f13.net

So, I bought Astronaut Teemo.  I love how he floats.  People have been flipping me shit over the cost.  But I chalk it up to supporting Riot in lieu of a sub.

Same reason I tell myself every time I buy Riot points.  Yes I could play for free, but for all the issues and problems with PvP.net it's a game I play a lot and enjoy so I have no issue with supporting them.

Honestly, I'm more pissed at Riot's constant "How much should the new champ be?  Heads = 1k RP/3k IP, Tails = 1k RP, 6k IP" bullshit than I am about their skins costing more than most of the full games I buy these days.

$20 is still too much for me to pay for a skin for a champ I rarely use (I mean, I love Teemo in bot batches, but he's always seemed weak to me in real games), but at least there are other, cheaper skins for me to buy if I want to.  I can deal with them throwing out the occasional high end skin as long as there's something for us po' folk too.  Maybe if they came out with a $20 skin for a champ I played I'd get it, but it seems like too much to drop for something I'd only use a handful of times.

Also, the lack of any sort of preview function is kind of annoying.  Not a big deal when I'm dropping $5 on a skin, but when I'm paying $20 and the only indication I have of what it looks like is an artist's sketch, I'm a bit wary.  I didn't even know he floated until you mentioned that.  Does he get a new voice?  Are any of his spell effects different?  I know his mushrooms look like satellite dishes now, but that's about it.

I love my Morde Pentakill skin, I can't wait to put the whole band together  :awesome_for_real:

I heard a buddy talk about the astroteemo yesterday but have not seen it. Been busy with other things.

I have been lucky in the skin buying department that the toons I play well/a lot have shitty skins (though if I got back in the groove with teemo I might have to buy the astro one). Taric has the worst 2 custom skins ever, and I play him pretty much exclusively now.

What is wrong with Gay Pride Taric?

The "1 year anniversary" (thats what I was told at least) Teemo skin should be given free to people with 1 year+ old accounts.  :oh_i_see:

I gotta admit, I got a bit of a chuckle over their "last chance to get Soccer skins" post, since I don't think I've ever seen any of those skins in any game anywhere.

"We gotta design some skins, what should we do?"
"How about the World Cup?  That's popular, isn't it?"
"Yeah!  In, like, Brazil, I think, sure.  So, soccer skins!"
"Okay, first up, Blitzcrank in a Riot T-shirt!"
"Awesome!  What next?"
"How about... Ezreal - in a Riot t-shirt!"
"CRAZINESS!  Okay, anything else?"
"Let's see... Akali in.... oh, let's say, a Riot t-shirt!"
"Beautiful!  Done!  Soccer is that game where people stand around in t-shirts, right?"
"I think so, but I'm from California, where we call it football!"
"Close enough! PUT THAT SHIT ON THE STORE!  Jenkins, you magnificent bastard, you've just earned yourself another money hat!"

I have Pumpkinhead Fiddle.  I don't really play Fiddle.  Why did I buy riot points to buy Pumpkinhead Fiddle?  I just couldn't help myself.

Now I'm seeing Nosferatu Vald.  I fear that I'm doomed to repeat the past.

Somehow I have UFO Corki.  UFO Corki is awesome!

It was a freebie they gave everyone with an account at the beginning of the year for winning some award  I.E. a bribe.

Oh!  That means that I need to vote for them more!

The last 2 bribes were a rune sheet and 4 game IP bonus. So I am guessing, they aren't don't need the publicity quite as bad.

EDIT: Or smaller bribes are just as effective.

The discount needs to be steeper on those soccer skins. Of course, the only one I liked was the Kat one, and I don't own kat so I would have to buy the champ first.

They should let you buy skins even if you don't own the champ. Then if they are on a free week, you can use the skin then!

This seems pretty obvious, it's just more money in Riots pocket.  Wonder why they haven't done it.

People would think or say they thought they were getting the champ too, and bitch at them, possibly.

They really need a better preview method.

I must resist Miss Fortune.

I'm pretty sure at this point in time I own at least one custom skin per hero I own.

I'm a sucker for the weekly sales. I breathe a sigh of relief when I already own all the skins on sale (IE this coming week).

As far as I can tell that is not happening.

At least an anciliary benefit to being a toolbag who only plays one hero who is invariably ugly in all incarnations is that I have virtually no temptation to spend cash on this game. But I want to.

I am getting that feeling as well....seeing as I play Taric almost exclusively now, and even the better looking of the two custom skins is WORSE than the default.

Zombie Ryze and Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks were pretty good purchases. I really like holiday-specific skins.

Pink 80s Taric is amazing, he looks FABULOUS.

I tried to give riot money. I really did. Adobe Air duhrs out each time.

You can just go to 7-11 and buy a riot points card now!

They just put a thing in the game that says "Now on sale at GameStop, Best Buy, and even 7-Eleven".  :uhrr:

its funny, I went to 7-11 cause I remembered that. no riot points on sale there :/

I keep eyeing Corporate Mundo, but that 1820 point cost is keeping me from doing it. Any sort of sale on that and I'd be all over it.

I still may end up doing it. I'm weak.  :uhrr:

Corporate Mundo is awesome, but somehow I've managed to not buy him.

I love my Jack O'latern Fiddle and Nosferatu Vlad.  Fiddle looks so much better as a Jack.

Haven't seen Feral WW yet.  Anyone have that?  If so, how do you like it?

I'm pretty much only buying legendary skins these days; the other skins just can't begin to compare to the legendary ones.

I broke down and bought Corporate Mundo tonight. Now, if they'd only come out with more of the legendary skins for champs I actually play.

Skin image thread (http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=1420553#post1420553)

I play Olaf a lot.  He's probably the closest to being my "main".  Because of that I felt the need to buy the Brolaf skin.  At 1820 Riot points it's pretty stupidly expensive (for a skin), still I felt compelled.

