Tag: league of legends

Photos: Europe Trip – Berlin, Germany WORLDS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For quite a long time, whenever anyone would inquire about where in the world I would like to go, if I could go anywhere at the drop of a hat, I always responded that Germany was where I would want to go. I didn’t really have much basis behind it, other than the fact that I suppose I wasn’t aching to go visit the Motherland or be all weeabooey and say I wanted to go to Japan; ultimately, I think I always wanted to go somewhere where I could look and feel like a complete foreign tourist, and in my mind, Germany seemed to fit that bill.

Well, thanks to WORLDS, I had my excuse to visit Deutschland, and fulfill that line of thinking. Ultimately, I think I was certainly right, because I was very much the foreign tourist in Berlin, not speaking a lick of German, and aside from the litany of fellow Korean tourists also visiting for WORLDS, being very much in the minority of mostly white people faces.

But the thing is, now in hindsight, I don’t necessarily think that it was everything I had thought it would be.

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Photos: Europe Trip – Brussels, Belgium WORLDS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The first leg of the Europe trip was Brussels, Belgium, where the semifinals of WORLDS was going to take place. It was pretty much a hit the ground running kind of trip, since as soon as we settled into our hotel in Brussels, we power napped for a while due to the jet lag I’d never experienced in my life before; by the time we woke up, it was pretty much time to go to the venue.

There’s nothing I haven’t already said about the WORLDS experience that wasn’t in my prior post about the event as a whole, but at least now I’m putting up some of the pictures from the event, which include my hot mythical girlfriend, as well as some shots from within the arena itself, attempting to show some of the atmosphere, the championship Summoner’s Cup, as well as some post-victory pictures from SK Telecom’s victory over Origen.

The rest of the pictures are more or less a litany of mushy couple selfies, as well as some of the places we hit up in our free time in actual Brussels, and not the shitty area surrounding the Brussels Expo area.

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Musing about WORLDS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m never going to deny the fact that ultimately, the impetus for going out to Europe in the first place came about on account of video games, namely the one that I talk about just about every single day, League of Legends. Given the fact that Riot Games made it clear that the annual World Championships would take place in different countries each year, it was a pretty safe bet back in like March that 2015’s WORLDS was very likely going to take place in Europe, considering the previous two WORLDS were in two of the other primary LoL markets of the United States and South Korea. And when it was confirmed that WORLDS would be scattered throughout Europe, it was full speed ahead on making plans not just for attending WORLDS events, but also providing the opportunity to do some European travels.

But yes, for lack of a better term, it all started with WORLDS, and frankly it ended with WORLDS too, since the entire trip was bookended by the WORLDS semifinals in Brussels, with the finals in Berlin.

Everything in between was the sweet gravy of personal travel and new experiences, with the mythical girlfriend.

Anyway, in an attempt to compartmentalize and try to organize my thoughts into neatly organized brog posts, I’m taking an approach of writing about one thing at a time, if I can manage to stick with it; seeing as how WORLDS was what led us to Europe in the first place, I figure there would be no better place to start talking about my Europe trip than talking about WORLDS.

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The fallacy of casual League of Legends

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Typically, whenever I play League of Legends, I play ARAM, because they’re quicker, not taken nearly as seriously as Summoner’s Rift matches, and as odd as it is to say, considering the occasional anxiety and unhappiness of randomly getting a champion you don’t like, there’s something inherently relaxing about ARAM, because there’s an accountability that is taken off the table, by everyone having their players randomly chosen.  I take a lot of flack about my enjoyment of ARAM from some of my friends, but I don’t really care, because I like ARAM, and I think it’s a mode where it kind of helps players actually dare to think outside of the box, instead of falling into “the metas” that people only on the highest level of play dictate, and everyone believes they can emulate.

However lately, I’ve been playing Summoner’s Rift again, because I’ve again been entertaining the thought of taking the plunge into ranked play, to see where I could end up on the gargantuan player pool of League.  Last season, I placed into Silver II, and I made little effort to try and climb out, because it was very late in the season, and secondly I just didn’t care that much.  Ultimately, I was hoping that I could squeak my way into Gold-tier, so that I could get the Victorious Morgana skin, whom only Gold or higher players received, but alas, it was just not in the stars for me to get there.

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Photos: League of Legends shoot – Ahri / Caitlyn

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Now anyone who knows me or who’s been visiting my site for any length of time knows that I don’t really consider myself much of a photographer, much less even using the term “photographer” to describe myself.  I was never formally taught, nor do I put in a tremendous amount of time practicing and trying to improve myself.  I like to read about photography, and try to absorb knowledge that I try to apply to my approach with taking pictures, but that’s really the extent of how much effort I put into.

I just want my camera to do all the work for me, and spit out results that I am expecting to get!

Anyway the point of bringing that up is the mythical girlfriend asked me to take some pictures of her and her friend during Dragon*Con, wearing Ahri and Caitlyn from League of Legends, so that they could have some reliable photographs, since if anything, I’m good at sharing the pictures I take, reliably.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2015 – Sunday Costumes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Finally, we arrive at Sunday’s costume gallery.  This is the last general costuming gallery for me, as I didn’t really stick around on Monday, and was gone fairly early in the afternoon, and had already packed up my camera.

Naturally, it’s packed full of League of Legends costumers, primarily.  If anyone were anything like me by Sunday, it’s like the convention as a royal entity, itself, was tired of all the Max Max and Jurassic Park costumes.

Anyway, there was still plenty left to catch my fancy, for hopefully some deemed acceptable pictures.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2015 – Saturday Costumes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The good news is that I probably took more pictures on Saturday than I did on any other day, so after the lengthy gap in between getting Friday’s and Saturday’s pictures up, (I hope) the rest will go by somewhat more expediently.

Like the last costume gallery, I was being pretty meticulous about trying to take pictures in groups of threes, or at least presenting them in a way that was neat and orderly (kind of), because I’m psychotic like that and have such a strong need for organization.

Anyway, this was an entire day of picture taking at the convention, before escaping to the Georgia Aquarium for their own Dragon*Con Night, which was an interesting escape from the typical convention setting, getting to look at the awesome collection of aquatic life in between taking pictures of people in costume, before it was back to the hotels for the usual devolving into the nights of drinking and camaraderie.

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