User:CattonsPurdue/sandbox

League of Legends (LoL) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, inspired by the mod Defense of the Ancients for the video game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. It is a free-to-play game, supported by micro-transactions. The game was first announced on October 7, 2008, and released on October 27, 2009. League of Legends was generally well received at release, and has grown in popularity in the years since. According to a 2012 Forbes article, League of Legends was the most played PC game in North America and Europe in terms of the number of hours played. As of January 2014, over 67 million people play League of Legends per month, 27 million per day, and over 7.5 million concurrently during peak hours.

In League of Legends, players assume the role of a character, called a "champion", with unique abilities, battling with a team against other player or computer-controlled champions. In the most popular game modes, each team's goal is to destroy the opposing team's nexus, a building which lies at the heart of a base protected by defensive structures. Each League of Legends game is discrete, with all champions starting off each game fairly weak and progressing by accumulating gold and experience over the course of the game.

League of Legends has spawned a large, active competitive scene. In North America and Europe, Riot Games organizes the League of Legends Championship Series, which consists of 8 professional teams in each continent. Similar regional competitions exist in China, Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. These regional competitions culminate with the annual League of Legends World Championships, which in 2013 had a grand prize of $1 million and attracted 32 million viewers online.

Gameplay
League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena where players control a "champion" within short PvP or bot battles. As of September 16, 2014, there are 121 different champions from which to choose, all of which are classified by type (such as assassin, tank, or support), which indicates the champion's gameplay style. Players gain levels from killing the opposing team's champions, controlled by other players or bots, and minions that regularly spawn and attack the other team's turrets, minions, and champions. In the classic game mode, the map is typically divided into three "lanes", which are paths that spawned minions take; the "jungle", an area between lanes where neutral monsters spawn; and "bases", where players spawn and can purchase items. The three lanes are composed of the bottom, mid, and top lanes, which different champions tend to battle on based on their respective types. The jungle is sometimes considered a lane, where some champion tends to roam in order to collect buffs and assist in the other lanes freely. The player earns a small amount of gold every second passively, but can earn more by getting the last hit on minions, destroying enemy towers (referred to as turrets) that guard the lanes, killing neutral monsters located in the jungle, and killing enemy champions. With this gold, users can buy a variety of items to strengthen their champion for the remaining duration of the game. On the classic Summoners Rift, Twisted Treeline, and Howling Abyss maps, the game is ended by destroying the enemy team's last structure on the map, called the "Nexus", from which minions spawn. Other maps have variations of rules and objectives, such as Dominion on the Crystal Scar map, where each team's Nexus loses health if the opposing team controls at least three of the five towers located around the map.

The League of Legends Store allows players 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.

The player is identified as a "summoner" and acts as the persistent element in the game. A summoner's statistics and scores are tracked and are accessible to the player. Summoners gain experience points and Influence Points for each battle they participate in. Experience points lead to persistent level gains for the summoner, up to a maximum level of 30. The benefit of gaining levels is unlocking Mastery Points and Rune Page slots (below) which improve the overall strength of the summoner's chosen champion during battles. The summoner can also choose two "summoner spells", which significantly impact gameplay and have a high cooldown rate while costing no mana. All spells can be improved by masteries (perks that affect gameplay), which are developed in a skill tree. All of the masteries are passive effects, although some augment items which can be activated. They are grouped into offensive, defensive, and utility categories. Masteries can be re-distributed at will between battles.

Similar to masteries, runes affect gameplay in minor ways. Runes are categorized into Marks (offensive), Seals (defensive), Glyphs (magic), and Quintessences (utility). They must be unlocked in the store. To benefit from runes, summoners can arrange them in their Runebooks, which has a limited number of slots for each rune type. However, more rune pages can be purchased from either Influence Points or Riot Points. Combining two equal-tier runes produces a random rune of the same tier, while combining 5 equal-tier runes produces a higher-tier rune.

Moderation is conducted through a democratic system known as the Tribunal. In this system, player-submitted reports are reviewed by other players on a case-by-case basis. The reviewing players then submit their opinions on the legality of the behavior demonstrated. A consensus renders the decision official. It is notable that players are unable to be permanently banned through this system, since "all permanent bans are distributed manually." Reviewers receive a Justice Rating based on their accuracy to encourage thorough analysis of cases. The League of Legends community does have mixed reviews about the Tribunal. Players frequently complain that the Tribunal is not effective due to the large amount of toxicity from other players still in the game. Riot has tried to improve the system by implementing automatic chat restrictions after a certain amount of offenses. Behavior punishment is always a challenge for online games, especially for the largest online game by player base.

