A small percentage of League of Legends players have been using an exploit that lets them cast powerful spells one right after another. The exploit let players add more points to the game's Mastery system that would normally be allowed. But LoL developer Riot Games says such tactics are "bull****" and made moves to fix the loophole that made the cheat possible as soon as they heard about it.

Games with ultra-competitive communities are always going to be filled with people who try to find an edge over their opponents. That's okay. What isn't cool is when that edge crosses the line and breaks the balance. In some games, hacks, cheats and exploits go unnoticed and unpatched. Not with League of Legends, though.

In a post on the League of Legends forum, community manager Andrew Beeglesaid the following about the exploit:

That's bull****, and we're not going to allow it. That's bull****, and we're not going to allow it.

We take this seriously. Nothing is more important to us than the sanctity of our game, competitive or otherwise. As soon as we discovered the issue, we immediately dropped everything to find both immediate and permanent fixes. I'm happy to report that the immediate fix has been implemented, and we'll be restarting all regions this evening to add some redundancy which will prevent similar exploits in the future. As we continue to investigate and further analyze data, our primary commitment is identifying players affected and doing everything within our power to make it right.

Is this the end of people trying to ruin your experience? No. But we're committed to stopping this kind of behavior in its tracks, and are discussing ways to increase our monitoring and development as part of that commitment. We have comprehensive logs and data that allow us to see precisely who did what, and also who was negatively affected by this malicious behavior. We've identified all of the players that have been using this exploit, and we're going to be taking firm action against their accounts.

Mastery Exploit Fixed: Players Banned

[League of Legends, via Reddit]

We all have our gaming blindspots. Genres or series we don't know as much, or play as much, as we would maybe like to. Even those of us paid to be around them all day can't play everything. For years I've been content to let one of my biggest - DotA games - slide. I play more than enough games as it is, I'd say, if I ever needed an excuse.

Well, no more. I'm getting proactive this year, pulling myself up by my bootstraps, letting Crusader Kings II and FIFA rest for a while and will be plunging headfirst into the world of League of Legends.

The only catch is, well, I'm about as fresh as virgin snow. So some help would be appreciated.

Seeing as the game has been around for years (and the "genre" even longer), and has such a fiercely competitive scene, I'm a little anxious. I'm also not the type to just go find a FAQ or something, because that's terribly impersonal.

So I'm going to ask for your help instead. What are some genuinely useful tips for a newcomer? One who, for a little guidance, prefers to smash people in the face himself rather than sit back and cast spells like a coward? I'm thinking of the best paths, items, maps, stuff like that.

And if you don't have any tips for a newcomer, then even shouting out with your favourite stuff will be helpful!

When League of Legends characters aren't flinging crackling balls of energy at one another on the battlefield you'll probably find them working on their bartending license. Those energy balls can also be turned into a lovely looking drink, proved by the images up top—taken from Nimhain's blog AlcoLol.

As an obvious fan of LoL Nimhain really nails it on a couple of these drinks, maintaining the look and 'flavor' of each character. It helps that they're all named after one of their respective character's moves.

Unfortunately reception to these pictures at Kotaku Mansion was less than positive. "Wouldn't drink that if you paid me to" was one opinion. "Two gross ingredients. So a negative and another negative add to make more negative" was also heard. Though there was one "I would drink the **** out of that." Guess which is which.

AlcoLoL [Blogspot via League of Legends]

There is some fairly intense combat going on in the stick figure version of League of Legends. This stick figure showdown uses the audio featured in the game, except for a random Zoidberg appearance toward the end.

It's like the mobile game Stick-Fu but with significantly more awesome moves. There's a lot of head-butting, sword slicing, fist smashing, and spear thrusting going on in this video. Stick figures are apparently very dexterous and prefer a versatile fighting method. Who knew.

Chinese cosplay photographer Mengjie Luan is back with another set of spectacular pics.

In the above gallery, there are Alice: Madness Returns photos with cosplayer Jill. "There were some problems and headaches during the Alice shoot—but in the end it worked out great," Meng told Kotaku. "I also finally learned the meaning of '苦逼造就牛片' or 'hardship brings great pictures.'"

