Mark:

I’m playing a lot of Dragon Age 2 and a little bit of League of Legends. My Cataclysm experience has been put on hold due to the release of DA2.

I’m currently enjoying the latest from Bioware but, to me, the EPIC feel from it’s predecessor is missing. I feel more like I’m playing single player Age of Conan at times. Maybe it’s just a combination of the architecture, clothing, gear appearance and music but I miss Lothering even more than my character does.

The new League of Legends champion Nocturne is fun but I’m not doing too well with him. I’m hoping all that will change as I learn how best to build him up for beginning, mid and end game. It seems like he’s the scariest champion on the map when someone else plays him!

Jason:

Dragon Age 2 has taken up the majority of my time this week.  I finished it yesterday (mercifully) and I’m still trying to collect the clusterfuck of thoughts in my mind about it.  I’ll save the majority of my opinions about it for this weeks podcast, but I’ll give you a quick breakdown of a few of the issues that I had with Bioware’s latest offering.

• The ridiculous handling of the “bonus items” and the hoops you had to jump though to get them.  Seriously, I half expect Bioware to ask me for a blood sacrifice when Mass Effect 3 comes out so I can get a special UberMeltYourFaceRifle 3000 (TM).
• DA:O companions > DA2 companions – I never thought I’d say this, but I actually missed Alistair.
• You can totally tell that there were time/budget issues on this one.  The decision to keep the entire story based in Kirkwall and a few surrounding areas allowed Bioware to reuse the same assets over, and over, and over, and over again.  It gets real depressing seeing the same cave map, each and every time you enter a cave.
• There are many more glaring things that I can get into, but you’ll just have to tune in to this weeks podcast to hear more of my ramblings about it.

Gold farming FTW!  The life of a gold farmer is hard when you’re not actively playing World of Warcraft, but I’ve still somehow managed to make a few thousand gold a night off of my massive stockpile of glyphs.  It’s been awhile since I’ve logged on to just play.  I suppose I’ll get back to it again in time and actually max out a character, but right now I’m a little burned out.

Noah:

My gaming time is limited, but when I got an opportunity this last weekend, I put in several games with League of Legends. Thanks to a near-endless spat of practice games over the last month (both teammates and opponents are all bots) I’ve gotten much more comfortable with a large variety of other champs– Kog Maw (a new fave!), Galio (my first tank!), Xin Zhao, Lux, Nunu, Teemo, Cho’Gath, Sona and more. By experiencing all the different play styles I feel a lot more confident, though knowing off-the-cuff what items to buy and which runes and masteries to pick is still an abstract, unattained science.

I’m surprised by how easy Xin Zhao is (though I still need to test that assessment in a “real” game with “real” people), and Sona is a total blast, though I’ll never play her when Mark is in a game because he plays her so well. We have so much synergy when he’s Sona and I’m Sivir (fear the glaive!), but I really want to try Kog Maw with his Sona and see if we get the same benefit.

I also broke down and bought the Lion Dance elite skin for Kog Maw. I’m very disappointed that all his vocalizations are exactly the same, and Riot neglected to update the animation and appearance of all his abilities (two are clearly the same mucus-based animations). Still, I L-O-V-E shooting fireworks and the sound effects that accompany them for the attacks that have been updated. $15 love? Probably not. When I know that Gentleman Cho Gath and Corporate Mundo had a lot more work put into their elite skins (animations, character model, all vocalizations, all attacks), it stings a little. But that’s a lesson learned to make sure I thoroughly check on Youtube before committing to a custom skin. And anyway, I’ll always have my cute, furry Reindeer Kog Maw whose taunt and joke are him growling out-0f-season “Deck the Halls” melodies– such a fulfilling way to wrap up a hard-fought victory.