Today I would like to introduce to you one of the most successful free to play – games: the double Golden Joystick – winner “League of Legends” by Riot Games!
League of Legends is a MOBA-Game (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), which is oriented towards the famous Warcraft 3 – Map “Defense of the Ancients”.
For those who never played DotA (are there any?) and who don’t know the game concept I will explain it in detail:
The beginning
League of Legends doesn’t put high requirements on your PCs. You need at least:
– processor with 2 GHz – 1 GB RAM, – DirectX 9.0 capable video card, – 750 MB free hard disk space, – DSL or similar
Create an account either on the server EU West, EU Nordic/East or US, depending on where you live. You can also create an account on US while living in Europe but you will experience higher pings then. I give you a link to create an account in my author’s bio. Choose a name (always the hardest part) and a nice picture and off you go!
The Champions
There are 2 teams 5 players (there are more game modes lol boost, but they are not important in the beginning because as a newbie you should start with 5vs5 to learn the gameplay). Before every match you all choose a “champion” who is the character you want to use in battle. Dependant on your personal preferendes it can be e.g. an undead mage, a giant granite golem, a little boy riding on a Yeti, a brave knight and many more.All in all there are more than 80 (!) different champions and every second week one is added.
Every champions has 4 different abilities (3 normal and one extra strong, the “Ultimate”) and a passive, which he has since the beginning. You learn the abilities by leveling up ingame and your max champion level is 18 which means that you have 5 points in every normal ability and 3 in your ultimate.
You receive experience for levelling up by:
1. Being near when enemy minions or neutral monsters are killed by your troops (it’s not necessary to kill them yourself!)
2. killing or assisting to kill enemy champions
In the beginning you generally play whatever you like, later it’s useful to communicate with your teammembers before the match begins so that you have a balanced setup and not 5 champions of the same kind.
The different kinds of champions are roughly:
1. Mages (“AP Carries”: AP means ability power, they mainly deal magical damage with their abilities)
2. Fighters (“AD Carries”: AD means Attack Damage, they mainly deal physical damage with their autoattacks)
3. Tanks (They are hard to kill and protect their own carries, for example by stunning or taunting the enemies)
4. Supports (They have either buffs or heals to support their carries and keep them alive)
5. Junglers (They don’t start in the lane but in the jungle and support their teammates by ganking and ambushing the enemies)
The interesting point is: Depending on the items you equip on your champions they are often able to fulfill different roles!
In the beginning you don’t have own champions, but every week there are 10 free ones which everyone can use. After some matches you can buy more champions with influence points (IP) in the shop. I will come to this later.
The map
The map has 3 different lanes, which lead from your own to the enemy base. On these lanes there are several Towers which you must destroy before you can attack the base itself. As a support your main building (“Nexus”) spawns minion waves in short intervals which help you in fights. Between the lanes there is the “jungle”, where neutral monsters are located. If you kill those you receive gold and/or temporary buffs.