League of Legends

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows[1] and Mac OS X, inspired by the mod Defense of the Ancients[2] for the video game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. It is a free-to-play game, supported by micro-transactions. It was first announced on October 7, 2008, and released on October 27, 2009.[3] League of Legends was generally well received at release, and has grown in popularity in the years since.

Players are formed into two teams of five Champions (three on the Twisted Treeline map). As of August 22, 2013, there are 115 different Champions from which to choose. Each player begins at opposing sides of a map near a building called a Nexus. A match is won when either team's Nexus is destroyed. To destroy a Nexus, each team must work through a series of Turrets placed along a path to each base referred to as a Lane. Along the way, each player gains levels from killing the opposing team's Champions and Minions (non-player characters (NPCs) that regularly spawn and attack the other team) and defeating neutral monsters. Completing objectives rewards players with gold which is used to purchase items, making their Champion stronger.

League of Legends is a session-based game. Matchmaking creates teams with even average MMR (Matchmaking Rating) of the constituent players. MMR uses the Elo formula with proprietary adjustments.[4]
There are five general game types: Tutorial, Custom, Co-Op vs. AI, Normal or Ranked. However, even within each type, there are many options available.
Tutorial mode is a set of two introductory games that teach the basics. It is intended to help new players learn important concepts, which might not otherwise be obvious.
Custom mode allows players to create games that players opt into rather than relying on matchmaking to create the teams. In custom matches, the teams can be uneven (for example, 3v4 or 2v5) and may include a mix of players and bots, which are computer-controlled champions.
Co-op vs. AI mode matches players against a team of bots. Similar to the Tutorial mode, it is also intended mainly as a way for inexperienced players to learn, but it also used by more experienced players as a way of experimenting with new ideas or getting an easy First Win of the Day.
Ranked mode is available to players that are level 30. Ranked uses Draft Mode: the first player on each team bans 3 champions from the game, and the two teams cannot have an identical champion. In addition, opposing Champion picks are visible before the game begins. Second, ranked players are seeded into a League system.

Maps in League of Legends are called Fields of Justice.[5] There are currently four maps that the players can choose from: three 5v5 maps and one 3v3 map.

A match puts two teams with a fixed number of players against each other. Each team has its base, which contains the re-spawn point, item shop and nexus. The two bases are connected bylanes. Periodically, waves of minions spawn from the nexus, AI-controlled troops that walk down the lanes, engaging any enemies they encounter. The lanes are lined with turrets that engage enemies within range. Once a turret is destroyed, it cannot be rebuilt. Each lane has an inhibitor on both ends. Inhibitor is a building that prevents powerful "super minions" from being spawned for the enemy team. The team that destroyed an inhibitor will gain a temporary advantage, but inhibitors will respawn after 5 minutes.

Besides the lanes, the maps also contain "jungle" areas, which contain neutral monsters to be killed for bonus gold and experience. Some powerful neutral monsters grant the killer a temporarybuff that will help them in battle. Another special terrain feature is the brush. Brush blocks the line of sight of units, allowing champions to hide and set up an ambush.

The goal of each team is to destroy the enemy Nexus. The first team to achieve this is the victor. Victory is also attained if the opponent surrenders, using a voting system where 70% of the team must agree (4 of 5 players usually), but only after enough time has passed.

Dominion is a game mode released by Riot Games in September 2011.[6] Dominion brings faster action and tactical gameplay played on a new map, The Crystal Scar, and features a new Capture-and-Hold playstyle. The Inhibitors and Turrets have been removed - instead, the map has five Capture Points. Capturing one of these points will turn it into a Turret and allow it to start spawning minions. Item availability is also different in Dominion,.[7] Two new summoner spells, called Garrison and Promote were released with the new game mode, with the latter also being available in Summoner's Rift. Promote is no longer available in either game mode. The Teleport summoner spell is not available in Dominion. This game mode is aimed to be much shorter than conventional 30-45-minute classic games: most Dominion games average about 15–25 minutes in duration.

The Summoner acts as the persistent element in the game, to be used to track statistics and scores for each player.[8][9] Summoners gain experience points and "Influence Points" (in-game currency) for each battle they participate in. They level up by getting enough experience. The Summoner can also choose two summoner spells.[8] These spells significantly impact gameplay, and have a high cooldown while costing no mana. All spells can be improved by masteries, which are developed in a skill tree.[8] Masteries are perks that affect gameplay, structured in a skill tree. All of the masteries are passive effects, although some augment summoner spells, which can be activated. They are grouped into Offensive, Defensive, and Utility categories. Masteries can be re-distributed at will between battles.

Similar to masteries, runes affect gameplay in minor ways. Runes are categorized into Marks (offensive), Seals (defensive), Glyphs (magic) and Quintessences (utility). Runes must be unlocked in the Store and it is possible to have more than one copy of a rune. Summoners must arrange their runes in the Runebook to benefit from them. The Runebook has limited number of slots for each rune type, but more rune pages can be purchased from either Influence Points or Riot Points. Combining two equal-tier runes produces a random rune of the same tier, while combining 5 equal-tier runes produces a higher-tier rune.

The League of Legends Store allows Summoners to purchase additional options through Riot Points (RP) and Influence Points (IP). Riot Points must be bought using real money, while Influence Points are earned by playing the game.

