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JXE Training Day: What is 'League of Legends?' An expert explains
Look no further than the world of eSports for a concrete example of how the very idea of popular culture has warped in the past decade. Just because something is popular with an enormous group of people, that doesn't mean that it's truly ubiquitous. When most people see the word "baseball" around the world, they can conjure up the basics. eSports, and all of the many very different games that fall under that banner, still occupy a weird, weird space. Take League of Legends, arguably the most popular eSport in the world. The League of Legends World Championship can net 32 million viewers and all of those viewers can still be called "crazy" by successful, seemingly popular sports reporters while scholarships for League of Legends college players are laughed at. Just because there are millions of fans, that doesn't mean everyone knows what they're fans of. Engadget will be your guide into this world of competition. If you don't know what eSports are, what a MOBA is or what a League of Legends may be, then we have a show for you. JXE Training Day is a regular eSports show for beginners, introducing competitive games and how to look at them. Our first series begins with an extensive, bi-weekly look at League of Legends.
How a handless gamer dominates 'League of Legends'
Gamer Massimiliano Sechi has achieved "diamond" status at League of Legends, reserved for just a fraction of the game's estimated 67 million regular players. The kicker is that Sechi (aka MacsHG) was born without hands and one leg, putting him at a distinct physical disadvantage to other gamers, according to Razer's Character Select documentary (below). Lest you fear the video is some kind of pity piece, however, it's actually an uplifting laugh-a-minute thanks to the mocking rapport between Massimiliano and his brother, Simon -- who occasionally resorts to cheating at Legends because "I can't lose against my brother." Sechi is an institution on his home turf in Sardinia, Italy, where he works as a car salesman and inspirational speaker.
Gay, transgender players restricted in 'League of Legends' tourney (update)
As eSports continue to grow so too will the walks of life who participate. That's something that a League of Legends tournament organizer in the Philippines has seemingly failed to realize with the announcement of its upcoming "all feminine" event dubbed The Iron Solari. In Garena Philippines' outline it says that it's having open discussions with members of the LGBTQ community about whether or not gay or transgendered women in particular should be allowed to participate. Why's that? Fears of an unfair advantage. Yes, really.
Fans streamed 2.4 billion hours of competitive gaming last year
We've known that streaming game video from the likes of Twitch has been popular, but the extent of it hasn't exactly been clear. Last year 2.4 billion hours were spent watching competitive gaming (eSports) broadcasts online, according to a report from market research firm IHS. Think about this for a second: if there are around 8,766 hours in a year, in 2013 people watched some 273,785 years of League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2 and StarCraft 2 competitions. For context, the 528,000 who streamed this year's Super Bowl only tuned in for around 48 minutes each, or 422,400 hours total. IHS says that this eSports feat wouldn't have been possible without services like Twitch which are capable of handling huge amounts of viewers for live audiences -- like last fall's LoL tournament that drew 32 million viewers, with 8.5 million watching at the same time. The next step? Turning all of those eyeballs into profit, of course. By 2018, IHS forecasts that eSports advertising revenue will be worth $300 million. Cha-ching. [Image credit: Associated Press]
Daily iPhone App: Solstice Arena is Zynga's shot at multiplayer online battle arenas
I first got to see Solstice Arena, Zynga's latest iOS entry, at GDC earlier this year, and then had a short meeting again last week with the publisher at E3. But you no longer have to take my word on what it's like: The game arrived on iOS worldwide last week, so you can grab the free-to-download title at your leisure. And I recommend you do. Zynga has a reputation for pushy freemium elements in goofy casual titles, but I can confirm this game has none of that. This is a true mobile MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) title, similar to League of Legends, but very iOS-centric in its delivery. The game has been simplified in a lot of very smart ways, producing a high-quality title that's very impressive. In my own play, I've found some minor balance issues (the healer character, for example, seems awfully overpowered, especially when teamed up with a burly bruiser), but I am sure those will get evened out as the game gets periodic updates and tweaks. And while yes, this is a freemium title, that part is also done very intelligently. The freemium elements are mostly confined to customization and convenience. Just like League of Legends, the game opens up a number of free heroes to play every week, so there's ongoing variety even if you never spend a dime. And if you do, real money can only buy you custom skins for the heroes you own, or can pay for boosts in your own XP, so spending money doesn't affect the gameplay at all. Prices are a bit high (which is something else I expect will likely be tweaked in a future update), but all in all, the freemium elements almost never get in the way of the gameplay, which is very respectable on Zynga's part. In short, Solstice Arena is exactly the kind of game Zynga needs to help cleanse its reputation as a money-grabbing casual publisher. I would hesitate to call it truly hardcore (I think the game needs about double the heroes and maybe another map or mode to really start comparing its depth to a standard PC MOBA), but it's definitely a "mid-core" experience that delivers a lot of fun. If you're a MOBA fan or just want to see what Zynga is doing right lately, give it a download and a try on iPhone or iPad.
