What is League of Legends?

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League of Legends (LoL) is a video game made by Riot Games released on October 27, 2009. The origin of LoL could be tracked up to the invention of the Real-Time Strategy game StarCraft’s map Aeon of Strike (AoS) and Warcraft III’s map Defense of the Ancients (DotA). The two co-founders of Riot Games, Brandon “Ryze” Beck and Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill used to be players of AoS and DotA, however, according to Beck, they were frustrated when developers stop supporting them and eventually shifted to other projects. So they decided to build the game they love. They invited Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, one of the designers of DotA, and created LoL. Back in the day LoL was released, DotA was “the game” of the time – over 10 million people are playing this map all over the world. However, the advantage of LoL is clear and attractive. Better graph quality, more beginner friendly design and more stable servers offered by large companies like Tencent in different regions. These entire factors make League of Legends raised fast and soon exceeded DotA.

What is MOBA?

League of Legends is well known as a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game, however, MOBA is an entirely abstract idea to most players. Usually people have a stereotype that MOBA is a game like LoL but do not really understand what is MOBA. In fact, MOBA has a rarely known but much more understandable and accurate name called ARTS (Action Real-Time Strategy). Real-time Strategy games start over in each match just like regular Strategy games but do not pause between turns and play our in continuous time instead. In an ARTS game like League of Legends, Action and Strategy are the two most essential elements that lead to victory. According to Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson, Action game is a game whose “criterion for success is motor skill and hand-eye coordination”(Nielson). In LoL, players’ personal skill is the bases of strategy. For example, hit-and-run is one of the most well known techniques in LoL. The concept of hit-and-run is moving after attack to cancel after-animation so that the character in game could have extra time to move and dodge instead of standing still as a static target. Hit-and-run requires strong hand-eye coordination because players need to find the safe zone around the character by eyes and move it there by hands in fleeting moments. As a real-time strategy game, LoL also requires thinking and experience. When players’ skill is on similar level, strategy and prediction will be the key factor leads to victory. Strategy in League of Legends could be differed into strategic level and tactical level. Counter pick is one of the most common strategic level strategies in LoL, a great counter pick could bring strong early lead on lane thus allow more flexibility for strategies later. Tactical strategies are more related to players’ skill and prediction. The loose restriction in strategies allows League of Legends to have countless emergent plays in both strategic level and tactical level. Tacit but not required, there are 5 roles in League of Legends, which are Top, Jungle, Mid, Bot and Sup. Usually Bot characters are marksmen who have large attack range and massive physical damage, However, in the recent patch, Riot nerfed marksman significantly by changing the item system so players start to play assassins like Yasuo or mages who can push lane fast like Ziggs to get early advantages. Tactical level strategies usually require strong personal skill and prediction. There are several famous plays named after players like the inSec kick, which means using Lee Sin’s “Dragon’s Rage” to kick one opponent back and create a chance to erase one enemy at the beginning of team fight. The fun fact is, not only skilled outplay, but also horrible failure could be named after player. The “Yellowstar Combo”, which means using “Flash” to approach an enemy and miss every single shot after as Thresh, is one of the most famous failures caused by misprediction.

Aesthetics behind League of Legends

Aesthetics is also an inseparable part of League of Legends, but the definition of aesthetics has long been ignored by LoL players. Of course, in compare to games like Ōkami, which is performed in traditional Japanese painting style “Ukiyo-e”, LoL does not have strong aesthetic flavor, but, according to Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson, aesthetics include “all aspects of video games which are experienced by the player, whether directly – such as audio and graphics – or indirectly – such as rules”(Nielson). Rules, according to Jesper Juul, can be separated into three levels including Game State Rules, Outcome Valorization Rules, and Information Rules. In LoL, Game State rules, which cover the basic aspects of game state, are changes in map resources and minions (as time passes, minions and neutral monsters are getting stronger, baron and dragons are starting to spawn); Outcome Valorization Rules, which define whether outcome is positive or negative, include gold, experience, buff and vision rewards. Information rules, which determine what information players receive during gameplay, cover time, level, gold, items, characters, vision on map and summoner spells. The balance of the game could be modified by changing items’ stat and effect, characters’ basic stat and ability, summoner spells, runes, or rewards of getting map resources. Audio and graphics are also crucial parts of LoL. In the actual gameplay, League of Legends does not have a Z-axis, which means LoL is a two-dimension game, however, most of the models and visual effects in game are built in three-dimension space, and players can change the visual perspective in game. This makes League of Legends a 3D-like 2D game and also brings some interesting side effects. For example, when Tristana uses “Rocket Jump” as shown in the picture (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Rh8gN7v-QPXNgW9ivcnGXnQ9a-O1Tf2n), she will be hit by the abilities land in the red rectangle in the picture instead of those land on her model in the air. Audio has long been one of Riot Games’ emphases of LoL. The main music genre of League of Legends is electronic music, but it also has different genres of music based on some champions’ background story. The theme music for Xayah and Rakan, for instance, has lots of music elements like the usage of the bongos corresponding their Vastaya (an Amazon-like jungle region in LoL universe) background. In the past few years, LoL has been composing music for each new champion and some skins. The song of “Pentakill”, a virtual band in LoL, has even reached up to rank 10 on Billboard during 2014.

