Why League of Legends?

League of Legends (LoL) is an MMOG developed by Riot Games; it was launched in

November 2011 and soon accumulated 32.5 million players around the world. The reason why I choose it as my data source is simply that it is the most well received MMOG in Taiwan, at the time of research. In January 2012, Riot Games and LoL’s Taiwanese operator Garena lit up Taipei 101 to celebrate 1,010,000 users, almost 5 percent of the population, in

LoL Taiwan edition. In early October 2012, Taiwan’s professional LoL team Taipei Assassins

won the Season 2 World Championship, with the number of players keeping summiting new peaks afterward. Even till 2016, LoL has always been the most discussed PC game on the Taiwanese gamer forum – Bahamut. Besides its immense popularity, LoL belongs to an MMOG genre very distinct from many of the MMOGs studied in the literature. Therefore, my choice of the game may bring about interesting questions as to the social landscape of MMOG virtual worlds.

LoL is placed in the genre of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), or action

real-time strategy (ARTS), following the successful Defense of the Ancients (DotA) of the

category. Players of MOBA control virtual characters of choice in opposing two teams whose collective goal is to tear down the rival’s home base. Although there are computer-controlled minions that help protect the player’s side of main structure, it is basically the players’

avatars who contribute the most to the defense of the base. Along the paths minions march are the three “lanes” being the vanguard of warfare and places for deployment of forces.

During gameplay, players of the genre have to kill neutral or enemy units for experience points and gold. While experience points allow the characters to level up and obtain powerful

abilities, gold enables them to buy items of all sorts at a weapon and armor store. Items are the most direct way to augment the characters’ battle viability.

Particular to LoL, there are normally four game modes with different terminal objectives and ways of gameplay. Among the four, I take “Summoner’s Rift” as the only context of the

study because it resembles the most the classic gameplay of MOBA and its popularity triumphs over the rest three. The mode of Summoner’s Rift has all the features described in

the last passage. Players are the so-called “summoners” who summon up “champions” to participate in a match. Each champion has a set of unique abilities including one passive and four active abilities. These abilities are not available at the beginning of a match (except for the passive ability) but unlocked and leveled up during the course of gameplay, as champions gain experience points and level themselves up by achieving certain intermediate objectives.

The maximum level for every champion is 18, at which point all of the ability levels could be maxed out. All of the rewards (experience, gold, and buffs) and achievements (items bought and accomplished missions) will not be carried over to a new match, which means that every match starts with equal standing among players of the two teams.

Still one thing to clarify is that there are mainly three matchmaking options or game types for the mode of Summoner’s Rift, respectively Normal Game, Ranked Game, and Team Builder. Normal Game gathers two teams of players selected by an automated matchmaking system. To play Normal Game, one could team up with 1-4 others before matched up with random players as the rest of the teammates and opponents in a 5v5 match.

Inspite of that, most players choose to play solo with total strangers against five others.

Ranked Game, on the other hand, is only available to summoners reaching level 30. Although it shares with Normal Game the way of matchmaking, players are ranked against each other

according to the results of their matches. As for the option of Team Builder, the matchmaking is based on premade teams of five players who are real-time acquaintances or online friends from previous matches. Such teams are seen as inseparable units to be paired up with other clans. The present study will disregard Ranked Game and Team Builder and focus only on Normal Game for data collection. The reason behind this is, again, so simple that it is the most played type of PvP match and could represent most gaming experience of the public.

Before we move on to the next section, there are still features of the game that need to be elaborated because they have a lot to do with the built-in social setting for player

interaction. First of all, we shall peek into more trivial characteristics of the player-controlled champions. With reference to their different abilities and innate “stats”,⁹ LoL champions

could be grouped into mainly six types or classes, as defined by the game client: Tank (with strong defenses but little damage output), Fighter (with a balanced aptitude for dealing and surviving damage but limited attack range), Slayer (with quick burst damage but little resilience), Mage (with great ability power and area of effect damage but little resilience), Controller (with ally-protecting buff and control abilities but little damage output), or Marksman (with great long-range attack damage but little resilience). As each class has its

own strengths and weaknesses, the game is favorable to a team with versatile classes of players who compliment each other’s abilities. This asymmetry among the champions

9 “Stats” is the clipped form of “base statistics;” it refers to the default values a champion is given with regard

potentially facilitates players’ strategic negotiation over their roles in the battlefield. Another

feature of concern is the textual chat and smart ping system in the game. During gameplay, there is a chat window in the lower-left corner of the screen where players could post messages to communicate with each other. In addition to the sent messages and system announcements of what happens in the Summoner’s Rift, the chat box is also filled with alerts given off by allies to signal Danger, Enemy Missing, Assist Me, and On My Way. Such chat commands undoubtedly constitute a platform for social interaction, and for linguistic research. In sum, even though LoL is not a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where players could take part in a persistent virtual society, communication there never lacks social meaning and value for research.