Game modes and matchmaking
League of Legends is a session-based game. Matchmaking creates teams with even average Matchmaking Rating (MMR) of the constituent players. MMR uses the Elo formula with proprietary adjustments.


 * Tutorial mode is a set of two introductory sessions that teach the basics of the game. It is intended to help new players learn concepts such as the controls and the game's HUD.
 * Custom mode allows players to create games that players manually join rather than relying on the game's matchmaking system to create the teams. In custom matches, the teams can be uneven and may include a mix of players and bots (computer-controlled champions).
 * Classic mode is a normal or ranked match in which a team wins by destroying the enemy team's Nexus, which can only be attacked if all lane turrets and the inhibitor in at least one lane and all base turrets are destroyed. Classic mode is played in two different styles: either 5 vs. 5 on a three-lane map, each team's side having three lane turrets and an inhibitor per lane, as well as two base turrets and a Nexus; or 3 vs. 3 on a two-lane map, each team's side having two lane turrets and an inhibitor per lane, as well as one base turret and a Nexus. The map also has three altars, two of which add bonuses to the players, and one that heals the players. These altars are surrounded by a jungle. There are three types of matches in Classic mode:
 * Normal matches are player versus player. Before the beginning of the match, there are several ways for team players to select their champions. Blind pick matches allow both teams to pick champions at the same time, but each team does not learn what the opposing team has picked until all picks have been finalized; players may therefore incidentally choose the same champion as a player on the opposing team, but players may not choose the same champion as another player on their own team. Draft pick randomly assigns a team captain for each team, who then take turns banning three champions each, disallowing both teams from playing those six champions. Draft players then choose their champions in an ordered back-and-forth format. Because both teams can see which champion each player is picking, no player can pick a champion that has already been picked by another player.
 * Ranked matches are available to players that are level 30. Ranked uses a draft pick system exclusively, and players are seeded into a League system based on the outcome of their matches. Winning and losing games influences a player's MMR, which is intended to keep all players' skill levels in any given game as close as possible.
 * Co-op vs. AI mode matches players against a team of bots. Similar to the Tutorial mode, it is also intended mainly as a way for inexperienced players to learn.
 * Team Builder, released on March 27th, 2014, is a normal classic mode queue that allows players to queue up as a specific champion and role of their choice. After submitting your selections to the team builder system, you can build your own balanced team or join an existing one. Team builder is intended to bring players together that complement each other's expectations and intentions the moment they enter the lobby. This allows for more cooperative play and communication between players who are playing a role and champion they want rather than something they are forced to do.
 * Dominion mode is a normal match played 5v5 on Crystal Scar, a map with a single circular lane that has five neutral turrets arranged in a star pattern. A team wins by reducing the life total of the enemy team's Nexus, which only occurs if the opposing team controls at least three of the five neutral turrets, until it is zero.
 * ARAM (All Random All Mid) mode randomly picks champions that the players are able to play, allowing up to 2 re-rolls if the player is unsatisfied with their pick. Players may also trade with teammates if both parties own the champions to be traded. The mode is played 5 vs. 5 on Howling Abyss, a one-lane map with each team's side having two lane turrets, an inhibitor, two base turrets, and a Nexus. A team wins by destroying the enemy team's Nexus, which can only be attacked if both lane turrets, the inhibitor, and both base turrets are destroyed.
 * One for All mode was the first limited-time game mode that was available during the 2013 Harrowing, and is no longer available. In this game mode, each team was randomly assigned a captain, who then took turns banning three champions each, disallowing both teams from playing those six champions. Players on each team would then select champions at the same time. Each player was only aware of their own team's choices until all picks are finalized, as with blind pick. However, there was no restriction on choosing a champion that has already been picked. Once all players had chosen, each team was assigned the champion that was picked by the most players on that team, and all players had to play as that champion. In the event of a tie, the game randomly selected the champion. One for All could be played 5 vs. 5 on either the Summoner's Rift or Howling Abyss maps. This game mode later returned at the end of May 2014, with a new twist - both teams were assigned the same champion. This version, called One For All: Mirror Mode took place only on the Howling Abyss (ARAM) map.
 * Showdown was the second limited-time game mode, available during the 2013 Snowdown Showdown. Showdown was played either 1 vs. 1 or 2 vs. 2 on the Howling Abyss map. Each team played until one team achieved one of three goals: taking down an enemy turret, reaching 100 team minion kills, or killing the enemy player (or two in 2 vs. 2 matches).
 * Hexakill mode was the third limited time game mode. Taking place on Summoners Rift, each team had six players instead of the typical five.
 * Ultra Rapid Fire mode was introduced on April 1, 2014 as the fourth limited-time game mode. It is a Classic Draft game, except that all champions had their movement speed increased, gained gold quicker, could use abilities without using mana or energy, and had more powerful ranged attacks, among other changes. Several champions are unavailable in this mode.
 * Doom Bots of Doom was the fifth limited time game mode, released on July 17, 2014. It took place on Summoner's Rift, where five actual players would play against five AI enemies with extremely modified abilities, making them extremely dangerous. Players win by destroying the enemy nexus, per normal game rules, and lost if their own nexus was destroyed. There were three difficulty modes available, "1 Bomb", the easiest, "2 Bombs", a medium-difficulty mode, and "5 Bombs", an extremely difficult and hardcore version of the mode.

