It’s the tale of an extremely difficult, user-unfriendly game reaching untold heights of success. It’s the story of a company that has remained committed to listening to and interacting with its fans even as it at has grown exponentially. More than anything, it’s the story of two best friends who liked playing video games and decided one day to make their own.
Riot is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, but to really know how one of the world’s biggest development studios got started, you need to go back to Los Angeles in the early aughts. You need to find two University of Southern California business students who formed a bond unrelated to their studies.
More than a hundred million people play League of Legends every month now. For a game as uninviting and complex as this, that’s an absolutely astonishing number of people. It’s also quite amazing to compare the early years of League to today, and see just how much the game has changed over the years. I don’t think many people realise just how different today’s League is to that of only a few years ago.
I play League pretty much every day, as a great way to unwind after a day’s work. I’m not always happy with every single change Riot implements – anyone remember the tank meta? – but when push comes to shove, I think the company is doing quite a good job of keeping League fresh with interesting new content, gameplay changes, and balance adjustments. They failed spectacularly in the area of communication these past few years, but they seem to have turned that ship around in the second half of this year, with more openness and better communication about the state of the game, their choices, and their reasoning – and, of course, they are finally fulfilling some long-standing player requests and their own promises.
I stopped playing this game years ago due to it’s toxic user base (you weren’t any better than me – the reason you were bronze is because, like me, and like everyone else in bronze, you suck).
Is it still completely toxic?
I believe you answered your own question before you even asked it. 😉
Seriously though, I’ve never played League of Legends so I can’t say. I try to avoid online games with tons of griefers, which is why I’ve scaled back my Rust gameplay and stick to PvE servers now. The new XP system in Rust is geared towards “lifers”, those who do nothing but play Rust every waking moment, so filthy casuals like me can’t get very far on PvP servers. I can imagine a similar issue on LoL between lifers and casuals, with the former being toxic griefers in the eyes of casual players.
Fair enough.
It’s actually pretty okay now. The last few years, Riot has really, really stepped up its anti-toxicity efforts, and it’s paid off. The difference between playing League a few years ago and playing it today with regards to the community in-game is stunning.
Only a few years ago, you’d get flaming and aggression like 1 out of every 3 games. Today, it’s more like 1 out of every 50 games. It’s so rare these days, I sometimes almost forget it was ever even an issue.
Riot promised they’d fight toxicity a few years ago, and on this topic, they 100% delivered.
Isn’t every online gaming community?
Edited 2016-10-18 07:33 UTC
so they took an idea from WOW that dota and HON were already doing and made worse cartoonish graphics and game play and somehow they are making money. The only thing creative they did was dominion because capture the flag is always good. After playing HON and Dota for many years I cant handle playing LOL its far too easy. Dota2 is much better in every way. But no game has better griefers than HON, those guys will beat u up if u die once :}
I was waiting for the inevitable butthurt Dota player to show up. For some reason, lots of Dota players have this insatiable need to talk shit about the more successful game every chance they get. It’s almost religious.
Kinda creepy, to be honest. Just enjoy your game without the need to attack others at every turn! Dota looks slow and cluttered to me, but tons of people are enjoying it, and that’s awesome! I see no need to be aggressive towards Dota or its community.
oh, im not butthurt at all, you can play whatever game you like. However, just saying most LOL players have never even tried the other similar games and still pronounce their game as the best, so who has the religious issue? I challenge you to try dota2 for three months and then go back to LOL and then you might have a valid opinion.
No one on this thread said LoL was better than anything else in any categoric way (though it seems to be quite a bit more popular – my guess is due to accessibility, to me Dota2 feels like work, and I don’t game to work).
The only one saying categoric things would be you, and you seem to be saying that you are categorically too good for LoL. That’s a fine opinion to have of yourself, but I can’t fathom why you would need to tell that to everyone else.
“valid opinion” – earning that shit reputation that gamers have
Edited 2016-10-19 20:13 UTC
No,
CDE would be better news in my book.