League of Legends Culture

When talking about the culture of a game, most people would think about the content or aesthetics of the game. However, video game culture is more related to the players rather than the game itself, especially when it comes to competitive games like LoL that does not have storyline involved in gameplay. According to the report released by Riot Games, over 90% of LoL players are male, 85% of players are between 16 and 30, and 60% of players have enrolled in or completed college progress. Cultural elements in game are mostly reflected in skins and backgrounds of champions and are not restricted to specific country/culture. For example, the idea of Lee Sin is inspired by Chinese Kung Fu, but one of his skin Muay Thai comes from Thai boxing instead. Culture influence from LoL mainly results in Fan Art and ESports. Fan art is performed in various ways among LoL communities including manga, painting, cosplay, video and more. In the official website of LoL, there is fan art page for summoners (this is how Riot call the players of LoL) to upload their artwork. LoL is also one of the most popular games in live stream industry with the second most viewers on Twitch TV, the most famous live stream website in the United States. For eSports, League of Legends has the biggest eSports event in the world. Each server of LoL has its own professional tournaments in spring and summer to decide which team could stand on the World Championships stage held by Riot. Besides, starting this year, teams in LoL Pro League (LPL), the LoL tournament held in China, could have their own home city and stadium just like NBA and MBL. This home-ground culture will help each team to earn their loyal fans and form its own fan culture in the long-term future.

League of Legends Universe

According to Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson, narrative in video games could be separated into two different levels: Story Level and Action Level. In League of Legends, story-level narrative only serves as the background settings. The background of a particular champion has limited influence on the actual gameplay and the actual gameplay would not push the storyline at all. According to Marie-Laure Ryan, narrative in video games could be created in nine different structures. League of Legends has biography-centered storytelling instead of event-centered, which gives it a unique narrative structure similar to the combination of the Network Structure and the Tree Structure. As shown in the simple figure(https://drive.google.com/open?id=191Aj5nDpu6er0xBDrkJJuRhA9sg4koCX), each champion in the League of Legends Universe belongs or is born in one of the thirteen regions, which are the parent nodes in Tree Structure. The figure only shows a few champions and regions in LoL, but it gives an idea of how the narrative in LoL is oriented. Unlike a standard Tree Structure, the relationship in between champions and regions could be bidirectional (e.g. Jarvan IV and Demacia) or even reversed unidirectional (e.g. Lucian and Shadow Isles) in League of Legends. Also, the child nodes (champions) could be related to each other (e.g. Lucian and Thresh) like a Network Structure. Action-level narrative, which requires players to “do something” to make it happen, is rare in League of Legends. In League of Legends, action-level narrative only happens in certain matchups and usually have limited influence to the match like “ninjas work alone” (when Shen, Kennan, and Akali are on the same team, their HP is reduced by 1 for each other allied ninja). The only influential action-level event in LoL would be “The Hunt is On!” (occurs in games between an opposing Rengar and Kha’Zix, whoever killed the opposing Rengar/Kha’zix first after level 16 would become the “Ultimate Hunter” and get a significant boost). This event is based on Rengar and Kha’Zix’s background story, which can be found in the League of Legends Universe.

Impact and Risk

It is hard to say that a game like League of Legends could be a serious game like Edutainment of Advertainment. There is no such thing as advertisement related to actual gameplay of LoL and it does not fit the formula of Edutainment that requires game to have “little intrinsic motivation” and “simple gameplay”. However, that does not mean there is nothing to learn in LoL. In competitive games like League of Legends, thinking ahead and teamwork is always the key factors lead to victory. If players have strong motivation to win, they will learn to consider various factors and predict opponent’s move to earn advantage. Moreover, especially among professional players and streamers, being sportsmanlike is also important. In the recent event, Riot starts to set restriction on honor level (system used to determine whether a player is honorable or not) for players to participate. Players who constantly behaved toxic will be banned from events. However, both honor level and teamwork are only required to “win” but not to “play” the game, and players could only learn when they have strong intrinsic motivation to win. League of Legends also has various impacts on players other than educational influence. Simon Egenfeldt-Nielson claimed that impacts of video game could have Active Media Perspective that reflect players’ feeling after each match, and Active User Perspective (AUP) that represent players’ behavior in game. As a match-based game that starts over in each match, League of Legends is significantly complex in both AMP and AUP based on matches. In AMP, LoL has a combination of Catharsis theory and the General Arousal Theory. Aggressiveness and feeling are not related to the game LoL itself but to each match in game. After a winning game with a strong lead since the beginning of the match could unleash the players’ anger thus reduce the player’s aggressive feelings as stated in the Catharsis Theory. However, at the same time, the opponents who had a losing game with a huge disadvantage in that game may become more aggressive depends on AUP like how much the players want to win and whether their teammates/opponents are toxic/taunting or not. In order to understand the impact of a match-based game like League of Legends, it is necessary to have research focusing on match difference rather than the game as a whole. In my opinion, AMP is the main approach to understand the impact of LoL, but AUP is the factor leads to AMP in competitive games like LoL. Therefore, research of LoL should cover both AUP and AMP by measuring players’ feeling after game and analyzing players’ and their opponents’ action in game.

Conclusion

League of Legends is a 5-v-5 Action Real-Time Strategy game that allows various emergent gameplay because there is no rule at strategy level. League of Legends’ aesthetics is not only limited to its multifarious audio and graphics, but also related to players’ whimsical gameplays. Players are the essence of League of Legends culture. Without players, League of Legends would not have the most significant eSports events and the prosperity in fan arts and live stream. The narrative of League of Legends is mostly written in story-level and is not strongly connected to gameplay. Although League of Legends has been the most played game in hours during the past couple years, the impact of LoL is still blurred because of the enormous distinction between each match. In order to further understand LoL, we must focus on matches instead of the game as a whole when studying LoL.