Moderation is conducted through a democratic system known as The Tribunal. In this system, player-submitted reports are reviewed by other players on a case-by-case basis. The reviewing players then submit their opinions on the legality of the behavior demonstrated. A consensus renders the decision official. It is notable that players are unable to be permanently banned through this system, since "all permanent bans are distributed manually." Reviewers receive a Justice Rating based on their accuracy to encourage thorough analysis of cases.[10]

League of Legends has long been a focus of public competition. The 2010 World Cyber Games Grand Finals in Los Angeles hosted a League of Legends tournament, at which teams from China, Europe, and the America competed. The Counter Logic Gaming team from North America won the tournament, earning a $7,000 prize.[11]

Competitive play reached new heights at the Season 1 World Championships in June 2011. The event, held at at Dreamhack in Sweden, featured US$100,000 in prizes. The European team Fnaticdefeated teams from Europe, the USA, and Asia to win the tournament and received US$50,000 of prize money.[12] Over 1.6 million viewers watched streaming broadcast of the event, with a peak of over 210,000 simultaneous viewers in one semi-final match.[13]

After Season 1, Riot announced that US$5,000,000 would be paid out over Season 2. Of this 5 million, 2 million will go to Riot's partners including the IPL and other major eSports associations. Another 2 million goes to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and championship. The final one million goes to small organizers who apply to Riot to host League of Legends tournaments.[14]

After a series of network issues during the Season 2 World Playoffs that led to several matches being delayed, Riot revealed on October 13, 2012, that a special LAN-based client had been quickly developed, designed for use in tournament environments where the effects of lag and other network issues can be detrimental to the proper organization of an event. The LAN client was deployed for the first time during the first quarter-final and semi-final matches played following the re-scheduled matches, and was in use during the finals.[15]

On October 13, 2012, Taiwan's professional team Taipei Assassins (TPA) triumphed over South Korea's Azubu Frost 3-to-1 in the Finals of Season 2 World Championship, and claimed the $1 million in prize money.[16]

As of 2013, League of Legends is the most popular e-sports game in South Korea.[17]

On March 23, 2013, the cinematographic studios in Rome hosted the Italian launch of League of Legends; more than 1,500 people were present, along with Riot Games developers, journalists and various guests. The show schedule included a cosplay contest and a challenge match between two Italian clans.[18]

On July 11, 2013, one of the publisher's managers Nick Allen announced that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services now recognizes League of Legends pro-players as professional athletes and the visa application process is now simplified for them.[19][20] These changes allow professional players to stay in the United States for up to 5 years.[21]

Riot Games was co-founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. They partnered with Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, the previous designer of the popular Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne custom mapDefense of the Ancients, and Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, the administrator of the former official support base for the map (www.dota-allstars.com) to develop League Of Legends.[22] Using the original DotA created by Eul (the original Defence of The Ancients map for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos) as a base, Guinsoo made DotA Allstars by inserting his own mix of content, greatly expanding the number of the heroes, and adding recipes, numerous items and various gameplay changes. Guinsoo then passed version 6 of the map on to a new developer, IceFrog.[citation needed]

The idea of a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients that would be its own stand-alone game with its own engine, rather than another Mod of Warcraft III began to materialize at the end of 2005. League of Legends was born "when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so much fun and so innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services."[citation needed]

Riot Games officially opened its office in September 2006, and currently[when?] has over 1000 people working on League of Legends, "including their robust technology platform to service and operate the game as well as a team dedicated to community relations."[citation needed]

According to Marc Merrill, when creating the various champions in the game, instead of leaving the champion creation to just a few people, they decided to open up the champion creation process to everyone in the company based upon a template where they could vote on which champions made it into the game.[citation needed]

The game was in a closed beta from April 10, 2009, to October 22, 2009. It then transitioned to open beta until release.[23][24]

In March 2013, Riot Games released a beta version of an OS X client in addition to their Windows client.[25]

Riot Games has signed deals regarding the distribution of League of Legends in Asia, Europe, and North America. The game is expected to be released in the rest of the world also. The game has already released and is distributed in Australia, the United States, Canada, Europe, Philippines[26] and South Korea. No public announcements regarding other regions has yet been made.

In Asia, Tencent Inc., China's largest Internet value-added services company, best known for its QQ Instant Messaging client will be in charge of the distribution to Tencent's growing 300 million Internet user base through its leading QQ Game portal. The deal is one of only a handful of partnerships to bring a U.S.-developed online game directly to China.

In Europe, Riot Games has signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, the videogames department of Orange's Content Division and Europe's largest gaming portal. On October 13, 2009, GOA and Riot announced that they would start channeling server access for players located in Europe, to GOA's dedicated servers.[27] This restriction meant that players located in Europe would not be able to play on Riot's servers in the United States. Due to negative community feedback, the channeling decision was rescinded October 16, 2009.[28] In North America, Riot Games will self-publish and operate the game and all of its customer service aspects.

On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of the game in Europe.[29] To do so, Riot Games established a European HQ in Dublin.[30]

On July 14, 2009, Riot Games announced that League of Legends will be free with "no catch".[8][31] There will be a digital copy for download, but there is also a Digital Collector's Copy that will be available to purchase that contains exclusive skins, $10 credit for Riot Points, and 20 champions to access without unlocking them normally via gameplay as well as 4 "special" runes; the Collector's Pack is currently available for $29.99.[32][33] Even though the game is free, Riot Games "plan[s] to continue to add content (characters etc...) with a full production team at very frequent intervals."[34] Using both free-to-play and freemium models, the game is supported by microtransactions (see store) rather than ads or boxed copy sales.[35]

On February 25, 2010, Riot Games announced that League of Legends will be distributed in Southeast Asian countries by an unspecified publisher and blocked SEA IP addresses pursuant to its distribution agreement.[36] The community has raised a number of concerns about the deal and the immediate IP block. On July 16, 2010, Riot Games announced that Garena will publish the game in Southeast Asia.[37] Additionally, Southeast Asian players have the ability "transfer accounts" to import their progress stored in North American or European servers, into the Southeast Asian server.