There are new sound files along with the skin.  Actually, there are quite a few more sound files then with a normal skin.  Probably seven or eight different things he says when you click for him to go somewhere  ("Dude, I'm kind of a big deal").  /j, /t, /l (x2) are all different.  And he says, "KA-BOOM!", when you use the E ability.

I'm pretty pleased with my purchase.

Skin Viewer (http://lol.zone.gamebase.com.tw/zone/lol/skin_view)

Has some of the not yet released skins, Marble Malphite and Bandit Sivir are the ones I noticed.

Thanks for posting this, very cool.  It's surprising to me how neat a lot of the characters look when you're not seeing them from a mile above.  Also, it's got the old models for the minions boosted by that summoner spell that got removed, which I haven't seen before.

So they finally make a Taric skin that does not look like something straight out of Studio 54 and they make his body tiny and lose the pony tail :(

Is it just me or are skins not selling very well?  I just started not that long ago but I rarely see people using skins.  Admittedly I don't play ranked yet so maybe that's it.   Usually something like skins though they should be selling like hotcakes even to newbs.   I feel like they are being foolish pricing them for so much.   The game has like a bazillion users now so going for volume would be smarter.

I am still levelling up, but as I have gone up in level I have noticed more people using skins. I see skins as something people tend to buy once they have settled on a hero they really like playing.

Back during the Japan tsunami they had a special sale for an Akali skin, which raised around $200,000. That's a benchmark for what a skin brings in under the current pricing scheme.

You just said it was on sale so isn't that a benchmark for what a skin would bring in under a cheaper pricing scheme?

It was at the time of the tsunami, so there are other conflating factors. I think it just gives an indication of how much money Riot can earn of skins. I'm not trying to comment about volume vs. price.

Ahh my bad I was misreading then.

I usually see 1-2 people per game using skins. Like others mentioned, I think the further you get into levels/wins, the more you'll see.

I am surprised when I see less than 5 people using skins in any game I join.

I dunno, in my elo (bargain basement low), like half the time I am the only one with a skin.

Having more skins on your team increases your chances of winning the game.  People only buy skins for champions they are amazing with.   :grin:

Hahaha, I remember the innocent days when I actually though that. "Well, my team insta-locked Teemo, Ashe, Twisted Fate, and Tristana, but at least they all have skins right?"

Insta-lock Teemos are the best.

Or an insta-lock Yi with smite who answers no when you ask if he plans to jungle. I sure love those. But at least his awesome assassin kill makes up for the 2-22 score at the end.

Just now noticed the fourth Pentakill Skin has been released. Karthus = vocals. I am bit bit suprised I have not stumbled across a pentakill premade. Yet. :grin:

I myself own Pentakill Morde.

I have Pentakill Sona.

The next PC Gamer (US) will have a code for a skin+hero for Caitlyn.

I realized yesterday that I ended up recovering my LoL account that I beta tested with, instead of the one I had played up to lvl 15 or so awhile back. I realized this when I decided to try Rammus, who I never remembered buying, and noticing that i had the koopa troopa skin. Now I feel like I need to learn him because of it.

You should also have UFO Corki. I wish my main account was my beta account. I forgot about it at some point.

Ooo. How much does PC Gamer cost? Heh.

woah, cool. just to be clear, I'll still get the skin once I unlock Corki?

If you were around when they gave out the UFO skin, you should already have Corki unlocked. Receiving the skin also unlocked the champion. If you can't access Corki right now, you probably didn't meat whatever criteria they had for 'active players' when they gave out the UFO skin.

My LoL account is an unplayed beta one - no Corki but Rammus is there.

FYI, all special codes can be used twice, once for EU and once for US.

Oh crap I thought you'd only get the skin.  If it's both that's worth it.   I think buying an issue off the rack is like 7~9 bucks.

I'm in the EU, someone send me a spare code if they get one  :grin:

Any time you get a code for a skin, they give you the champ with it. (I think because their adobe air garbage client cannot check to see that you have a champ before irretrievably using the code, so to be safe they have to give you the champ too).

Sadly for you EU types the code is going to be NA only: http://esporteye.net/free-caitlyn-skin-pc-game

I hooked it up :)

Is the magazine already out?

Nah, he hooked me up with a Pax Jax code   :heart: :heart: :heart:

He also gave a Riot Singed code, but that one didn't work. Guess it was a US exclusive code like the Cait one is apparently.

Took Pax Jax for a spin in a ranked game last night and went 21/1. Felt very  :drill:

Thanks Slayerik!

Got a few IP points that burn a hole in my virtual pocket, should I buy Orianna ? I (sadly) mostly play solo queue.

She does wonderful things, and at 4800 is more than worth it.

For some reason I actually have less IP then I thought I had. Need to grind some IP after I come home from work.

I wanted to use my Brolaf skin more often anyway.  :awesome_for_real:

I know that Orianna is kind of micro intensive, which is generally not my forte, but am I going to be a liability until I get used to her? Or just not super awesome?

She's still pretty effective without magic fingers. She's going to be getting nerfed soon because, when she's played perfectly, she's too powerful. When she's played average? She's still pretty good.

So apparently limited places have the Caitlyn magazine now but it's not wrapped nor is the code obscured in any way.  So any schmuck could come in and snap a photo of the codes with his phone.   Or more likely some employee could do it.  :oh_i_see:

Chances are it's not a unique code then. I'll see if I can find anything that suggest it's not safe to buy one.

Soooo tempted by the new Fiddlesticks skin.  :raspberry:

I had a fiddle in my group and we did indeed have a party.

I think that skin has a global taunt attached on par with Teemo.  :heart: