Okay disclaimer time:

If you want deep comparisons, you'll not find them here.

If you want anything but my own personal opinions, you'll not find it here.

If you want to be a dick..that's up to you, but it would be pointless.

Week 2 can be found here - link

That said- on with the show.

So some background:

Yesterday there was a post about how League of Legends (LoL) wasn't really covered here, and that there was a DOTA2 bias - due to Brad and Co. It spurred me to try LoL as I had the time to spare.Anyway having played LoL I thought it would be interesting to compare it with DOTA2 from a completely new player perspective. I've played a ton of RTS games but never a MOBA. I've got some time on my hands and not very much money so it'll give me something to do in the down time.

I will be updating this over the course of the summer as I learn the in's and outs of both games. I cannot stress enough that this is based upon my personal experience with the two games.

• DL'd LoL first - takes up less space and Steam does not like my computer. First thing, the presentation could use some work - menus are kinda bland but the artwork is okay. Naturally very Warcraft-esque given it's roots.
• Paywalls..well, okay. Looks like they give you stuff for playing..like most FTP games it's probably takes a whole lot of grinding (or money)
• I like the character designs, lore and the names a pretty cool.
• Tutorial: Easy to follow - I prefer ranged elves in my RPGs anyway so Ashe? is probably the way i'd go to begin with..ohh ice, even better. Bit dry of a tutorial but got the job done. Also she looks like Noel Vermillion.
• Graphically bright and not over done - s'alright.
• Co-op vs AI - this is fun. Don't play Ryze as I have no idea what I'm doing but Ashe locks down the middle lane in the second game. No screaming was done by anyone which was nice.
• I seem to have made enough IP/RP to get 3 starter characters, and the rotation is weekly. It appears to be a nice progression at the moment but i'm sure the grind will kick in soon. Got's to make that dollar bill 'yo.

Result: LoL is fun..fun enough to make me try DOTA2.

(5 hours downloading and a restart later)

I fucking hate Steam sometimes...well most of the time to be honest.

• Dota2 has great UI and just general design but boy is there a lot going on here.
• Picked 'beginner' as my level. Turns out that was a mistake.
• Character designs: I prefer LoL, at least they have names rather than 'Dragon Knight'..seriously? Does he henshin? I bet he does.
• He does. Should have called him Ryuki.
• I really shouldn't have picked 'beginner'. Not designed for people who have played anything like an RTS before. I know how to click a mouse..thank you.
• Oh this tree heal thing is pretty cool.
• Courier's for items? That's a great idea.
• Graphically it's what I would call a smoother version of Warcraft mixed with Pixar. I don't like Pixar. Yes I have no soul.
• Okay..do you need to speak every time I click where to tell you to go. I know this is based on Warcraft but seriously? I wonder if there's an option to turn this off.
• Not going well..lets finish off this tutorial and get into a botmatch..
• So all characters are unlocked? To me that's a good thing and a bad thing. More player choice is always great but...no sense of progression through the master of unlocking? Probably just a personal thing..geeze these guys all look the same.
• Drow..always bet on the Drow with a bow.
• Right Botmatch..I'm going mid. I don't know which role I should be playing but archers are usually DPS..I should probably read up about this.
• Err..shouldn't I have someone in this lane with me? Bots..anyone?
• Abilities are similar to Ashe which is cool..but she doesn't seem to be an all out DPS character. Wind push thing is odd...is this a major component? Pushing the other team off weaker supports? Ice arrows are great for picking off other Champions or whatever they're called.
• two towers by myself and the bots finally turn up..this is pretty cool too. Way more to take into consideration that LoL - I mean, wards? WTF. Accessibility is helped by the guides but..more work needs to be done here on my part.
• Oh I got some drops. A cape and shoulders for someone I don't play...great.
• money money money money money....I wonder how much Brad has spent.

I know there was a lot more negativity towards DOTA2, but that's purely because I played it second..it's not an overall commentary on the game itself. As HS said to me - DOTA2 is better but it takes longer to appreciate than LoL.

Showtime da!

Thanks for all the comments earlier. Honestly I will limit this to one a day so not to appear spammy.