Besides Alice: Madness Returns, Meng recently completely some photo shots of popular online game League of Legends with cosplayers Xiao Luojun and Ying Tao.

"I personally prefer to cosplay games, mostly because most of my spare time is already taken up by playing League of Legends," said Xiao. "I spent a lot of time working on this cosplay and when I saw the results, I was stunned."

That's the thing about Meng's photos: you always end up stunned.

Read more about Meng in Kotaku's feature on him and his work.

I guess Koreans are finally starting to get sick of StarCraft II and Fifa Online 2, because League of Legends (LoL) has made its way to the top spot in e-sports tournaments, replacing StarCraft II. Professional broadcasters as well as sponsors are now supporting LoL, which may be an effort to improve stagnating expansion of e-sports.

Korean cable television company, Ongamenet (OGN), showed its support by becoming an official sponsor at the Yongsan e-sports stadium. Starting March 21, OGN will show live, twice weekly broadcasts of League of Legends tournaments with 16 participating teams from Korea, USA, and Europe. The winning prize money of these tournaments will be 2 billion won (about US$ 1.8 million).

Honestly, I have to say this is great news, if only to dispel the stereotype that if you're Korean and you like video games, you must play Starcraft. Starcraft isn't some kind of digital kimchi on which Korean gamers subsist. I've never beaten the original Starcraft, which seems to amuse some people. Then, I say I'm Korean-American, and they realize I was being serious.

League of Legends Number 1 e-sport [Ruliweb]

In November 2011 League of Legends boasted more than 11 million active players all over the world. With almost 100 unique characters for players to choose from and bi-monthly additions to the roster, the studio behind LoL, Riot Games, has quite a diverse crew on its hands.

The game's roster isn't diverse enough according to an avid LoL forum poster named Eserine. He crusades regularly to draw attention to the need for, as he said in one of his posts, "more racial representation of Earth ethnicities within the game League of Legends."

I got in touch with Riot's senior concept artist Eduardo Gonzales on this issue who responded:

"As a senior concept artist at Riot (and Champion Lead), I've had a chance to help create many of our Champions. I've never really looked at it that way – while we have taken some specific inspiration (the city-states of Ionia and Demacia have particular mythological inspirations), League of Legends is a highly diverse fantasy world with a cast that includes robots, yetis, and a grouchy tree. It's not meant to look or feel like real life on Earth."

In an email correspondence with me Eserine responded to Gonzales, saying "How odd by mere coincidence French accents, scuba divers, motorcycle gang membership, broadswords, Christmas, Chinese New Year, and vampires named Vladimir all happen to carry over...but somehow not black or brown people!"

League of Legends borrows mythological characters from all over the world, from Medusa to Sun Wukong, and recreates them in-game. Riot also throws in heroic archetypes—like pirates and ninjas—as well as some completely original characters.

Out of the 93 characters to choose from (as of March 4th), I counted 39 human-looking characters (more if you have a looser definition of "human"). Out of those 39, I could only find two characters who didn't look Caucasian or East Asian, based upon their portraits.

As a daily LoL player myself, Eserine's point rang true. Being able to play as a squirrel person, robot, or bear certainly makes for good times but it seems odd that I can't play as a black human. Humans form a sizable chunk of the roster, yet most of the diversity is relegated to humanoid/monster characters. Even if LoL is not meant to be realistic, the fact of the matter is that humans do exist in the game. Why should those humans only look Caucasian or East-Asian?

There is no "dedicated" black human League of Legends character. I say "dedicated" because each champion in the game has "skins", or alternate costumes, and while the character, Ryze, pictured here may be considered black in one of his skins—a skin that you can't buy anymore—he also happens to be purple and Caucasian. His default skin is the purple one.

This lack of a dedicated black character, in itself, is not the problem. The problem that Eserine points out in one of his many forum posts is that "those of darker ethnicity each have lighter skins available, but none of the Asian and Caucasian-based champions have darker skins." Look at Caitlyn (pictured here), who never changes the color of her skin, despite the number of character "skins" she has. This inconsistency across characters makes it difficult to argue that LoL seriously considers any of their characters black.

