Release Date: 27/10/2009
Genre: RTS/MOBA
Publisher: Riot Games
Developer: Riot Games
Platform: PC/Mac
Players: 2-10 online
Classification: T for Teen
League of Legends, where do I start? I suppose I should
start with explaining that League of Legends or “LoL” as I may refer to it in
the remainder of the article, was and is still one of the biggest
MOBA games of today, “MOBA”
meaning “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena” and also “Action Real Time Strategy”
(ARTS) it was the game to coin the genre but wasn’t the first of its kind as I
will now explain. The gameplay from League of Legends is generally known to
have been taken from
Defence of the
Ancients or “DOTA” which was a custom-made map for Warcraft III: Reign of
Chaos and the Frozen Throne however this is only partially true.
Aeon of Strife
was a
Starcraft custom
map which in part inspired the creation of DOTA and the whole MOBA scene.
League Legends is currently one of the top Esports games being played along
with Starcraft II and Warcraft III in the RTS category and the Counter-strike
series in the FPS category.
A very informative video series on the history of the MOBA genre.
I for one did like the idea of playing as a single unit in
an RTS game, so much so that I did various experiments utilizing the addition
of heroes to the Blizzard RTS series in Warcraft 3 such as editing multiplayer
maps with the Warcraft 3 map editor so I (and my brother sometimes) could play
a map as a single hero unit aligned with an ally cpu character, which was fun
but hard to manage and sometimes annoying when you have to work with the cpu
players constant attacking and retreating as it does in that game also it
because hard to strive to the finish when you had to have buildings available
for you to respawn with. I had a good time doing the same thing in
Company of Heroes
where I created a 2v2 or 3v3 cpu player fight and tacked myself onto one of the
teams but played only as a single tank or sniper while the cpu players fought.
 |
| DOTA Company of Heroes style |
I never really played the Aeon of Strife Starcraft map, but
I did play a bit of DOTA back when it first started, because DOTA was basically
just a custom map and did not have much in the way of instruction and support
for newcomers, which although this did improve it has now become a common theme
that MOBA games have a very steep learning curve. DOTA was a MOBA at its most
basic, the classic square map with the map split diagonally down the middle
with two enemy factions controlling each side at the bottom left and top right
corners the three “lanes” which are
defended by enemy towers and small “creep” units that move down the lanes to
attack the enemy with each faction have a “home” structure which needs to be
defeated to achieve victory.
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| The basic MOBA map layout |
Though I liked DOTA there were some things I didn’t like,
namely that I had no idea what items to get or in what order (this was soon
fixed in League of Legends) and also the unforgiving fact that you had to be
there at all times, in FPS games and sometimes RTS you can leave for about 3-5
minutes and come back and still be fairly competitive, well at least you can
still kill other players, if you did that in DOTA you’d all of the sudden be
outlevelled and spent the rest of the match trying to keep up and failing as
you are pounded by the higher level players. I think even then I did feel that
whole game based around that would be good idea.
 |
| The pioneering DOTA |
So in October 2009, 6 years after the first DOTA custom map
was created, came
League of
Legends by
Riot Games,
the publisher who was known to have coined the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle
Arena) name as a marketing term. My brother and I enthusiastically played LoL a
lot when it came out as we were eager to see this game based around DOTA and
also like other MOBA games it was completely free to play which was still quite
rare for a game of this magnitude. and it was good, one thing I did enjoy was
the way the game matched players of equal skill (at the lower levels), and it
was just so much easier to play, the game had tutorials and information all
over the place and best of all when you got into the game you a list of
suggested items how to get them and in what order. We played for awhile until I
got bored of the game and my brother tired of the unbalanced nature of the
higher echelon as when the game first came out there was problems like this but
otherwise I had a good experience with the game and was able to stay
competitive.
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| Pushing a lane with a ranged character |
Like most games playing League of Legends is pretty simple
to learn and takes a while to master, it follows the usual
MOBA
map and play style which I won’t go into too much detail here about how you do
things but basically you are a “Summoner” and you choose a “Champion” to use in
the arena. You have to fight your way through the small creep units, taking
down the towers and defeating the other players to get to your enemies castle
and destroy it. This sounds quite simple but it quite complex, in order to stay
alive you must know when to attack and when to retreat when to “push” your lane
and when to fall back and defend and when to attack enemy players. Then there’s
all the advanced things like teaming up to defeat enemy champions easier and venturing
into the middle parts of the map in between the lanes aka the “jungle” where
treasures and neutral monsters can be found. League of Legends has several
different modes of play, there the most common 5v5 played on the “Summoner’s
Rift” map, which is the classic 3 lane MOBA style, 3v3 which is played on the
“Twisted Treeline” a smaller variant which runs horizontally with two lanes
instead of 3, ARAM (All Random All Mid) which is played on the Howling Rift and
is pretty much a head on collision course between the two teams with only one
lane, and finally Dominion, which is played on the Crystal Scar map and is
based around a ‘point capturing’ style of play.
 |
| The Twisted Treeline, a smaller variant on the classi MOBA map style |
Controlling your champion is pretty simple if you have
played any kind of
RTS
game before though when moving the camera is focused on your champion, you
click on the minimap or main map to move or attack and use the QWERTY keys to
activate your champion and summoner abilities though these are just the basic
keys there are many more to use as your skills increase as with all games
really. The game interface is relatively simple, you have your character
portrait, level, stats, gold and items on the left hand corner, your Champion
and Summoner abilities, Health and Mana in the middle and your minimap and menu
buttons on the right. You also have things like your teammates portraits,
health and mana, kill and assist info and target portraits around the main
screen. The graphics as with most MOBA games are fairly cartoony with a
cel-shading aspect that marvellously accentuates the heroes from the creep
and other units, you’d come to expect the
cartooniness and this definitely doesn’t distract from the main game as it
looks great, especially the lighting with all the glowing and how it adapts to
the environmental dark and light places.
 |
| The screen interface at the starting area of the twisted treeline. |
As a
Summoner
you play more matches and win and lose you receive experience and level up and
also (depending on how well you do in a game) obtain
Influence points
(IP) this can be used to purchase Runes and some other items in the store. The
other online currency is Riot Points which can be purchased with real money and
is used to purchase Champions, Champion skins and
booster items that
increase the amount of IP you get from games, it is also used often as prizes
for tournaments.