New Accounts
League of Legends is a free to play game. This means players simply need to download the game off of the League of Legends website and create an account. Once the account is created, the player can complete a short tutorial on the basics of the game. In order to play a Normal 5v5 game, the account must reach level 5 by playing vs. the AI. At level 5 the player can now play Normal games, which is the classic 5 person vs. 5 person setup. As the account continues to level up from completing games, they will be awarded experience and Influence Points. These points can be used to purchase new champions and runes. As the player gains levels they also gain mastery points that are used to gain additional traits that are passively acquired at the beginning of each game.

Common Phrases
Because League of Legends is an online game playing with and against other people, communication is vital. There is very little “down time” to type out long thoughts, therefore players have developed shortened versions of terms to communicate efficiently. Terms like these evolve out of necessity. As new items and updates come to the game, new slang terms are created. Below are several of the terms used by players most every game.

cs= creep score(amount of minions that you last hit)

bot= bottom lane

mid= middle lane

top= top lane

gg= good game

noob= new player

farming= gathering creep score

ult= champion’s ultimate ability(r ability)

q,w,e,r= Each ability for a champion, key bound to that letter

Blue= The neutral monster camp that gives the “blue” buff granting cool down reduction and mana regeneration

Red= The neutral monster camp that gives the “red” buff granting movement slow on hit

Oom= out of mana

AD= Attack Damage(Used by primarily auto-attack champions)

AP= Ability Power(Used by spell casting champions)

CC= Crowd Control (stuns, slows, silence, immobilize, etc)

CD= Cooldown

Inc= incoming, Omw= on my way

OP=Overpowered

Ss or mia= missing

DOT= Damage over time

Smurf= alternative account

Items: IE=Infinity Edge, DFG= Deathfire Grasp, TF=Trinity Force

Ranked Gameplay
Once the account reaches the maximum level of 30 and has purchased a minimum of 16 champions, the player may enter the ranked gameplay mode. In this mode the player will gain and lose points depending on the outcome of the game. After the first 10 ranked games the player will be placed in a division. The divisions are currently split into Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Challenger. Each division except master and challenger are composed of five divisions, division five being the lowest and division one being the highest. In order to increase in ranks you must climb the division by reaching 100 LP and winning a best of 3 promotion. The promotion in the 1st division is a best of 5. Players have a hidden rating that determines how much LP they gain and lose for each win.

Tournaments
The 2010 World Cyber Games Grand Finals in Los Angeles hosted a League of Legends tournament, at which teams from China, Europe, and the Americas competed. The Counter Logic Gaming team from North America won the tournament, earning a $7,000 prize.

The Season 1 World Championships in June 2011, held at Dreamhack in Sweden, featured US$100,000 in prizes. The European team Fnatic defeated teams from Europe, the USA, and Asia to win the tournament and received US$50,000 in prize money. Over 1.6 million viewers watched the streamed broadcast of the event, with a peak of over 210,000 simultaneous viewers in one semi-final match.

After Season 1, Riot announced that US$5,000,000 would be paid out over Season 2. Of this amount, $2 million was to go to Riot's partners, including the IPL and other major eSports associations. Another $2 million was to go to Riot's Season 2 qualifiers and championship. The final $1 million was to go to small organizers who apply to Riot to host League of Legends tournaments.

After a series of network issues during the Season 2 World Playoffs that led to several matches being delayed, Riot revealed on October 13, 2012, that a special LAN-based client had been quickly developed, designed for use in tournament environments where the effects of lag and other network issues can be detrimental to the proper organization of an event. The LAN client was deployed for the first time during the first quarter-final and semi-final matches played following the re-scheduled matches, and was in use during the finals.

