It’s been a short week, but nonetheless we’ve completed the first weekend of events and it’s the first Monday, so as promised, here is a round-up post of things that have been going on.

Strife Event

A new MOBA on the scene, Strife is calling itself a “2nd Generation MOBA.” J3w3l aptly named it “Baby’s first MOBA,” as its distilled features and focus on combat rather than depth of strategy makes it far more accessible than its more established counterparts (think League of Legends and DOTA 2). In a separate conversation I said that their tagline should read: “Less strat, more combat.” Regardless of your preconceived notions based on what I have said here, Strife is actually rather fun. It’s light-hearted, in that the graphics are rather cartoony, the sense of humor and character design is juvenile, and the focus on action combat is found throughout the mechanics. This is relaxing for a seasoned MOBA player like myself, because rather than having to focus on the vision war or which lane/objective to worry about, I can mindlessly last hit minions and roam for ganks. It still has the traditional 3-lane set up but they have shifted the meta focus to a 2 top 2 mid 1 bot setup, or at least that’s the behavior they push the bots into and show you in the tutorials. There are plenty of other differences as well, but you’d have to play to get the whole scope of things.

The people joining us for the group games were Welshtroll, Jaedia, Simcha and Jeromai. Counting myself we had a full group to tackle some bots to get everyone comfortable with the game. Simcha admitted that this was her first time playing a MOBA, and Jaedia had only skimmed the surface in the past. As a result I tried to throw some helpful tips their way, and thankfully they started to understand pretty quickly. Welsh and Jeromai both seemed comfortable with the mechanics and overall scope of the game, so after playing (and winning) a bot match, I decided to pit us against each other. By this time, J3w3l had finally joined us, so I made a custom game and we were randomly split into a 3v3. Perhaps I should have left it that way, as we could have each manned a lane and had 1v1 matchups, but I decided to fill up the groups with bots. The bots were both a boon and a detriment. They seemed to be a boon if you read Jeromai’s account of the game, as they were giving her trouble and always defending a lane she was solo pushing. To me though, they were a detriment, especially when I rallied the group to their location and tried to push a generator (like an inhibitor) and in mid fight the bots just fucked off, leaving us to die. The game was a challenge as it was Simcha, Jaedia and myself vs. J3w3l, Jeromai and Welshtroll, so of course J3w3l rallied the other players into ganging up on me. We took an early gold lead and had pushed their lanes quite well but the tide started to turn as death timers increased and saw us watching helplessly as our lanes were pushed back. Thankfully, I managed to catch out Jeromai on a bad engage and we flattened her, while J3w3l and Welshtroll attempted to back her up and were also killed off. This left their base open (as we had cleared our way in earlier but couldn’t make a final push til this point) and only their bots to defend. We juggled damage between them and the base and eventually got the final blow dealt.

It was getting late in Europe at that point, so Simcha and Jaedia bowed out for the evening. The rest of us soldiered on with more bot matches, bringing in a random player each time. Those went off without a hitch, despite me playing some champions I wasn’t so good with. Overall the group seemed to have a good time, but I don’t think any of us liked it as much as other MOBAs that are available. I’m going to take this time to announce that I want to get a full 5 man group going in LoL for a regular weekly meet-up. Jeromai and Doone have said they are ready and willing, so after counting me I need two more people willing to take the plunge. We can start off easy with bots and ARAMs for training purposes, and then move into actual PvP. None of us really likes dealing with randoms on the internet, so it is preferred to play with a regular group so we can all advance together.

Achievement Earned

At this point I’d like to point out that I’ve made a spreadsheet regarding the achievements for Bragtoberfest. I’ve looked around the web and found as many people as I could that have earned an achievement at this point. I’m not sure if I got everyone though, so if I missed you, let me know. Here’s some achievers thus far:

Welshtroll
Jaedia
Simcha
Jeromai

Jeromai
Mr Luvva Luvva
Aywren
Murf
Belghast
Doone
Wilhelm
Isey
Rambling Redshirt
Ikralla

Jeromai
Mr Luvva Luvva
Aywren
Belghast
Wilhelm
Ikralla

Welshtroll
Jaedia
Mr Luvva Luvva
Aywren
Belghast
Rowan Blaze
Ranzington Scouts
Doone
Wilhelm

Roger (CMP)

Feel free to use these images as you wish on your blogs if you already earned the achievement.

Post Round-Up

There’s been quite a few posts made in the name of Bragtoberfest, and here’s most if not all of them:

Wilhelm kicks of the month by bragging about a new mount earned in World of Warcraft.
Murf issues a Bragtoberfest challenge for PS4 users.
Mr Luvva Luvva wants you to join him on PS4 in some Destiny raiding.
Ikralla brags about WoW achievements earned.
Aywren welcomes us to Bragtoberfest, then brags about progress in ArcheAge and The Secret World.
Finally, J3w3l has done a post about the details of Bragtoberfest, but also adds in a community poll to pick the game for the last weekend of October. Go there, vote now!

There are also many forum topics going on over at the Bragtoberfest nook, including the sign up for next weekend’s event in Path of Exile. Make sure you head over there to keep posted on upcoming events. As always, follow this blog and Healing the Masses for coming information, and Happy Gaming!

#Bragtoberfest #roundup #community #events