League of Legends (LoL)

What is League of Legends?

League of Legends (previously known as League of Legends: Clash of Fates) is a game inspired by the Defense of the Ancients map for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows. It was first announced on October 7, 2008 and released on October 27, 2009. The game was in a closed beta from April 10, 2009 to October 22, 2009. It then transitioned to open beta until release.



Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, the previous designer of the popular Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne custom map, DotA Allstars, and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, the administrator of the former official support base for the map (www.dota-allstars.com), were involved with Riot Games in the development of League Of Legends. 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, largely 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 its current developer, Icefrog. Pendragon, who is the Director of Community Relations for Riot Games, helped create the previous DotA Allstars website along with its forums.

Gameplay



General
Players are formed into 2 even teams with 1-5 champions on each team. Each team starts at opposing sides of a map, near what is called a "Nexus". A match is won when either the opposing team's Nexus is destroyed or the other team surrenders. To destroy a Nexus, each team must work through a series of towers called "Turrets". Turrets are often placed along a path to each base referred to as a "Lane". Along the way, each player must gain levels from killing the opposing team's "Champions" and "Minions" (small NPCs that constantly spawn and attack the other team) and defeating neutral monsters (some of which grant buffs upon death). Also, champions purchase "Items" with in-match gold to improve their champion. In League of Legends, each player starts at level 1 at the beginning of the match and can obtain the maximum of level 18 with their champion, leveling 4 different champion-specific abilities.

Champions
Each player controls a single Champion. There are currently 53 different champions in the game, each with unique characteristics. Certain champions are tagged with properties such as 'tank', 'fighter', 'mage' or 'support' to describe their play style.
At the start of each battle, every player has the ability to choose a champion to fight for him in battle. The choice of champions is limited by what the player has unlocked. Each week, certain champions are made temporarily free so that players can try them out without unlocking them.
Champions gain experience by killing enemy minions, champions or buildings. After reaching a certain amount of experience, the champion levels up. Each level increases the champion's stats and adds an ability point that can be spent to improve one of the Champion's unique abilities. The maximum level for a champion is 18.
Players can gain gold by landing the killing blow on an enemy minion or by killing a champion. Some abilities and items also generate extra gold. The acquired gold can be spent at the item shop for various items. These items boost stats of the champion. Some items can be combined into more powerful items by following predefined recipes.

Attributes
Each champion has a variable amount of attributes that describe how it can be played.

Melee - Basic attacks can only be used in close combat
Ranged - Basic attacks can be used from a distance
Assassin - Damage-based champion that has at least one ability to close distance between enemy targets quickly; champions with this attribute tend to die much quicker when targeted.
Fighter - Damage-based champion that performs better in large group fights.
Mage - Damage-based champion whose abilities are typically ranged and greatly affected by ability power.
Support - Champion with abilities that aid in team fights and usually aren't good in 1v1 fights.
Tank - Champion that can act as a group shield due to their above-average health, armor, and magic resist; usually they have low damage output.
Carry - A champion that typically starts out with below average stats and becomes above average as a match progresses.
Disabler - A champion that can disable enemy champions with their abilities (sometimes labeled disable instead of disabler in-game).
Farmer - A champion that can easily kill enemy minions and neutral monsters, thus allowing them to build in-match gold faster.
Flee - A champion that possesses abilities that enable it to escape from combat.
Haste - A champion that can temporarily speed up self, allies, or both.
Heal - A champion that can heal either self, allies, or both.
Ninja - This champion uses energy instead of mana (energy recharges quickly and is not effected by mana and mana regeneration stat increases).
Nuke - A champion that can deal a significant amount of damage in a short time.
Pet - A champion that can create a non-champion ally (sometimes controllable).
Pusher - A champion that can quickly destroy enemy towers and inhibitors due to their ability to summon additional units or deal damage to an area of enemy creeps.
Recommended - A champion that Riot Games staff would recommend for people new to League of Legends.
Silence - A champion that can silence enemy champions; champions affected by silence cannot use abilities or summoner spells during its duration.
Snare - A champion that can snare enemy champions; champions affected by snares cannot move during its duration.
Slow - A champion that can slow enemy champions; champions affected by slows move slower during its duration.
Stealth - A champion that can become invisible to enemies (other than when near turrets, vision wards, and enemy champions with an Oracles buff).
Stun - A champion that can stun enemy champions; champions affected by stuns cannot move, attack, use abilities, or use summoner spells other than Cleanse.
Teleport - A champion that can teleport to other locations or champions; champions with abilities that are similar to the summoner spell Flash do not have this attribute.
Tough - A champion that lives longer than usual in combat.

Persistence and meta-Game

Summoner
A filled mastery tree.
The Summoner acts as the persistent element in the game, to be used to track statistics and scores for each player.
Summoners gain experience points and Influence Points for each battle they participate in. They level up by getting enough experience, unlocking new ways to influence battles.

Masteries
Masteries are perks that affect gameplay, they are commonly referred to in other games as "skill-trees". 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. Each group has 6 tiers, within a group all but the first tier are locked when you first start, with a successive tier opening with each 4 points spent in the same group. Lines in the mastery tree imply additional unlocking criteria. The summoner can put one point per level (up to level 30) into masteries. Masteries can be re-distributed at will between battles.

Runes
Similar to masteries, runes affect gameplay in minor ways. Runes are categorized into Marks (offensive), Seals (defensive), Glyphs (magic) and Quintessence (all-purpose). They are also grouped into 3 tiers, higher tiers requiring a higher Summoner level. 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. The book has two pages, allowing two different rune builds to be saved and the appropriate one chosen before a battle. A combining system exists for runes: combining two equal-tier runes produces a random rune of the same tier, while combining 5 equal-tier runes produces a higher-tier rune.

Store
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.

* Champions can be unlocked for either RP or IP.
* Skins are alternate looks for champions that can be unlocked for RP only.
* Boosts to IP and XP gain over a period can be purchased for RP only.
* Runes can be purchased for IP only so as to not "sell power".
* Bundles that unlock a large selection of champions can be purchased for RP only.
* Riot Points can be recharged by credit card or PayPal.

Is it playable in SEA now?
For some reasons, they have already lift the ban and is available in SEA countries now.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com