A post introducing one of my favorite games to watch/play of all time!
If you've followed my twitter account for an even relatively short period of time, you've likely seen the occasional tweets and comments from me including clips from a strange game where some seven lens goggles wearing samurai is wailing on some poor rocks, a tiny rat is pumping copious amounts of blowdarts into a devilish looking, great sword wielding unholy abomination, or some anthropomorphic goat woman is hurling bananas and stars at an unsuspecting paladin with a penchant for spinning. While it's far from the only game I play, it is definitely the one I enjoy and discuss the most across my social media accounts both private and public, especially concerning the game's place as the number one eSport on the planet in terms of viewership. Readers of Ogre Chronicle, I present to you: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
Straight up fair warning to my friends reading this who are already very familiar with League, this might bore you to tears. I'm really doing this for a lot more people who either play video games but have never heard of the game, or maybe the more football oriented side of readers who are genuinely curious about one of my favorite hobbies. If you find yourself interested in spite of that, then read on!
Funny story about how I started playing League. I had heard about the game on and off when it was in beta back in 2009, but back then I was in my peak of my World of Warcraft playing days so I didn't end up paying too much attention. Fast forward to about 2014. I was in the midst of recovering from a severe concussion I had suffered during football season and was essentially quarantined to my room for a week and a half to recover. I was bored as hell and needed SOMETHING to do in order to pass the time. Even though it hurt like hell due to the heightened light sensitivity as a side effect of my injury, I put on some sunglasses the trainers had provided to me and tried to browse the internet. I remember seeing an ad about it on or the corner of a site I was visiting and I figured why the hell not!. After a couple of games I was absolutely hooked. Contemplate the imagery of my huge ass just sitting in a dimly lit room with Ray-Bans on, attempting to play video games and having to take a break every 30 minutes so it wouldn't feel like my eyeballs were melting out of their sockets.
So for many of those who grew up in the 90s like I did who had regular access to a computer, one of the most popular genres of games around was the RTS, short for Real-Time Strategy. Where you can create and control large swaths of individual units and command them towards a certain goal, usually being slaughtering the enemy opposition whether it be an A.I (Artificial Intelligence) or other actual living players. Among this genre of games I personally grew up playing games like Empire Earth, Age of Empires, and a little bit of Starcraft. What League of Legends is essentially, is a simplification of that genre. League is what's described as a MOBA, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Instead of controlling large amounts of units all at once, you control ONE singular unit with its own unique set of skills and abilities. You're then paired up with 4 other players controlling their own unique units and pitted against another team of 5 opposing players in a 5v5 map, with the objective being to destroy the enemy team's base, or as the game calls it, the Nexus.
By this point I might have completely lost the boomer crowd by now, but if you've managed to stick with me so far, I very much appreciate your willingness to learn! This is the map that the core game mode of League of Legends is played on (there are others, but for your sake I'll omit them for now and keep to the basics), called Summoner's Rift. The map is asymmetrically mirrored diagonally alongside the river, with three main lanes and in between them, a forested area typically just described as the jungle. Within each lane, there are three towers, outer, inner, and base, protecting a small crystal structure called an inhibitor, which protects an even bigger crystal structure protected by 2 of its own towers called the Nexus, which in every game on Summoner's Rift is the central objective you have to destroy in order to win the game! The Nexus produces strange hooded creatures called minions, who stream down each of the three lanes and can be killed for both gold and experience to make your champion stronger over time. There are also three sets of epic monsters, who when slain, can provide incredible boosts of power to help you achieve your objective. On the bottom side you have the Dragons of varying elements, and on the top side you have the mutated monster crab Rift Herald (Nicknamed Shelly. No I'm not kidding), which after of 20 minutes of playtime gets eaten and replaced by the giant purple worm known as Baron Nashor.
Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, over time have described and detailed the typical 5 roles for players to take on, 1 for each player. They're described as Top, Jungle, Middle, Attack Damage Carry (ADC for short), and Support. On a personal note, I prefer playing Top and Jungle the most, with my personal favorite champion (League's term for its unique individual units) being Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant, whose picture headlines this very post! If you're ever interested in playing a game with me, my account name is GankedByNaija. Go ahead and shoot me a message in game! Anyways, here's a basic rundown of the roles
Top laners tend to be (but not always!) more durable, powerful melee types who want to be thick in the fray and soak up as much damage as possible as well as dish it out themselves. They're usually positioned on the top side of the map, signaled by the T's on this specific image. (Image: Irelia,The Blade Dancer)
Junglers are a unique class of champions, who instead of sitting in one of the three aforementioned lanes, roam within the jungle in order to potentially impact any of the three lanes by assisting laners in killing their foes. Instead of killing minions (usually at least), there are specific monsters at set areas of the map called camps, whom killing can grant experience and gold as well. There are also a wide variety of champions that can be played here, from more durable fighting types to more mage like spell slingers. (Image: Lee Sin, The Blind Monk)
Mid laners are home to the most diverse set of champions in the game. Mages with explosive spells able to decimate entire teams. Assassins with the capabilities to quickly kill singular targets and gracefully escape. Long range marksmen able to pepper their foes down from a distance. You can even occasionally see even more of the durable fighter types in certain team compositions! They are positioned in the dead center of the map, hence the name mid! (Image: Katarina, The Sinister Blade)
ADCs are long ranged marksmen. able to pump out large amounts of damage from a relatively safe distance. Whether it be guns, arrows, rocket launchers, miniguns, plasma rifles, chakrams, hell even their own acidic spit! These champions shred through both opposing champions and towers alike and are pivotal to overall team success. They are typically placed in the bottom lane, and are paired with..... (Image: Lucian, The Purifier)
Supports! Supports are another unique class in where their main job is to help support the ADC in the early stages of the game in lane, transitioning into supporting the entire team. While they lack the raw damage output of all the other classes, they tend to make up for it in their extremely powerful utility that allows them to have a high impact on the game as a whole . (Image: Senna,The Redeemer)
Hopefully that wasn't too much to take in at once. Believe it or not, this was an EXTREMELY simplified version of the games systems and I purposefully left out a metric ton of other small nuances and details for the sake of simplicity. While all that information certainly seems daunting, it is also what gives League of Legends its amazing depth and appeal that's made it the uber popular eSport that it is today! As I mentioned earlier, the professional scene for League of Legends is MASSIVE, with regional leagues all over the world, including North America, Europe, China, Korea, and many more. In 2019,the World Championships in Europe garnered over 44 million peak concurrent viewers. For comparison's sake, that's more than the 2019 NBA Finals! Some may scoff at the idea or the profitability of watching video games but numbers don't lie! League and eSports in general are a rapidly growing industry with gaming becoming an ever deeper part of the American fabric as the years pass by. One of my dreams for the future is to one day, in some way shape or form, be personally involved in it myself career wise!
Oh, and my personal favorite organization, located in North America and repped by the likes of Steph Curry amongst others is.....
TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM! TSM!