For Day 2 I thought I'd switch around stuff and take DOTA2 first. I made notes during my dead times - so lots of notes. DOTA I play by myself with bots.

• Tried Windranger - she seems fun and mostly an assist kill character. Item selections seems very important.
• Big thing to note. Tower projectiles. Having played LoL first I was used to the green circle showing its range and whether you aggro it. Perhaps it's the noob in me, but the random aggro I got sometimes, even with pulls infront of me and the INSANE tracking distance annoyed the hell out of me..but you die, you learn.
• Tried Luna next - that is not a Scots accent.
• Stayed in the middle lane, upgraded her glaive and pew pew...ult and got 3 kills. Thats fun. Again I see the WoW Dark Elf thing here..but gods that accent.
• Tried bounty hunter after listening to Brad talk about him on Idle Thumbs DOTA podcast..nope. Not for me.
• Fire Ember? Nope
• Juggernaut..hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha everything died.

In summary - learning characters against the AI before deciding who to main at the beginning seems like a good idea. Time to read up on lanes and who needs to be where. Thank the gods for all that time playing CC or Kite in MMOs. Good stuff with DOTA2 today.

Co-Op with players against AI.

• Start with Katriana? Looks like an assassin to me..decide to play that way. Lie in wait in the grass and gank champions as they go by.
• chat = top top bottom bottom bottom...errrrr, wait a sec.
• Starts off well, we at the bottom do a good job UNTIL random guy who doesn't play the first 5 mins starts telling everyone what to do and going off at some guys build. Ignore and move on.
• Probably not the way to play Katriana, die a lot but eh...continued moaning.
• Next game with Ashe - call bottom again. Looks to be fine.
• Some guy decides he wants to go mid with another guy...guy already there starts calling him noob and asks him to be reported. Roll eyes.
• Goes well..apart from NOOB NOOB NOOB every so often. I love ice arrows.
• Final game - Lux. ooooooooooooooooooooooooh baby yes.
• Go bottom again with a very competent Jinx, we clean up the bottom lane damn fast..CC is fun with someone sniping.
• Accidently kill Golem instead of Jinx..Jinx pissed and rightly so as I get ganked by the whole other team rolling by..oops.
• PEW PEW PEW PEW.........PEEEEEWWWWWW
• Apart from me not really understanding the jungling thing (sorry Jinx person) that went well.

TLDR- lots of home work to do.

aka 'Carry on my wayward bot'

Again thanks for all the helpful comments - today was a doozy.

Before starting I should mention that I currently play to the sounds of Motown...fyi.

Today I was joined by our own TobbRobb to guide (read troll) our way through Co-Op.

Team LoL started off today:

• Having loved (and I mean LOVED) playing as Lux yesterday and as today was rotation day in LoL I just played her while I could in the two matches we played. TobbRobb(TR) went Yusuno then err Sin Lee?
• First Co-Op match and TR just wanted to watch me rather than tell me what I should be doing..probably rolled his eyes a fair bit.
• Lane Arguments FTW
• Random person 'Can I go top?' Me 'Sorry, Nope' 'Them 'Awww'
• Procing..this was something I didn't notice yesterday. Lux's E ball thing places a proc when it explodes. Autoattacking sets it off doing extra damage..cool.
• Yusuno kills things..fast.
• PENTAKILL!!!
• Random mid lane dude 'Stop taking my kills' TR 'But I'm bored...'
• Lux is skillshot based, so aiming is key...her ult straight down a line of heroes is super satisfying.
• Easy win..just messing around.
• 2nd Match
• comboing - TR kicks a hero into my CC for the kill...yesssss
• Mayhem ensues, we wipe the floor with everyone just in our top lane.
• 12 min match before kill? I know it's just AI but we were laughing our heads off.
• Things to take away - boots/speed are hyper important, as is positioning when playing a support role.

TLDR - Trolling AI is amusing.

After a lunch break, cat break, gym break and hoovering break we returned for:

DOTA2 Team:

• I'll own up to a little DOTA2 time last night, random selected Warlock. In my notebook I have written the following:

Cool looking guy

Chains are sweet

OMFG O_O

• Upon telling TR this he said that he had actually being nerfed recently and you can get 4 golems.

4

Golems.