OpenFeint developer aims for a hardcore audience with Fates Forever MOBA
Jason Citron is a true veteran of iOS gaming. He was one of the two developers behind Aurora Feint, and later vaulted it up to the huge social network that OpenFeint became. Now, Citron is back to making games with a new company called Hammer & Chisel (formerly Phoenix Guild), and he's just announced today that his upcoming game is called Fates Forever. It'll be a multiplayer online battle arena title, similar to the extremely popular League of Legends, but built from the ground up for iOS and a touchscreen interface. "If you look at games," Citron told TUAW recently, "very rarely do you find one that's generally new, and usually when you do, it's because of the UI change." Citron believes that even hardcore games "could be made materially better by changing them to use a large format touchscreen," and so he's decided to take on the MOBA gametype. Fates Forever will have battling heroes, just like League of Legends, but with a simplified format... at least at first. The map Citron is working on features just two lanes (it will pit three players against an opposing team of three, and matches should take around 15 minutes), and he says a lot of the mechanics around itemization and balance have yet to be determined. His focus right now is building standard touchscreen gestures for the heroes' various abilities. "The skillshots are all these fun little gesture things that you can pull off," says Citron. One champion will do a dash move that's controlled by dragging him around the screen with your finger, for example. "You hit the button on the left, you get a little ring around him and then you can drag the indicator away from him. When you draw out a path from him, he shoots flames on the ground." Citron says the goal is to take gesture mechanics that users know and love, and use those to match the precision and controls that you'd usually need a mouse and a keyboard on a PC for. When Citron began this project, the MOBA genre was very much PC-based. But in the last few months, several companies have thought to bring it to tablets. For example, Gameloft's Heroes of Order and Chaos, and Zynga's forthcoming Solstice Arena. "I figured [MOBAs] would be a trend," says Citron, but adds that "I can't say that I would have expected as much action to be going on tablets." Still, Citron says Zynga's entry will likely be tied down by in-app monetization efforts, and he thinks he can do the game better than Gameloft has. "I think ours looks better, has more innovative controls and it's generally fun to play." The plan for Fates Forever is to have "the core battle game out this summer, with a very light metagame around it." Once the core app is out, Citron and his company (currently about five full-timers and about the same number of contractors) plan to tweak and upgrade it according to the community, and will even build a tool called The Forge, where players will be able to suggest and build their own heroes, with that content possibly even reaching the game. "I very much see this as a marathon, not a sprint," says Citron. "I see this as a long-term thing. I'm starting with a nugget of something, and we're evolving it with the community." Citron's goal with Fates Forever is to "blend deep traditional game design with respectful game mechanics," he says. "It's obviously going to be free-to-play," and supported by in-app purchases for options and customization. But "our game will never force you to stop playing," he adds. "And you can't pay to win." Currently, the project is being put together in Unity, and while it will initially appear on the iPad only, the title may come to Android or other platforms later on. Fates Forever sounds interesting. We'll get a chance to play it later this year. Plenty of other companies have aimed and will continue to target this growing "hardcore" audience on Apple's tablet platform, but that specific audience is finicky to say the least. In the end, Fates Forever will have to stand on its own quality. If it can find the League of Legends-sized audience on tablets that Citron is looking for, then we could be playing this one for a long time to come.