Given the size of the roster and frequency of the game's updates, it seems odd that Riot hasn't made a black champion along the way. This addition would help them appeal to a larger audience, settle a frequently-revisited topic in the community, and, really, there's just no reason not to do it. Plenty of African, Caribbean, etc. myths contain characters who would fit into LoL just fine; Anansi, a spider that also appears as a man, or Shango, a thunder god who plays the drums are prime examples. Certainly the latter sounds like he could be a mechanically interesting tank.

Riot is not alone in their unintentional oversight. Other MOBA games, including Heroes of Newerth and Defense of the Ancients, tend to fall into the same trap. Even beyond MOBAs, this is a reality of most fantasy games. Think of League of Legends as a case study in a larger discussion about ethnicity in video games.

A few days ago a League of Legends champion, named Fiora, got leaked onto a respected League of Legends' fansite. Accompanying the flood of information was a picture of Fiora herself who seemed...oddly familiar. On the left of the photo above we can see Fiora, the Grand Duelist, and on the right we have Nika "Nikasaur" Harper, a Community Coordinator at Riot Games (the developer of League of Legends). I'm not just seeing things, right? One seems to have been inspired by another.

Nikasaur also hosts the "Summoner Showcase", a series of videos done by Riot featuring fan artwork. As a result she's been one of the most visible members of the Riot team and one who may go from just being seen on the screen to being playable. They're both white, yes, they're both female, yes, but the real kicker is the hair. The comb over to one side paired with the purpleish hair makes it an easy comparison to draw. Is it possible? Could Riot's design team have decided to try and immortalize Nikasaur? Or did she take them all out in a high stakes card game?

Note that Fiora has not yet been confirmed by Riot.

This is the next League of Legends Champion - Fiora [State of the League]

Razer's sleek and stylish Blade gaming laptop is slowly making its way into the hands of customers ballsy enough to drop $2,800 on an untested product from a company that's never made a gaming laptop before. Did their gamble pay off?

The day my Razer Blade review unit arrived I could not get over the unit's looks. Thin and deadly, with nothing but some vents and the odd stylized squid marring its sleek black exterior, this is one appealingly design machine. Upon hitting the power switch one would be forgiven for expecting it to purr to life like some exotic sports car.

Just don't expect it to drive like one.

Let's take a game-by-game look at how the machine has performed so far.

Since Saturday I've been on a mad downloading spree, attempting to fulfill all of the requests I received for games to test out on Razer's new system. At the mercy of my internet connection I managed to grab several of the most requested titles, with others still in the queue.

Before we begin, here's a quick refresher on the unit's specs:

• 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 2640M Processor
• 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory
• 17.3" LED Backlit Display (1920x1080)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M with NVIDIA Optimus Technology 2GB Dedicated GDDR5 Video Memory
• Built-in HD Webcam
• Integrated 60Wh Battery
• 250GB SSD Storage
• Wireless Network 802.11 b/g/n Compatible
• Battery: 6 hours idle, 2 1/2 if playing "hardcore" game.
• 16.81" (Width) x 10.9" (Depth) x 0.88" (Height); 6.97lbs (Weight)

Not exactly mind-blowing specs, but then that's not what the Razer Blade is all about. As the company likes to point out, the Razer Blade is about portability and convenience more than it is about power. At less than an inch thick and weighing in at around six pounds, this is the most portable 17 inch gaming laptop around.

Now let's see how the most portable 17 inch gaming laptop around performed, shall we?

League of Legends: The Razer Blade is a monster when it comes to Riot Games' ridiculously popular multiplayer online battle arena game. Then again so is my $500 Best Buy laptop — League of Legends isn't exactly a resource-intensive title. It just looks much better on the Blade's large and lovely screen. With settings maxed and shadows on high I got a uniform 60 frames per second, by far the best performance of all the games I tried. It's also one of the only games I could recommend using the Blade's built-in Switchblade touchpad user interface to control — anything more action-intensive cries out for an external mouse. Luckily the Blade comes packed with one.

