Wednesday 17 April 2013

League of Legends

When thinking about what I'd like to talk about on here, one thing I was sure I would talk about along the way was League of Legends. Now for anyone who's not a gamer, or who doesn't know what League of Legends is, I'll start with a quick run down.

League of Legends is a free-to-play online multiplayer PC Game. The term given to the genre in which the game fits is MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) or DOTA-Style (Named after Defense of the Ancients, the first game in the genre). In the game, you play the role of a "Champion", a hero picked from a roster of over 100 different characters. Each character has their own set of 4 unique abilities as well as a basic attack.

In its most common gameplay mode, you join a team of 4 other players in a match against an opposing set of 5 players. The goal of the game is to help an ever spawning group of computer controlled "minion" make their way from your base (or Nexus) to the opposing team's Nexus. There are three routes the minions take (known as the lanes - top, middle and bottom). Along these lanes are powerful Towers that attempt to destroy the oncoming horde (and any players stupid enough to dive past them). Once you've destroyed the towers in a particular lane you can push into their base for victory.

The game is strategically rich with huge variations in how the games plays depending on things like champion composition and overall team cohesiveness. On top of this, there are regular content updates, with a new champion being released every 2-3 weeks.

I've been playing League of Legends on a fairly regular basis now for over 3 years. That's much longer than I've ever played any other game before. So why do I keep coming back to it? Well, part of it because as I said, there is a huge amount of variety in the game, and always something fresh. Each game you play is different from every other game you've played.

Another factor in my enjoyment of this game is its existence as an eSport (electronic sport). League of Legends is one of the major titles that are making a big impression on the world of eSports, with thousands of viewers for even small scale events. The season two world championships last year had over half a million people watching it at its peak. There are matches streamed live multiple times each week so there's always new exciting content to watch. Seeing what professional players do only helps to spur on your own game experience, trying to replicate what you've seen you're favourite pro do this week.

But on top of this, League of Legends is most fun to me because you don't have to be good at the game to enjoy it. I'm not a bad player by any means, and I understand the concepts and strategies behind the game better than a lot of people do. However, my mechanical skill lets me down and is probably the reason why I'd never look to pursue a career as a Pro player. What I really enjoy about League is that I can jump into a game, spend 20-40 minutes of enjoyable game player that's different to each game that's come before it, and not worry about having to achieve "the most optimal" or "the best" play.

I'll have much more to say on League over the course of this blog as I start to look more in depth into topics (especially the one on Random Number Generators). Stay tuned.

Till next time...

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