Razer Naga Hex gets League of Legends-flavored edition, available now for $90
You may remember Razer's Naga Hex mouse from last year, when it was introduced as a derivative of Razer's Naga MMO mouse, albeit with fewer buttons. You see, the "Hex" part of the name refers to the six buttons embedded along the left side of the mouse, intended for use as hotkeys during action-RPGs. The latest Hex retains the same uses as its former incarnation, but now it's aimed specifically at the approximately 32 million League of Legends players worldwide. Of course, those six side buttons are programmable using Razer's Synapse 2.0 software, and Razer's promising 250 clicks per minute (that's quite a lot of clicking, we're told). The same 5600dpi 3.5G laser sensor drives the Naga's precision, which shows up lag-free on your screen thanks to a thread-wrapped USB wire. Take a closer look at Razer's latest branding effort below, and head to Razer's online store should you like to snag one for yourself -- it's available now for $90, and even comes with a free LoL champion (Tryndamere). Head past the break for all the details, straight from Razer.%Gallery-180570%
League of Legends out now on Mac in open beta ... finally
League of Legends has finally released that Mac open beta that we heard was coming just a little while ago. Back in 2010, Riot Games had a ported Mac version all ready to go, but eventually determined that it just wasn't good enough, and not compatible with, the way they wanted to run their game. That led to a shutdown on development, but the company secretly restarted work on a native client, and it's now out and ready for download for everyone. League of Legends is currently the biggest game in the world -- it's a "multiplayer online battle arena" title based on the old Defense of the Ancients mod, where teams of five players battle each other from a top-down perspective. If you're a fan, you've probably already gone to download the Mac version, and if not, it's completely and totally free to play, so you should definitely check it out for yourself. Oh, and watch the announcement video -- it's funny. The Mac version is fully cross-platform, so all of the champions, skins (including the new "iBlitzcrank"), and so on are all available right away on the Mac. It's still in open beta, so there may still be some issues, but those should be fixed soon. At long last, we've finally got a full version of League of Legends, all ready to play on the Mac!
Riot: League of Legends Mac client ready 'within a month,' and why it's so late
As promised, I went by Riot Games today in Los Angeles, and got the lowdown on the long-awaited (but soon-to-be-released) Mac client for the company's popular game League of Legends from PR manager Chris Heintz. Heintz told me that the Mac version of the game is already up and running on the Public Beta Environment, and that it should be available as an Open Beta on the live servers "soon. Not 'Soon (TM)'," he told me, "but soon. I would imagine within a month." So what happened? Why did we hear about a Mac version years ago and then see Riot shut it down without releasing it? "When we originally developed the Mac client, we developed it with a partner, and it was a port, effectively. Our service model and how rapidly we patch wasn't really compatible with that approach, and also the performance and stability of that client wasn't up to our players' expectations, and so we killed it," says Heintz. But this new version, developed internally at Riot, is set to run the game natively on OS X. "As soon as we closed down the earlier Mac beta, we had always planned from that moment to develop a native Mac client that would actually be able to serve the needs of Mac players. We knew it was going to take some time, but we wanted to do it right." In the meantime, Riot even saw a group of players develop an unofficial Mac port of the game, and Heintz says those players were used during the beta test of this new version. "The beta crew that we went after was the iLoL community. Instead of trying to recruit a new community we already had that group of tens of thousands of dudes. And so we invited them." Heintz says that Riot doesn't have any major expectations for what the new client might do to its already impressive 12 million players a day. He says the company already knows the community wants to play the game on Macs. "We think that alone justifies the Mac client. There's already demand -- there was a Change.org petition just for us to treat Mac users the same! And so we're sorry it took a while, but we're here."
