Hi again TL. The N3rd Dimension comes out with a new post today, and the start of a new series of posts! In this series, I talk about something that I think is the Best Fucking Thing Ever, and today that's League of Legends. Like League? See if you agree with what I like. Hate League? Take a look, and maybe offer some thoughts about what you prefer. Or fuck off, if you're going to be an asshole. Don't know about League? See if this makes you interested. No matter what, enjoy!
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Every once and a while, there’s just something we have to tell everyone. We have to say that “THIS IS THE BEST FUCKING THING EVER.” Yes, it’s hyperbolic, but sometimes you just want to gush about how much you love something. Nerds love to talk about what they’re into. This is how I indulge that impulse. Welcome to Best Fucking Thing Ever, a regular segment where I talk about something that’s awesome, regardless of its flaws.
Today’s Topic: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS.
League of Legends is a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients, a Warcraft 3 mod that became as frequently played as the game in which it was built, both competitively and by the masses. It is made by Riot Games, a studio dedicated to League alone. In response to DotAs popularity, many developers began to create their own versions of the game, enough to spawn its own genre. It has several names, but my favorite is “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena,” or MOBA. All MOBAs (games like SMITE, Monday Night Combat, and Heroes of Newerth) have a few similar characteristics. First, there’s the objective: get across the map and destroy the enemy team’s base. The two bases are typically oriented in the top-right and bottom-left of a square map. Simple enough. How is this accomplished then? The players are grouped up into two teams, usually with five players, and choose from a massive host of champions. (League has 105, with more and more added every month) These heroes each have a unique set of abilities, as well as a simple attack. Once chosen, the heroes walk out on to the map, which have three distinct lanes leading from base to base. Laser-shooting watchtowers dot each of the lanes, and they are patrolled by AI-controlled minions loyal to each team. Each teams’ champions venture out to fight on the map, killing minions, towers, and other champions for gold, buying items and acquiring levels to gain new strength, and using that strength to dominate the enemy team and destroy their home turf.
That’s how the game is played. But what makes it the BEST FUCKING THING EVER?
League of Legends‘ overwhelming popularity comes from the addictive gameplay that evolved from DotA, from it’s free-to-play policy, and from the strategic depth in the simple mechanics of the game. On the surface, League is straightforward: choose a cool champion and use it to destroy your enemies. And playing that way can be a lot of fun. However, you soon learn that not all champions are designed for direct damage. Some have protective utility, and some excel at ignoring the damage while disrupting attackers. As you being to understand the variety of roles that different champions can perform, you can find new ways to play the game. My favorite is playing in the ‘support’ role: champions who don’t deal much damage, but are skilled in setting other champions up for kills or saving them from a tight squeeze. The many roles in the game, as well as the varying playstyles, take LoL from being a straightforward killing game to one which requires skill and nuance. The depth of technique within the game has given rise to a professional eSports scene for the game. Watching the game in a competitive environment draws in fans who love watching the push and pull of champion interactions and team strategies and want to try them for themselves.
The game’s free-to-play format also lures new players. Instead of having to pay up front for a game, anyone can play League for free. Forever. You never have to pay a cent for the game. But Riot created a genius (if terrifyingly devious) micro-transaction approach to profiting from their game. When you first start playing, you can only pick from the 10 free champions of the week. As you play, you gain a form of in-game currency (called IP) which allows you to purchase other champions. However, you can also spend real money on the game, allowing you to purchase champions without having to sink hours into earning IP. When cool and powerful new champions are released, it’s difficult to keep from reaching for your wallet. At this point, I’m resigned to the fact that I will continuously sink money into League of Legends. Then again, I also decided long ago that it’s worth paying for good entertainment. LoL provides me with endless amounts.
These parts of League got me into the game, but what keeps me coming back for more are the champion designs and lore, as well as the vast and dedicated League community. The signature element of League, and all MOBAs, are the champions, with all of their eccentricities, oddities, and beauties. All 104 heroes are aesthetically striking in their own way, such that all can be easily distinguished on the field of battle. The champions’ skills don’t just define the playstyles of the champions, but their characters and personalities. They are also skillfully voice-acted, which creates a strangely close relationship between yourself, the champs you love to play, and the ones you absolutely abhor. Finally, the champions’ lore, while unimportant in the scope of the game mechanics, is deep and engrossing, despite the lack of a narrative within the actual game. My favorite champions are Leona, the Radiant Dawn and Diana, the Scorn of the Moon. My affection for these champs comes from their thematically opposing lore, as well as their unique and stylized aesthetics. Well… that and they’re fucking awesome ladies in armor with bad-ass swords (THE SUN ALWAYS RISES/EMBRACE THE HERESY).