• Which brings me to my next side point before we get started. Macroing. I can imagine that macroing multiple characters in DOTA can get complex..and I wonder if LoL has a comparison?
• We talked about the compendium and how it's not necessary but it can help you watch the league competition and you get free stuff. I said that the buying of the compendium would be the signal that DOTA had won me over. Not there yet.
• TR went on to describe DOTA as being more complex but not necessarily deeper - there's just more going on. LoL is more straight forward but fun for it. I'd agree with that statement at the moment.
• Looking at my picks (going into a botmatch with just the two of us) I went with Rubrik.
• Fun stuff..especially nicking other peoples spells.
• Again learning to play support..TR picked Tiny, threw everyone all over the place.
• Flying goblins ftw
• Denying - this was interesting. You take out your own creeps so that the other team can't gain the exp/gold. Not easy to do given I don't A-Click much and if you're not careful you'll end up helping the other team.
• Holy shit the bots are steam rolling without us.
• Gaaah 5 man gank squad are chasing me..ruuuuun.
• Wow those bots be crazy.
• I hate Luna..I really really hate Luna.
• Match 2: Crystal Maiden and ? I didn't note it..Zeus?
• I HATE LUNA - 'Bottom missing - bottom missing'
• She's totally trolling me.
• Support role, let the carry get all the last kills. Don't get any money can't buy items. Sucks but it's a team game for a reason.
• positioning!
• These bots are so OP - goddamnit Luna.
• I like CC and allowing Carry to take stuff out effectively..Crystal Maiden seems pretty..erm..cool.
• Okay, I think we've done every line from Mr Freeze now in the chat.
• Win
• Match 3 - AI up to medium, Death Prophet and Zeus
• 'Not a good lane synergy, oh well' - famous last words of TR
• Hmm CC is kinda cool.
• God damn Luna is in this AGAIN? 100+ characters and they be trolling me.
• These bots are tough.
• Waiting behind the lines, picking stuff for mana regen when I can afford it, and yes boots.
• 'TR, Where are you?' 'THEY'RE CHASING ME..AHHHHHHHH'
• GHOST SPAM FT...oh crap how come there are 4 chaos knights? Khorne doesn't do magic, wtf!
• 'Err..I've got to go' = me being steamrolled by AI.
• Ghost spa..oh screw it.
• loss

So what did I learn, dear readers?

Speed, positioning, denying and knowing your role are SUPER important. No different from an MMO in that respect but just in micro here.

I like CC and direct damage Int users at the moment. Will be trying Agility and Strength tomorrow I think.

Warlock is OP

Bots are OP

Warlockbots are seriously OP.

Great thanks to TR for putting up with my craziness and the swedish heat. I think we genuinely had a good time just messing about..cause you know, this is a game, played for fun. Easy to forget that with all the hullabaloo surrounding it.

aka 'Work on your micro GEEZ' - Dudeglove

I know I said Strength and Agility for today but..today was a day of research. Of watching streams, reading and generally resting my poor aching hand. I don't have the greatest set-up in the world with a crappy dell inspiron laptop, wrist-rest mousemat and tecknet mouse on my painting table but you live with what you have.

Anyway here's today's write up:

• Watching some of the Noob stream last night (Liquid vs CIS) was a great help in explaining the importance of magic stick, Rochan, force staff and wards.
• Never knew about melee and ranged creeps.
• You can deny towers? oh shit son..
• Denying really is the coolest thing ever.
• Score isn't that important - it's exp and gold difference. farm farm farm.
• As mentioned in comments tried recording so DOTA and LoL. Dota was juttery (expected due to writing to disk thats being used and cpu stuff) and LoL just decided not to record..oh well.

