League of Legends Background

Okay, now I believe it is time to explain LoL. Many of my posts will be about this game, so a good understanding of it will (hopefully) clear up any confusion before it even starts.

League of Legends is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) game developed by Riot Games. Players are formed into two teams. The objective of the game is to destroy the other team's Nexus, a generator on the opponent's side of the field. In order to reach it, a team must push down three towers in a lane, and then two that protect the nexus. There are three lanes that you can push down to reach the nexus: top, bottom, and middle lanes. Specific "champions" are better at pushing different lanes.

The current meta of the game is that you have an AP Carry mid, an AD Carry top, a jungler, and two champs bottom. AP stands for "ability power" and AD stands for "attack damage." Champions have moves that scale off of either AP or AD. In the LoL map, there is a place called the "jungle" where champions can battle with NPCs to gain experience, rather than playing against other players. Some of the creatures in the jungle give players buffs, and it is the jungler's job to distribute the buffs to his team as he sees fit. The AP Carry blasts opponents with powerful attacks that deal massive amounts of damage mid to late game. AD Carries use their basic attacks and their abilities to tear opponents apart. Supports keep other champions alive, and bruisers are good at damaging opponents so the rest of his team can take them out. Tanks are good at taking damage and dragging them into the middle of his team so everyone else can kill him.

There are tons of champions out, each with unique moves and purposes in the game. Support champs often have healing moves and mana-regen moves. Tanks have buffs to give themselves. AP Carries have moves that, if used in the right order, can often take down other champs with one blast. AD carries have powerful attacks that repeatedly diminish health. In order to play the champions, you must either play the champs that are free during any given week, or purchase one.

Of course, not every champion is played the same way. There is some leeway with them, and it comes in the forms of runes, masteries, and items. Runes are things you can buy out-of-game that affect how your champion plays in-game. Masteries are points you gain out-of-game to buff your champion in-game. Items are things you buy in-game for on-the-fly situations. Some items give mana, some give health, some give regen, some give armor, some give magic resist, the list goes on. Many items give more than one buff at a time. But knowing everything about it isn't necessary to know at this point.

Sorry this post is so long. I think that's a pretty solid background on LoL. I'm looking into ways to record my games so I can upload them to YouTube and then put them in my blog so you guys can see the game in action. If you have any questions, just leave me a comment and I'll let you know about it. If you're interested in playing, you can look at the game and download it at leagueoflegends.com