On top of the greatness of League of Legends game is its marvelous community of players. Okay… I’ll be straight with everyone: most of them are total asshats. Very obvious asshats. But the more I play, the more I realize that I don’t mind the asshats that much. In fact, I really enjoy having nine other players in my game every time I click ‘Play.’ As good or terribly, awfully bad as my teammates and opponents may be, they are individuals who approach the game differently, enjoy it for distinct reasons, and interact with their fellow summoners in separate ways. I complain about them a lot, but I also love playing with new people every single game. Not to mention that the community of League players love the game to the point of making League of Legends art. They also promote its eSports scene, which is awesome to me. And if you’re lucky, you can even find a decent group of League players with whom you can talk strategy and current tournament results. Being a part of the biggest video game community in the world is its own reward to me, and that’s something that only League can provide.
So, have I convinced you that League of Legends is the Best Fucking Thing Ever yet? Are you wondering how you too can play this great game? Well, if you have a PC (or are okay with a third-party Mac port), then you can go to the League website (or that of the aforementioned third-party) and grab the game. OR, if you’re a good person and you love me, you can sign up for an account saying I referred you, so I get prizes for you playing. (No, that’s not what this post was all about — it was just a nice bonus). And get into the game. And add me as a friend: I’m ‘DJForeclosure,’ and I’d love to play one of my favorite games with you.
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You can check out this post, this series (well, this is the first one), and the rest of the blog at the N3rd Dimension.
"On top of the greatness of League of Legends game is its marvelous community of players. Okay… I’ll be straight with everyone: most of them are total asshats. "
Title : " Best Fucking Thing Ever: League of Legends"
I thought you were ironic.
My point : good (sometimes ) , not the best (at all).
I'm still not sure what to make of that post, even after reading it twice.
LoL is great to relax, it's not the hardest game ever but it's right at the border between "too easy" and "too complicated". I like how streamlined most of it is and i don't care that it removes some advanced DotA stuff like denying, that is what makes it fun instead of work.
However, there are some things i don't like about it, most notably the recent art style. Seriously, why mess up Miss Fortune? And Luxs mini-picture? And Ezreal now looks like some tribesman from the jungle who stumbled on a crashed airplane...
Best game ever: Mount and Blade Warband. Best competitive multiplayer game ever: Quake 3
League of Legends‘ overwhelming popularity comes from the addictive gameplay that evolved from DotA, from it’s free-to-play policy, and from the strategic depth in the simple mechanics of the game.
fixed that for you
jk, i love lol and i agree with your points. however, it is far from the best thing ever. that would be brood war.
League of Legends‘ overwhelming popularity comes from the addictive gameplay that evolved from DotA, from it’s free-to-play policy, and from the strategic depth in the simple mechanics of the game.
fixed that for you
jk, i love lol and i agree with your points. however, it is far from the best thing ever. that would be brood war.
Misleading title: Granted. I love LoL regardless of what flaws it DEFINITELY has, and that's the point of this post. It's purposefully hyperbolic because I feel like it. Plus being so straightforward about it gets people to take a look, even if it's just to disagree with me. I had no illusions about this being popular with everyone and that's fine as long as you tell me why. The next one will probably be about something like Gurren Lagann, and I'll probably do one eventually on how DotA2 is the best thing ever. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
On October 09 2012 06:31 Ares[Effort] wrote: League is the best thing ever, btw it's 105 champs :p
Well, it's not 100% FTP, as you can pay for some heroes and in-game bonuses I believe. (Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I for sure know that you can pay to get access to certain champions) And, yeah, LoL is pretty good but it's not as good as DotA 2. It really is a matter of opinion, I guess, but a lot of people would agree that DotA 2 is better. Statistically, people who have played both prefer DotA 2. (I can't site this, just going from personal experience, friends and shit)
I think Mega64 already established the best thing ever in their "Mega64: TODD & AARON'S GAME AWARDS 2011!!!!!!!" video but I won't spoil it for you. I'll make it easy for you and point to it here
On October 09 2012 07:31 thoraxe wrote: I think Mega64 already established the best thing ever in their "Mega64: TODD & AARON'S GAME AWARDS 2011!!!!!!!" video but I won't spoil it for you. I'll make it easy for you and point to it here
On October 09 2012 06:59 empty.bottle wrote: "spiritual successor" lol. oh and btw the game DEvolved from dota.