Now I'm gonna detour a bit as most of this is theorycraft - or learning what to theorycraft and just random thoughts I've had:

First up is the new ebook from Shoryuken regarding fighting games. It's been in my feed for a couple of days (I'm a KOF/Arc fan) and I thought I'd have a read of the first couple of chapters. A couple things stood out to me as being relevant to my current situation and common in many online games:

• Proof reading in books is important, in blog posts..not so much.
• The psychology of thinking one step ahead of your opponent - knowing what he will do and how to effectively counter it while also having an escape route. I know it's important in every competitive game from chess to American Football but it's not something you tend to consider without thinking about it.
• Frametraps, footsies...momentum. It's all in DOTA and LoL.
• I'm not a good fighting game player - I tend to play by instinct and get killed by Tager a lot.
• Fighting games aren't team sports and they have a limited roster. Mind boggling variations available.
• Combos. Engage, stunlock, FADC/Slow, Ult - kill. Same concept but now with Co-Op.
• Execution of combos and timing, placement -all the same ideas.
• Learning your side: Radiant/Dire have different lane advantages vs Seth Killian only being able to throw a Dragon Punch 40% time on the left hand side and still being a threat (according to the ebook).
• Would pay to have Iori/Geese/Terry in DOTA/LoL (they are making a KOF moba..hmm)
• GEESE *shakes fist*

It was only a quick read through but there's a lot for me to think about there and how I can apply it to my understanding of the genre.

My second bit of research is more to do with the mechanics and design of the games. I listened to Brad Muir on DOTA Today and he mentioned an article where one of the designers of LoL set out some of their design choices vs old DOTA. Remember this is from 2010 and from their perspective so don't..freak out or anything. I'm really interested in why certain mechanics are the way they are and why the devs choose to do things differently so:

• The Dev 'Zileas' talks about 'Game Design Anti-Patterns' or just..convoluted design choices I guess which can either enhance gameplay or effect it negatively. He separates them out into categories of which I'll take some as well, giving my opinions:
• 'Power without Gameplay' - he talks about how passive auras don't have the same player satisfaction as direct action abilities like 'click to blow shit up' thus they've tried to mix active and passive buffs together so they're more useful/appreciated. As a guy who plays RPGs that's just...urgh. A buff is a buff. If you're team suddenly gets lifesteal or whatever because you picked a buff in your tree thats MASSIVE. It could change the whole flow of the game. Crystal Maiden is a favourite of mine due to the mana regen buff..oh and freezing people.
• 'Burden of Knowledge': using Bloodseeker's rupture as an example he talks about how high the threshold is for new players to get into these games. If you didn't know not to move with rupture on you, you'd never understand why you keep dying. This is a major difference between LoL and DOTA2 I feel - and why many new players prefer LoL as a gateway drug. It's more straightforward and easier to understand how things fit together. Once you get it though..you get it.
• 'Unclear optimisation': How to use your abilities and what items synergise with them is a probably both games suffer with for new players and something I haven't even begun to learn beyond 'boots, bloody boots'. (Sepultura ftw) The player guides in DOTA are great..it would be nice if more of them included the reasoning behind the choices in their mouse-over boxes.
• 'Fun fails to exceed anti-fun': Getting repeatedly smashed by the other, more experienced team is never fun. Mana burn for the burned is never fun..especially as it stops most characters from being able to interact with what's on the screen effectively. Balancing these problems is something both games need to do more with. LoL's 'oh shit' B button helps in some cases, as does a TP scroll but..if all you do is lose, you'll either get better or not come back. You've got to have the desire to get better and a game that fosters that will always be more popular.

There's more stuff in that post than I actually understand at the moment (or I may not understand any of it) so please do have a look. From a design perspective it's interesting.

Some quick final notes for today:

• Denying is awesome - LoL does not have denying. Thats..sucks.
• When I described denying to someone his reply was 'UGH THAT'S ALREADY TOO MUCH TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT' Cap locks was obviously necessary.
• Going back into League was kind of tough after so much DOTA yesterday and the towers hit like a goddamn brickhouse...but no Luna.
• Riven in League is fun to play. Not used to having characters that only use cooldowns rather than mana. Do they balance the damage output accordingly?
• I'm now coming around on the whole 'choice' thing between League and DOTA. Seeing other characters who are interesting to play as and being stuck to a couple is kinda sucky.
• Did not play as Lux..probably coloured my experience.
• They needed to sort out the commentary on those DOTA streams..couldn't hear half of what they said at the beginning with the picks and the banning stuff..so meta.

Apologies again for no real gameplay notes on Str/Agl. It's taken me a while to type this out to be fair. Tomorrow I'll get into strength (time willing) and have some more thoughts about the game design.