Battlefield 3: I was frightened about running Battlefield 3 on the Blade, worried I might hurt its delicate innards. Indeed attempting to run it on Ultra settings was like transforming the beautiful black box into the world's most expensive slide projector. Thankfully the issue righted itself with one simple step down to High settings, running at a relatively constant 30 frames per second, more than enough for me to get my ass shot off.

It bears noting that running anything more demanding than League of Legends generated a fair amount of heat under the unit. I've not had any problems arise from rising temperatures yet, but it does get quite uncomfortable when attempting to play with the unit in my lap. Well, first it gets nice. Then it gets uncomfortable. Or maybe it's just uncomfortable for everybody now. MOVING ON...

Star Wars: The Old Republic: BioWare's massively multiplayer game in a galaxy far, far away seriously stuttered on any setting greater than Low. Mind you it plays like a dream on Low (or as much like a dream as The Old Republic can get), and is certainly good for a couple of quick quests or a flashpoint or two while sipping your coffee at Starbucks, where America goes to tech new technology.

The Witcher 2: Here's where I was expecting the Blade to really choke. Considering the problems my high-powered gaming desktop had running The Witcher 2 at launch, surely the Blade would trip over its own sword and fall on it here. Damn CD Projekt for their patches and fixes, ruining my fun. Again the Blade managed to perform admirably under all but the highest settings, though of course the lower the graphics the better the performance.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: It was in the wintry hills of Skyrim that the Blade struggled the most, low frame rates rearing their ugly heads until I set the game to low, and even then the heads were still mighty ugly. The Switchblade touchpad also exhibited extreme amounts of lag in the latest Elder Scrolls game, scrolling a lot like one would expect an elder to scroll; incredibly slowly.

---

That's all I've had time to download so far, but it's easy enough to make out the general trend: Don't expect to play much of anything with the graphics settings maxxed out.

But then as Razer's director of product marketing Heathcliff Hatcher explains, that's not what the Blade was designed to do.

"We believe if performance is all that matters, then a cheaper and more powerful desktop should be the way to go. If it's a laptop, then we sacrifice some performance (but it should still play games well) but portability is just as important. 0.88" thin and 6lbs with good performance in our view is better than 2-3" thick and 12-16lbs. Again, if someone just cares about performance we think Origin makes a phenomenal laptop and they should get it. But it's just a really different product type and we didn't intend it to be a straight up head to head benchmark – how do you benchmark how someone feels when they carry a Razer Blade vs. a traditional gaming laptop all day?"

He's right, you know. Origin does make a damn fine laptop, but I wouldn't want to carry it around in my backpack all day. Someone might steal it!

Perhaps that wasn't the point.

Also keep in mind that there are video driver updates and such in the pipes that will likely render these initial impressions moot, in which case I just wasted a great deal of time.

I'll have more on the Razer Blade in the next couple weeks as I carry it about everywhere I go and fiddle about with that glowing LCD touchscreen they've placed next to the keyboard.

Chen Rong-yu of Taiwan checked into an internet cafe in the city of New Taipei on Tuesday evening to play popular multiplayer PC game League of Legends. Wednesday evening a waitress found the 23-year-old sitting rigidly in his chair, hands outstretched towards the computer.

He had been dead for up to nine hours.

Intense levels of concentration and marathon gaming sessions are common at internet cafes throughout the region, where players purchase computer time in order to log into their favorite online multiplayer games. So it makes a sad sort of sense that the 30 other people working and playing at the New Taipei location failed to realize they were sitting in the same room with a corpse for several hours.

Rong-yu was apparently witnessed talking on his cell phone around noon on Wednesday, the last time anyone recalls seeing him alive. Initial police reports indicate he may have died due to cardiac arrest brought on by blot clots formed due to a combination of cold temperatures, exhaustion, and lack of movement. According to his family he had been treated for a heart condition last September.

Gamer Dies At Web Cafe - But No-One Notices [Sky News]