League of Legends isn’t a new game – It was released at the end of 2009, but it is new to me. Rubi from Massively kept talking about it so I took the plunge and downloaded. It is Free to Play! I’ve played for several days now so I thought I would share my thoughts.
What is League of Legends? It is a PvP action RTS. Not like Starcraft where you command many units. You control one champion who works with others to win a match. It is just like Defense of the Ancients from Warcraft 3, which I have never played. Two even number teams, up to 5 vs 5, fighting their way to the other side through computer generated minions and turrets, defeating them, chipping away at the opposing teams defenses, to try and take control of the field by destroying the opposing team’s nexus.
You are a summoner and at the beginning of each match, you choose one champion from an assortment to play a match. You don’t have to always use the same one, but it pays to learn to use one well. Each Champion has a few varying traits, ranged, melee, stealth, caster, tank, etc. and then they also each have 4 main abilities and one passive. Your champion starts out the match at level 1 with no items or money. As you defeat enemies and turrets, you gain XP and gold. Each time you level you get a point to either activate one of your abilities so you can start using it, or upgrading an ability you already activated. The max level in any match is 18. You spend your gold on items which boost your abilities like damage, movement speed, mana regen, and defense.
After the match is over, you get to see the stats for the match and you are rewarded Summoner XP and IP. The XP levels YOU as a summoner and eventually you will hit max level of 30. Each level you go up gives you a mastery point to spend in a talent tree sort of way and opens up rune slots which let you add permanent bonuses to any champion you choose to play. One nice thing is that you can change all these things whenever you want at no cost or penalty. The IP is used to buy runes or unlock champions to play. You can also purchase champions or new skins to change the look of your champions for real money.
There is a nice tutorial to let you learn how to play and get use to the controls. It is click to move and then you use 4 keys to bind your abilities. After you get down the basics, you can queue for 5 vs 5 matches against bots. 5 Humans vs 5 Computer AI bots. This is a nice feature to let you learn your champion and to learn teamwork. The bots aren’t too nasty, I almost always win against them in the end but they can sure send you to the grave several times if you arent careful. Queue times for 5 vs bots take about 5 seconds.
You can also choose to set up matches 1 v 1 up to 5 v 5…and you can choose to pick your teammates or let people join…or assign spots to Computer AI Bots. Matches take anywhere from 20 min to an hour. Then you can chose to fight against normal players, and get into ranked matches after you get comfortable with a champion you like. They hold tournaments for real money if you get real good…which I never will…cause i’m too old to learn to PvP well!
The company, Riot Games, does a great job keeping people up to date with news, events, and changes. They put out weekly videos and spotlight videos on how to play different champions. The forums seem very active and people are tweeting about LOL all the time.
I typically am not a lover of PvP. I use to have some fun in World of Warcraft battle grounds but usually ended up frustrated because no matter which class I played, I would always die quickly. I don’t get that feeling as much in LOL. It does take some time to find the right champions that suit your playstyle, so don’t give up after 2 or 3 matches. Learn when to back off, learn what jobs your champion excels at and learn to do that well and you will have fun! Its a great game to hop in and out of without having to grind quests to level and worry about having the best armor or weapons for your next match.
Give it a try! Please use this link to sign up as it gives me a referral point to get a new champion for free! SIGN UP and Play Free My current favorites are Sivir and Orianna. Add me as a friend in game (Mirinesse) if you want to play a bit.
Tags: Defense of the Ancients, DOTA, DOTA 2, Free to Play, League of Legends, MMO, Review, RTS
Ty! You made my day! Bookmarked!
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