Oh and my Steam ID is Jazz and my LoL ID is JazzGB or Ahriman Efreet (long story).

Thanks for getting this far with me.

To be continued:

aka: 'This could turn Hare Krishna into a bad boy'

Quick bits to get out the way:

• My pc was running like crap last night, so I tried switching over to my 2007 MBP. After downloading everything it turns out you need 10.7. Grrr.
• Thought it might be interesting to look at the original DOTA sometime..looked for my WC3 and FT dvds..couldn't find them, went on battle.net £10 each? Are you fucking kidding me? - two resellers later got the set for the price of one. Goddamn it Blizzard.
• I did find my original Diablo/Starcraft and Warcraft CDs for my Power Mac...which is nice
• This article from PC Gamer is a great look at early DOTA2 play by someone who can actually write 'Dota 2 has an absurd learning curve, but it’s the personal side that attracts me to it and that reminds me of improv. It’s not a one-to-one match: the aftermath of a bad improv show looks like a soul-searching pint in an Edinburgh beer garden, while a catastrophic Dota 2 game ends in a collective withdrawal from the process. Silence over Skype, muttered deadpan truths about feeding and failure. But there’s a common process of analysis and consolation that produces a technical solution by starting with each player’s implicit flaws and tendencies. The crusty mechanical layer fractures and reveals human working parts. Sometimes, the human working parts swear at you in Russian and abandon the match.'
• But it's not as good as this related 3 part article by Quentin (Quinns) Smith.

  'Tonight, after three bot games played with some of my Cool Runnings-like noob superteam, something clicked. I took my headphones off. I closed our Skype channel and gazed at the metropolis of dirty mugs beside the keyboard.

  I get it now.

  Here's your reason to play Dota 2, a reason Dota 2 players don't articulate because they're too busy playing Dota 2 and, frankly, the last thing you want on your team is more noobs.

  Dota 2 is fencing.

  That's the skill, and the appeal. I finally see it. You're fighting back and forth down these lanes, looking for an opening in the other heroes' defense. The other guy's too close to your tower, or too far from his friend, his ultimate skill's on cooldown, his health is low. Fights in other games last seconds. Fights in Dota 2 are dramatic; entire minutes of feints and narrow escapes. Duels that can span forests, roads and rivers without coming to an end.'

• I need to learn more about what each specific role in the game is - ie carry, support, jungler, initiator? and nukes. I can guess what their basic requirements are but..when exactly do you go jungling? Is there a exact time during the game - say when you hit level 3 you pull back from the front line and go into the trenches as it were?

Aaaaanyway. Today was all DOTA2 all day. No League due to the above messing around taking up my morning.

Team DOTA2:

• As promised it was mostly Strength characters today.
• Fiyenyaa was kind enough to lend me some tips as to how Wraith Knight should work for a newb like me. I...didn't really feel it. I don't like playing physical 'smash their face in' type heroes..even if they do have a stun. Also the bots just left me high and dry.
• Tidehunter - yeah, I can get behind this guy. I see why he needs the blink dagger to really be aggressive and his ult is awesome for combos..he just mows people down.
• Bigb..i mean Lycan- YES..yes yes yes yes. Junglist massif, wolves..mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together, soloing Rashon, people dying left right and centre, sorted out my macros..god that was fun.
• Sven - like Wraight Knight, just not my cup of tea.
• Pudge - I can see the utility of the hook, but killing yourself with the cloud thing? Really have to be careful with that. Not bad, but...tricky. Oh and health bars covered each other so I died due to a creep blocking it..not cool.
• Abaddon - nope...no despoiling was done today.
• Kunkka - Yeah, cool. Passive is great but need to keep an eye on the cooldown..ghost ship is a laugh and the teleport would be good from ganking.
• Beastmaster - nope.
• Treant - Yup. Awesome. Healing and just taking everything they send at you. It took 4 of them to gank me, and only because I had no mana. Awesome.

I then had a look at the agility heroes for 2 matches:

• Ember Spirit - I like his design and I can see there's something there I just...have an issue with it. I dunno.
• Viper - I was sick and tired of seeing him (only had to deal with Luna twice thank god) so I thought i'd try him myself. Forget Warlock..holy crap this guy is terrible/awesome. Terrisome. Must be the simplest character I've played so far - once you have decent regen it's game over for the other team. 17 kills or something silly. Yeah it's bots but it feels good.