On October 13, 2012, Taiwan's professional team Taipei Assassins (TPA) triumphed over South Korea's Azubu Frost in the Finals of Season 2 World Championship with a score of 3 to 1, and claimed the $1 million in prize money.

In October 2013, Korean team SK Telecom T1 and Chinese team Royal Club"competed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.SK Telecom T1 won the grand prize of $1 million, and Royal Club received $250,000. The Season 3 World Championships took place from September 16th to October 4th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The two finalists were the Chinese team Royal Club and the Korean team SK Telecom T1. In a best of 5 match, SKT T1 won the Season 3 World Championships 3-0 and walked away with $1 million USD in winnings. Royal Club placed second winning $250,000.

The Season 4 World Championships will take place from September 18, 2014 through October 19, 2014. Sixteen teams will compete to be crowed the Season 4 World Champions. Unlike previous years, this year the group stages will be played on the road, in Singapore and Taipei, Taiwan. The quarterfinals to the finals will be held in Seoul, South Korea in the Sangam Stadium, the place of the 2002 FIFA world cup. A total of $2,130,000 is to be distributed to the participating teams.

On October 19, 2014 Samsung Galaxy White defeated Star Horn Royal Club 3-1 to become the season 4 World Champions. The Season 4 world event was a grand spectacle ranging from fireworks to a performance from Imagine Dragons. Imagine Dragons performed their new song "Warriors" created for the Season 4 World Championship, as well many other of their hit singles.

As of 2013, League of Legends is the most popular e-sports game in South Korea.

On March 23, 2013, the cinematographic studios in Rome hosted the Italian launch of League of Legends. More than 1,500 people were present, along with Riot Games developers, journalists and various guests. The show schedule included a cosplay contest and a challenge match between two Italian clans.

On July 11, 2013, one of the publisher's managers Nick Allen announced that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services now recognizes League of Legends pro-players as professional athletes and the visa application process is now simplified for them. These changes allow professional players to stay in the United States for up to 5 years.

Championship Series
On February 7, 2013, Riot made the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) in Europe and North America. This is a league system where 8 teams compete to stay in the league. A season consists of two splits, each split separated into a regular season and a playoff. The top three teams from each continent advance to the world championships.

Other Leagues

 * OGN Champions (Korea)
 * League of Legends Pro League (LPL) (China)
 * Garena Premier League (GPL) (Southeast Asia)
 * League of Legends Nova League (LNL) (Taiwan)

World championship and Allstars
After the ending of the spring split, a few players chosen by fans as well as the number one team in the playoffs participate in an entertainment event where all regions are represented. This event was previously held in Shanghai, China in 2013 and Paris, France in 2014. Once the summer split is over, a world championship takes place where up to 3 teams from each region will compete for the League of Legends World Cup and a prize pool of more than $1 million.

Development
Riot Games was co-founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. They partnered with Steve "Guinsoo" Feak, the previous designer of the popular Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne custom map Defense of the Ancients, and Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, the administrator of the former official support base for the map to develop 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, greatly expanding the number of heroes, added recipes and items, and introduced various gameplay changes. Guinsoo then passed version 6 of the map on to a new developer, IceFrog.

The idea of a spiritual successor to Defense of the Ancients was that it would be its own stand-alone game with its own engine, rather than another mod of Warcraft III, began to materialize at the end of 2005. League of Legends was born "when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so much fun and so innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services."

Riot Games officially opened its office in September 2006, and currently has over 1,000 people working on League of Legends.

According to Marc Merrill, when creating the various champions in the game, instead of leaving the champion creation to just a few people, they decided to open up the champion creation process to everyone in the company based upon a template where they could vote on which champions made it into the game.

The game was in a closed beta from April 10, 2009, to October 22, 2009. It then transitioned to open beta until release.

In March 2013, Riot Games released a beta version of an OS X client in addition to their Windows client.

Release
Riot Games has signed deals regarding the distribution of League of Legends in Asia, Europe, and North America. The game is also expected to be released in the rest of the world. The game has already released and is distributed in Australia, the United States, Canada, Europe, Philippines, and South Korea. No public announcements regarding other regions have been made.

In Asia, Tencent Inc., China's largest Internet value-added services company best known for its QQ Instant Messaging client, will be in charge of the distribution to Tencent's growing 300 million Internet user base through its leading QQ Game portal. The deal is one of only a handful of partnerships to bring a U.S.-developed online game directly to China.