League of Legends Mac client re-emerges, coming soon
I first got to see League of Legends running on the Mac a few years ago, but a few months after that, the game's Mac client still wasn't available to the public. Riot then confirmed that it was ending work on a client for the popular MOBA title, but it looks like that wasn't completely true. In a forum post, the company has suddenly announced that it's readying a Mac client for an open beta soon, which means that Mac gamers will finally get to play the popular title natively on OS X. Interested players can download the "Public Beta Environment" client right now from Riot's website, and log in and start playing right away. The Mac changes will reportedly reach the live client "very soon," which in Riot's case usually means a week or two. Of course, nothing is confirmed on this client until we actually see a live announcement (especially considering that we've actually been waiting a few years for Mac support), but it definitely sounds like Riot has finally completed its work and is ready for compatibility to go live. I'm scheduled to meet with Riot next week (about some unrelated plans for their esports programs), so I'll be sure to chat with the team about just why this Mac client took so long (and why it's finally going live now). But it's good to see that after such a long wait, Riot is finally delivering the Mac accessibility it promised years ago.
WoW Meets League of Legends: Transmogrify your hunter into an AD carry
As a raider, I've come to hate the MOBA genre over time. My guild was raiding Icecrown Citadel when Heroes of Newerth first came out, and within a few weeks, I quickly noticed the effect it had. Being in a progression guild, my guildmates were usually patient, focused, and committed when putting in the long hours needed to secure not just server firsts but the highest possible world rankings we could. After HoN came out, however, it all changed. Core members of the raid were frequently dodging raid nights, and a few times the raid leader even called the night early when progression on a boss fight wasn't up to his satisfaction. The reason? He and half the guild were more interested in playing HoN than raiding. In the past six months, I've noticed the same thing happening again with League of Legends -- only it's a hundred times worse, because it seems like everyone and their mother is playing this game. As such, I have developed a potential solution to dodgy guildmates. Using transmogrification, your guildies can now transform themselves into two of the most popular League of Legends characters, Graves and Ashe. Who knows? In doing so, maybe they'll actually work on last hitting the damned boss for a change.
Riot Games shutting down League of Legends for Mac
Bad news for League of Legends gamers on the Mac -- after years of teasing about a Mac client for the popular free-to-play title (I even saw it running way back when), Riot has decided to pull the plug on plans to make the game Mac compatible. There has been a beta client floating around for quite a while now, and there were even servers to run with it. But those servers are going down, and Riot has made the decision to put the Mac client on hold indefinitely. Because of this, and even if you have the software, you won't be able to connect to the game from the Mac version. Bummer. Riot says it can't "guarantee the quality and frequent updates we deliver today on the PC and are expected by our player community" on OS X, and while there is a long-term plan to make the game available on the Mac, it's not going to be ready any time soon. If you do want to play the game on the Mac, you can load up Boot Camp and install the Windows version. But a native client is a no-no for now. Fortunately, Mac users are going to get reimbursed somewhat: Everyone who has "a majority of your logins come from the Mac client," and is able to log on between September 2 and 6, can click a reward button will get a Champions Pack for free.
Hands-on: League of Legends for the Mac
Defense of the Ancients is one of the most interesting stories in all of gaming -- it was originally a player-created mod for the Warcraft III real-time strategy game, and it completely revamped the RTS game into a RPG/hack-and-slash mashup, where the player controlled a champion character that fought to turn the tide of battle on a player-vs-player map. The mod proved so popular that game companies are now creating their own official versions of it, and League of Legends is one of those -- a "DotA"-style mix of hack-and-slash gameplay combined with a few RTS elements created by Riot Games. "LoL," as players are calling it, actually has the best pedigree of all the DotA clones -- two of the mods' designers were (and still are) involved in the games' development. Now LoL is coming to the Mac -- Riot Games invited me to come and see the game this week running natively on their MacBook Pro. The game uses a free to play model, so if you're running Boot Camp, you can go and download it right now and play to your heart's content. But Riot is convinced that "there's millions of gamers out there" who want to run their game natively, and so sometime later this year, it'll be available in OS X. I got to check out the game on official Apple hardware, ask them if they had any problems porting it over, and poke them a little bit about how RTS games might work on the iPad. Hit the link below to read on.
