Magic in LoL

What is League of Legends?

League of Legends is the most played videogame in the world. With over 32 million players a month and over 1.3 BILLION hours of play time by June 2012, it has surpassed other popular games including even World of Warcraft in terms of popularity. Watch the video we created at the top of the page if you want an intro to the history of the League of Legends.

As you can see, it has many traditional aspects of fantasy games, a large amount of lore, and many game mechanics that are only seen in it's new, niche sub category, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The game is also free to play and fairly easy to learn. What I want to talk about is LoL's heavy focus on magic and what that means about the people that play it.

Character Identities

Each player is put in charge of controlling a champion capable of great feats and possessing supernatural powers. Many fall under classic stereotypes like the just sword wielder, Garen, and the necromancer, Karthus. There are 103 champions to choose from a sad mummy to an animated scarecrow. People like finding a character with which they share an affinity. Videogames are relatable to more people because the developers include references to the real world and make characters with which players can empathize. People who love running around and living dangerously might choose Ziggs, a Yordle (small creature) who loves throwing bombs with abandon. Many of my friends will not play other MOBA games because they've found a character that personifies them. Every character has a lore behind them that is expanded by the addition of new characters. The overarching story fits into the gameplay and allows for all of the diverse characters to exist in one  world.

Magic+Technology

The magic used by champions in LoL is not only traditional spells or curses; many champions derive power from magical technology. They practice the art of "techmaturgy," technology fueled by magic. Many champions use high technology that resembles magic such as Corki's aircrafts, sentient golems, and resurrecting a soldier. This is similar to the magical qualities of technology that many experts theorize will become commonplace in the future. Nanotechnology, AI in drones, and the internet are just a few examples of current technology that falls under the realm of magic in the recent past.

"Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law

Universal Connection

The amount of people that play online together is magical in itself. It is miraculous how so many people are think about similar things while being miles apart, connecting with people across the country through a game about magical combat. Some people eat, sleep, and breathe this game in order to be the best. There are countless strategy guides and discussion on sites like mobafire.com, lolpro.com, and leagueoflegends.com. Users of magic in older times used elusive texts written by famous sorcerers in cryptic language to hone their art. Information about LoL might not be very hard to find, but LoL gamers have developed their own lingo and seek advice from the best players in live-streams. Thousands of people watch when the best players stream gameplay and talk about how they play the game. A streamer known by "Dyrus" gets 20,000 viewers even at 8 o'clock A.M.

Maybe it's not the magic?

LoL's prevalence and fixation on magic might not be the direct cause of its massive rise in popularity. The game was released as a free title, and aesthetic changes to your character are the only things you cannot buy with IP, a currency you accrue by playing the game. LoL grew a huge fan base following its release, and these avid fans recruited their friends to play the free game with them. Exactly why LoL has surpassed other games like Halo, CoD, and World of Warcraft is something that is hard to distinguish, but we believe that this game succeeded in part because of its focus on magical combat and their player's familiarity with characters and storylines seen in Dungeons and Dragons. 

We made the following video to showcase some of the many champions in LoL as well as how the game plays out.

Pro Play

League of Legends has a growing, competitive E-Sports community. There are over 30,000 Twitch TV accounts that regularly stream games of LoL. Tournaments attract teams of professional gamers and huge crowds similar to any music concert. You might see games of LoL on ESPN before long as more than 8 million people tuned in to watch the season 2 finale.

This is video coverage of a LoL tournament in South Korea between two of their biggest teams. The crowd is huge!

Creating this Blog:

 My name is Austin Burch and I created this project in collaboration with Kevin Byun for our Final English 1101 project at Georgia Tech. The goal of the project is to develop and electronic project that addresses the role of magic in modern society. We decided to focus on League of Legends, a hit online videogame that is steeped in magic. The amount of people across the globe playing the game means that the fantasy tropes seen previously in niche activities like Dungeons and Dragons has become much more accepted by modern day people. The use of magic is an incentive for the mainstream to play, not a barrier to a wide audience.

Kevin quickly established that we should include a video element to our project, which seemed more than applicable to me. We also decided that a blog would be the best platform to use for our project. We set to work researching why League of Legends is so popular right away. We found many sources attributing the astronomical numbers to the new game design and the large networking effects that are the result of the game being free to play at any level. I also found many sources describing why they feel an attachment to the game; a reason why they play a minimum of 3 hours a day. We started writing up an outline of the points we wanted to make and what we wanted to cover in the video sections.

The video script comes from our own summary of the canon lore. Kevin recorded video from his own games as well as famous footage on YouTube. We had to use an audio recorder from the desk at the Clough library. We also worked on the video in the Design Lab. We used two recorders and ended up getting burnt on one of them because it couldn't download the files to my computer. We had to rerecord all of the audio for the champion video. Kevin uploaded the finished videos to YouTube so I could link them on the blog. The tools on Blogger allowed Kevin and I to link all of the media we wanted albeit without some freedom in the size or placement of the objects. We also worked on a presentation style between us for the Wednesday meeting.

I really enjoyed working on this project with Kevin. I learned a lot more about video production and using the resources and discussion from class. I also learned a lot about presenting the information in a dynamic way through an online format.

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"Wethegamerz » Will League Of Legends Bring Mainstream E-Sports To The West?."Wethegamerz. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2012. <http://www.wethegamerz.com/2012/11/22/will-league-of-legends-bring-mainstream-e-sports-to-the-west/>.

Katarina and co.. N.d. Gamer Limit new Dominion game mode. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Season 2 finale graphic. N.d. wethegamerz.com. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

Pro Gamers. N.d. Forbes, Team SoloMid. Web. 29 Nov. 2012.