In Europe, Riot Games has signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, the videogames department of Orange's Content Division and Europe's largest gaming portal. On October 13, 2009, GOA and Riot announced that they would start channeling server access for players located in Europe to GOA's dedicated servers. This restriction meant that players located in Europe would not be able to play on Riot's servers in the United States. Due to negative community feedback, the channeling decision was rescinded October 16, 2009. In North America, Riot Games will self-publish and operate the game and all of its customer service aspects.

On May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over distribution and operation of the game in Europe. To do so, Riot Games established a European HQ in Dublin.

On July 14, 2009, Riot Games announced that League of Legends will be free with "no catch". There will be a digital copy for download, but there is also a Digital Collector's Copy that will be available to purchase that contains exclusive skins, $10 credit for Riot Points, and 20 champions to access without unlocking them normally via gameplay as well as 4 "special" runes. This Collector's Pack is currently available for US$29.99. Even though the game is free, Riot Games "plan[s] to continue to add content (characters etc...) with a full production team at very frequent intervals." Using both free-to-play and freemium models, the game is supported by microtransactions (see store) rather than ads or boxed copy sales.

On February 25, 2010, Riot Games announced that League of Legends would be distributed in Southeast Asian countries by an unspecified publisher and blocked SEA IP addresses pursuant to its distribution agreement. The community has raised a number of concerns about the deal and the immediate IP block. On July 16, 2010, Riot Games announced that Garena would publish the game in Southeast Asia. Additionally, Southeast Asian players had the ability "transfer accounts" to import their progress stored in North American or European servers into the Southeast Asian server.

In April of 2013, Riot announced the launch of the Russian server. The only supported language on the server is Russian. Players were given free transfers and rewards for a limited time. On May 6, 2013 Riot announced the beta launch for the Oceanic server, giving players from the Oceania area a dedicated website, local servers, and English support. In June of 2013, Riot Games announced the live release of the Latin America North and Latin America South servers. For each new server, players were given a chance to transfer their accounts to the new server and receive additional rewards for a limited time.

As of October 6, 2014 League of Legends currently has 9 different active servers all over the world. Those locations include North America, Latin America North, Latin America South, Brazil, EU West, EU Nordic and East, Turkey, Russia, and Oceania. The significance of the server locations is that people will want to play on servers closest to their area for the least amount of latency.

Popular reception
In a release published in November 2012, Riot Games claimed that League of Legends had accumulated 32.5 million players, 11.5 million of whom play monthly, of which 4.2 million play daily, making it the most played online game in the world. According to Riot in October 2013, the game had 12 million active daily players and 32 million active monthly players. In January 2014, the game had 27 million active daily players, 7.5 million concurrent players at peak times, and 67 million active monthly players. Global concurrent users online peaked at over 5 million players as of March 2013.

In March 2012, League of Legends became the #1 title in Korean PC cafés. In July 2012, Xfire released a report stating that League of Legends was the most played PC game in North America and Europe, with 1.3 billion hours logged by players in those regions between July 2011 and June 2012. League of Legends is also very popular in the Philippines, and, as of July 2013, it is the second most played game in internet cafés in the country (just behind Defense of the Ancients). In Taiwan, it is estimated that almost 5 percent of their entire population played the game, with almost 1 million players subscribed on the server.

Online Forums
League of Legends has many different website forums where players can discuss aspects of the game, news, and pretty much anything about the game. One of those websites in the League of Legends page on Reddit. As of October 21, 2014 the subreddit has around 570,600 subscribers. Anyone can go here to read about recent news about the game or see nice plays that other player post.

Critical reception
League of Legends has received generally favorable reviews, and currently holds a Metacritic score of 78 out of 100.

IGN initially awarded League of Legends 8.0 out of 10 in 2009, highlighting an enjoyable game design, inventive champion design with good customization options, and lively visuals. However, the game's confusing launch was criticized: it was felt that the title was released too early, with some features missing and others to be removed. Finally, the reviewer noted that high level players in the game have "little patience for newcomers", though the reviewer believed that matchmaking (not implemented at the time of review) would solve the problem by matching players of similar level together.

Leah B. Jackson of IGN re-reviewed the game in 2014, changing IGN's score from 8.0 to 9.2. Jackson hailed the game as a "firm as an example of excellence", praising the variety of champions, rewarding progression systems, and fast but intensely strategic team play.

As compared to fellow MOBA games Heroes of Newerth and Dota 2, Mike Minotti of VentureBeat considered the game the easiest to learn and to have fastest gameplay pace of the three.