I was expecting a post like this. In truth the denial system is not something that the game SHOULD have had considering the main person who created DotA (the original, not the second copies of DotA within the WCIII custom games) did not want it in LoL when he helped develop LoL. He only had it in earlier because he could not get rid of it. Furthermore, some of the DotA intricacies are just uselessly complex and the game is pretty much LoL when it comes to everything else. People can argue against that but its the truth. Also it is the spiritual successor considering the same guy that made the original of originals made LoL
On October 09 2012 06:30 Gurderoy wrote: "On top of the greatness of League of Legends game is its marvelous community of players. Okay… I’ll be straight with everyone: most of them are total asshats. "
Title : " Best Fucking Thing Ever: League of Legends"
I thought you were ironic.
My point : good (sometimes ) , not the best (at all).
A lot of people who disagree with you about that one dude.
On October 09 2012 06:59 empty.bottle wrote: "spiritual successor" lol. oh and btw the game DEvolved from dota.
I was expecting a post like this. In truth the denial system is not something that the game SHOULD have had considering the main person who created DotA (the original, not the second copies of DotA within the WCIII custom games) did not want it in LoL when he helped develop LoL. He only had it in earlier because he could not get rid of it. Furthermore, some of the DotA intricacies are just uselessly complex and the game is pretty much LoL when it comes to everything else. People can argue against that but its the truth. Also it is the spiritual successor considering the same guy that made the original of originals made LoL
On October 09 2012 06:30 Gurderoy wrote: "On top of the greatness of League of Legends game is its marvelous community of players. Okay… I’ll be straight with everyone: most of them are total asshats. "
Title : " Best Fucking Thing Ever: League of Legends"
I thought you were ironic.
My point : good (sometimes ) , not the best (at all).
A lot of people who disagree with you about that one dude.
Not going to get into the argument of what's better, people can like whatever they want, but who exactly do you consider the guy that made the original of the originals? And which game was that?
To expand on it, the guy who did the "original of originals" is called Aeon64, and I have no clue what he is doing right now. The guy who first made a similar map for WC3 was Karukef The guy who made the first version of Dota for Reign of Chaos is Euls, afaik he works at Valve. He also made a version for TFT but it wasn't sucessful. The first guys who made a Dota Allstars version was Meian and Ragn0r. Guinsoo, I assume he is the one you mean as he works at Riot, continued the development at some point and almost killed Dota (and all future clones) by not passing it on to other developers when his interest died out. The guy that made Dota what Dota is today is IceFrog, he works at Valve.
There are a lot of people you have to give credit for Dota, this list ignores a lot of other people that also worked on the game. Guinsoo was just one of many, and definatelly not the first.
Well, I guess I'm a dedicated follower of this N3rd Dimension..I actually am insterested by the part where you said you can tell how distinctly everyone loves it... I actually tried to get LoL to relax and practice my mouseclicking (i love clicking) and map awareness and in-game thinking. (If anyone could let me know how helpful it is in this sense i'd appreciate it!)
Anyways, LoL didn't run well at all on the old junker i tried to run it on but now i have access to a slightly better rig that runs d3 (terribly) and sc2 (well-ish). It's cool to see someone actually explain why they love it because everyone is always talking about it as if other people play too. "Ya man i hate when they lane with poseidon(lol thats how it sounds to me) and flame thinking they r the best"
I don't like League of Legends. I played it for 200hours and I don't see any point in playing it. For me it's certainly one of the worse games I played.
On October 11 2012 02:06 KillerSOS wrote: I thought the thread would be a troll... I was sadly disappointed.
Anyone who thinks LoL is the "spiritual successor" to Dota is just blatantly ignoring basic facts.
I did like the write-up though, it was fun
I mean, it is though... there's just no other way to categorize it. At least, I think? Why do you think that?
On October 10 2012 22:32 meteorskunk wrote: Well, I guess I'm a dedicated follower of this N3rd Dimension..I actually am insterested by the part where you said you can tell how distinctly everyone loves it...
EPT