Final Thoughts:

• Re: Jungling

• Bots are beginning to piss me off, purely due to them stealing kills due to them picking dumbass heroes to go with my pick. Or it could be that I just suck.
• I've pretty much come around on DOTA2 now...I'm going to need to put more time into LoL as I tend to start up DOTA2 instead and I'm still just playing botgames.

If anyone knows of any good articles/posts regarding the development or ideas behind either games I would appreciate you passing them on if possible. Might also be worth suggesting other mobas just to have a quick compare. I have Demigod somewhere and that Transformers one is browser based (even if they use those godawful movie designs..Drift is crying..somewhere on the Lost Light).

Once again thank you for all your comments.

aka: 'Fuck you Morgana'- Some whiney git.

Before I begin some quick notes:

• Tried Transformers Universe - thats not a moba, nor is it any good. Ran like crap on my laptop but it is only in open beta. Made by the guys who brought you Runescape and...erm..
• Surprised that there isn't a Warhammer 40k Moba. The setting is made for it and it's not like GW isn't being a complete licence whore at the moment. Also Pacific Rim.
• Finally uninstalled Guild Wars 2..I don't know what that means, but it means something.
• Bottles and Runes..bottles and runes.

Okay so, as promised it was all LoL all day:

• I managed to play as Lux just before the switch over to the new champions..I'll admit I cried a little when she was no longer available. Will be grinding Lux - that sounds so dirty.
• On the wonderful suggestions of you guys I picked up Morgana. Kayle..and I got Twisted Fate cause he looked cool.
• Started with Morgana and I have to say I really like her. Puddle is great to farm with and the stun saved me more times than you can imagine.
• Taric is the Luna of LoL. He never goes away, he never dies..gods I hate him.
• I was trying to play support but Master Yi player decided to just do his own thing and ignore the stunned AI heroes. (still playing vs AI) Annoying.
• Spell Vamp is great. Health of AOE even if it is nerfed is great.
• Mana issues - look at your build.
• Eventually won, zero co-ordination but eh, what do you expect.
• Kayle next - Don't like her move animation.
• Stun sucks. Die in seconds.
• Hmm this flame sword thing procs on swing..need to up attack speed.
• Why does everyone have xx_xx or 666 in their names? Sakura666? xxsoraiskingxx? is this the fucking twilight zone?
• Eh, she's okay..too squishy to be a melee person from my experience.
• Back to Morgana. Riven comes lane with me.
• Loads of bitching from some guy about bot feeding
• Stuns work well
• more bitching - called out on it 'huurr look at my score compared to yours' - 'hurrr it's a team game dipshit and I'm playing support - if I had more kills than you I'd be doing it wrong..also it's an AI game..seriously?'
• Eventually get through that...urgh.
• Morgana again. Crocodile dude comes with on top.
• Croc decides not to move past the 3rd tower, miles away from the xp.
• 'Fuck you Morgana' - reply 'Fuck you for being a pussy - get out here and earn that xp. Difficult to support someone who runs away' This game is making me evil.
• Forumite tbk turned up to lay down some tips and play some games with me.
• Tried Twisted Fate, had a hell of a fun time (we wiped the floor with the AI it 19 mins) but as tbk pointed out I had no idea how to play him. Card mechanic is awesome though. Teleported with his ult just before I got ganked by 3 of the AI..s'cool.
• Back to Morgana. Had a really fun time just messing around and farming as support. Later informed that I should have just gone mid due to the puddle to farm it up. Flash, Hourglass and Rod of Ages are the way to go..but before 15mins (have to be honest..didn't really follow any of that but it's good to know)

So thanks to tbk for coming and riding the newbie train with me.

Final thoughts:

• LoL is still pretty cool. I prefer being able to deny, but I made an effort to harass the AI so they wouldn't be within the XP area, thus we would out level them. I think it worked well.
• So much more to learn - I'm not sure I like the invisibility in the grass but it helps de-aggro.
• Whining about killstealing seems pointless unless you're the carry - and nobody knows if they're the carry in a beginners botmatch.
• urgh those names and ugh Taric.

