLG.  Great games for TSM fans, rough games for CLG fans.  I thought CLG picked really well in Game 1 but couldn't capitalize.

Neither game played out like I expected, with TSM not being aggressive early and CLG showing no changes from the bootcamp and the potential infusion of Korean meta from MonteCristo.  This seemed like classic CLG, which just doesn't work anymore.  I thought Nien played really well and it still wasn't enough.

GG TSM

Mark of the Ninja satisfies my core desire to feel smarter than other people. With reasonably precise controls (on PC) and a quick restart at checkpoint feature, I feel like I am the ultimate ninja. I quietly sneak from spot to spot, never killing, accomplishing side-goals, and always moving forward with high scores and completed achievements.

I find the story forgettable, but it's good enough to justify the advanced challenges. The unlockables and powerups provide nice variety and allow several solutions to challenging rooms. Overall, it's a lot of fun for a patient and cerebral gamer.

I realize I got to the game very late, it's been out for a long time. But it's still available on steam and still reasonably priced. There were even big sales recently, so if you missed it you can keep an eye out for it.

Well, I live in San Francisco and am currently unemployed, so I thought I might as well check out the World Cyber Games (WCG) while it was in town. I wasn't really sure what to expect, having never seen anything WCG-related before, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It was very professionally presented, with large screens to broadcast current games and headsets which could be adjusted to get audio commentary on the televised matches.

The WCG really is a very good event for the video game world. Unlike E3, the WCG celebrates gamers, by highlighting their abilities and similarities and giving anyone interested the chance to try their skills. Adults may find video games a waste of time, but when one has the chance to earn real money playing them, they suddenly look more legitimate. Video games suffer from a lack of credibility, but by focusing on the reality of gamers, not games, we can affect the perception of games. The WCG is bringing gamers together from around the world, something significant in an increasingly politically tense time. Gamers focus on their similarities, putting cultural and language barriers behind to bond through a mutual interest. Winning is important at the WCG, but it isn't everything; building a community is the goal.

There were some negatives. The press presence was very light. This isn't overly surprising, but it is disappointing. The game commentators seemed to miss the point, describing a FIFA match like it was a real soccer game, not a contest between two gamers. Brazil wasn't winning, the Chinese player controlling Brazil was winning. The Exhibition areas were small and felt more like a big commercial than an expo of skill. You could sign up to play Fatal1ty, but who wants to wait 20+ minutes to get wasted by the "world's best player". There were musical acts and extreme sports demos outside, but they felt out of touch with the indoor contests.

All in all, I enjoyed my time, but was ready to move on. After watching several matches, listening to the latest speakers and sound devices, and trying out World of Warcraft, I can say that the WCG is an excellent event for the video game world. With more publicity and interest, this event could help convince sceptics that there were positives along with the negatives.