When starting a normal game of LoL against random opponents
you first have to join the queue of your chosen game type, once you have done
this and you are matched with a team you then you then need to do four things
The first of which is to pick a
Champion, these
“champions” have many different traits inc different stats, spells and
abilities but can be roughly classified under 6 types:
- Assassin: Champions
who excel at sneaking around and burst-damage for quick kill
- Fighter:
All-round melee champion who could have both tank and assassin traits.
- Mage: Champions
who cast spells and have most of their power in their abilities
- Tank: Champions
who have lots of health and abilities that draw enemies to attack them instead
of allies.
- Support:
Champions that have abilities that heal, strengthen or protect allies.
- Marksman: Are
non-magical ranged champions
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| The store where you can purchase champions for IP or RP |
You then need to choose your “
Summoner spells”
which are spells that you the Summoner use to assist your champion when
playing, these include things like healing your champion and slowing enemy
champions. After that you need to pick your
Rune page and your
Mastery page. Runes
and masteries are an additional way of modifying the champions you select,
runes give whichever champion you are playing with extra stats for example more
health, armor, or things like lifesteal, there are many different kinds of
runes which can be bought with
Influence points
(IP). Masteries are essentially a talent skill tree which is used in many games
(most prominently MMO’s) and as you level up by playing LoL you receive more
points to use for your mastery sheet, mastery sheets have 3 trees, Offense,
Defense and Utility which you can points into one in particular or one or
two,
you also can fill multiple mastery
sheets depending on which champion you are going to use.
 |
| Runes and Quintessences page |
 |
| Masteries Page |
Another thing you need to think about is items, as the game
progresses you acquire
gold
through last hitting minions, killing Epic Monsters, destroying enemy turrets,
and killing champions (or assisting) which is the in game currency of LoL, you
use gold to purchase items from the shop from where you start, the shop
consists of Defense, Attack, Magic, Movement, and Consumables categories. Many
high-end items in the shop are obtained by purchasing low-end items which when
purchased in order allowed you to create them.
I was pleased to see that the game had a “recommended items” list and
even told you what to buy and in which order which you could just double-click
each item to purchase and merged the two items together to create another one.
 |
| The recommended items screen makes things much easier to pick your items when in the heat of the match and having only 20 seconds to decide when respawning |
Playing League of Legends online (as with most MOBA games)
has quite a steep learning curve even when you are matched with opponents of a
similar ability when you first start you are sometimes chastised with your lack
of experience. But thankfully there are plenty of tutorials when you first
start the game and suggests to try some matches with easier AI controlled
players before going in the deep end but thankfully once you do you are matched
with similarly ranked players which are hopefully of the same standard to you,
it seems to work for me as I found that most of the time I was pretty
competitive, winning more then I lost.
You learn lots of things fast playing
League of Legends for the first time, you learn not to rush in recklessly and
get killed many times, you learn to use the bushes to hide and you learn that
continuously “pushing” your lane isn’t always the best idea and venture into
the jungle and appear behind the enemy for a bit of stealth killing which is
what’s known as “jungling”. When playing your champion you must remember their
strengths and weaknesses and play appropriately to the type of champion you
have selected i.e you wouldn’t charge forward with a ranged character as they
are often weaker and you wouldn’t pick an assassin-style champion for basic
lane-pushing and they are more suited for jungling.
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| 'Jungling' with Udyr who is preferable champion to use for this style of play |
League of Legends as I have mentioned has been a hit with
the gaming community around the world, putting it on par with Starcraft II as
one of the biggest esports games today despite being almost 5 years old today
it continues to draw fans and competes fiercely with the likes of rival MOBA’s
such as
DOTA 2 and
Heroes of Newerth. LoL is played as
one a tournaments at the
Lanslide that I
attend almost solely for the purpose of playing League of Legends and possibly
Starcraft II. I like it, I don’t find anything much wrong with it that the MOBA
haters always seem to, sure it’s tough sometimes and the learning curve is
steep but it’s a game that makes you want to co-operate with your teammates and
win and I can tell you I don’t get that feeling with many games. Although the
game is free I must admit I most definitely paid for it as I have spent almost
$80 on new champions and skins to play in tournaments which I will probably
never win but justify as donating to a free game that I like, it’s something
I’ve never done before and I’m not sure why but meh, it was worth it as I may
not be the best on the battlefield but at least I stand out from the rest.
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| Whether it's been a well-fought game or an imbalanced drubbing, seeing this is still incredibly satisfying. |
League of Legends may be one of the more complicated MOBA
games, with its runes and masteries and other champion customization features
but it was the one that paved the way for the MOBA genre, and I approve.
JD
A thrilling match between two world-class LoL teams, in this video you can see how big LoL has become in esports.
Run away!