Thanks for keeping with me and the comments. I'll probably do another blog for week two otherwise this will probably crash the system or something.

TBC

aka 'Well that's clear as mud then.' - me

Well, gosh. It's a week today since I began this journey. I'd like to thank all of you who have commented or spent some time attempting to knock some sense into my brain, it's very much appreciated. Without you guys I don't think I would have ended up this far.

So the quick notes:

• RIP Tommy Ramone. I grew up on the Clash, Ramones and it's sad to lose another.
• Ancient Thai saying : 'Tiger balm is great for aching hands, not great for eyes.'
• I've spent over 24 hours between the two of these games this week. I need a job.
• You know what's a great palette cleanser for MOBAs? Brutal Doom.

I spent this morning with a couple of games of LoL - to be honest I spent most of this morning wanting to jump right back in with Morgana and Twisted Fate. Nearly pulled a Brad of 7am start..but my cat put an end to that by waking me up at 4am. Evil evil cat.

• I had no idea there were skill trees in this game. Runes, Skill trees...this is madness. How do you get points in the skill trees? I dumped most of Morgana's into mana regen and movement speed..seemed like the right thing to do?
• Played mid as suggested yesterday by tbk - farmed and rolled them right up. I didn't pick up the hourglass as I don't have flash yet due to levelling needed (again..wtf) Anyway lots of fun.
• I broke for lunch and had a look at some Fiora builds. Oh dear...bad idea.
• I played..no wait..I TRIED to play a jungling Fiora build. I had no idea what I was doing which lead to the guy playing vivi (FFIX)-esque character to keep saying 'go adc' I asked him to elaborate to which he replied 'go adc' - Attack Damage Carry? well considering he was supposed to be playing mid but moaning about how I wasn't helping him against Ryze..he actually surrendered. A bot match...as if it matters. However I accept that was probably my fault and he wasn't mean about it...it was just, frustrating...on both sides I would think.
• That rather soured me on Fiora and jungling at length. Stick to what I understand before screwing up other people's enjoyment.

• After a wee bit I went into DOTA2 with the idea of picking up where I left off with the Agility heroes.
• Funny to note, it's been a week but I still haven't played against people yet...don't think it would be fair to the rest of the team. Nor have I played all the heroes.
• Started with Medusa. I liked some of her stuff - her mana snake thing is cool but too tanky for my liking. Slow I guess.
• Naga Siren: A beautiful model and great fun to play..if I knew what I was doing. I can imagine her scream would set up well with Tide.
• Mirana: Meh...giant meh.
• Lone Druid: Items on the bear? What madness is this? He's cool..I seem to like playing characters that have extra..erm...characters? Which brings us to:
• Phantom Lancer - I enjoyed myself so much with this guy I played him 3 times in a row. Once you have all your abilities up and attack speed up..good luck stopping this guy. By the end my illusions were killing the bots by themselves. Oh and then there's the vanish....
• Necrophos - kinda cool I guess. His aura slows/stops regen which is nice and he has heals..pretty tanky but slow. The hook stun is great.
• Razor - Boring but effective. Press Q to farm with not much movement needed.

Final Thoughts:

• It's been both a really long and yet really short week. If I didn't have my pull list coming in I wouldn't have spent money on anything but food...so I guess I'm saving money?
• I last turned on my PS4 a week ago to play Wolfenstein. I..don't really like that game much. My ps2, ps3 and original xbox still get a load of play. Playing through the Drakengard and Kingdom Under Fire series.
• I don't remember when I last turned on my WiiU. My gamepad is all dusty.
• LoL has way more going on outside of the game itself than I knew. Masteries, runes..it's like World of Warcraft and must give a massive boost to those with a higher level - matchmaking must be tough.
• I used bottles a lot more today - allowing you to stay in lane longer is always a good thing.
• How do you level items? Diffusal blade (apparently a must have for PL) could be levelled..no idea how.
• I'll be taking tomorrow off - thoughts on staying on this blogpost or making a new 'Week 2' post would be appreciated. Not sure which people would prefer.
• Tonight is Rifftrax night.

TBC