And it has an awesome acronym. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. I only recently noticed that it was in open beta due to the gigantic ad plastered on Wowhead the other night. And being as much a fan of DotA as the next person I was more than willing to try it out. In case you aren’t familiar with League of Legends, essentially the guy who made DotA got hired to make it into a stand-alone game. During some interviews he mentioned there were things that he wanted to do that he just couldn’t do solely with triggers and scripting inside Warcraft 3.
My Summoner Profile
And it shows. Already League of Legends feels very polished and I’ve had a blast playing it the past couple days. Everything from the more intuitive shop interface that makes buying items a breeze, the recommended items to purchase for you chosen champion (as they call them), more user-friendly targeting mechanism while in-game, among other things all makes it feel exactly as it should. A more polished, refined version of Defense of the Ancients.
League of Legend Mastery Trees
In addition to familiar awesome gameplay, they introduced the idea of a persistent “summoner.” Each game you get to pick a new champion if you so desire. But your account can be leveled up in ways very familiar to WoW players. Talent trees, glyphs, etc. All adds up to a fairly complete package. It’s still in beta so things like the glyphs are still under development as well as the addition of multiple maps. But it does have a number of obviously required features such as a buddy list, win/loss stats, and how many times someone has left a game which I am sure many DotA players will appreciate.
League of Legend Champions
If you have the desire to try it out, hop over to their site and add Drotara to your friend’s list.
Me and a small group of my friends are all huge DotA fans. When we heard about LoL, we were excited and tried it out. While it was fantastic, and we all loved it, there is one other game that is also in beta that we all liked a LOT more, which also aims to replicate DotA. That game is Heroes of Newerth (HoN). It completely blows LoL out of the water. I highly recommend looking into it if you’re a DotA fan, ;)
hmmm, i thought that this game would basically be exactly the same as dota was just with better graphics (like the HoN, which is also still in beta).
it seems exactly like HoN, except for the idea of the persistent summoner. It looks like that would allow for small changes to playstyle. If only my RL friends didn all play HoN
I like this game a LOT more than HON.
The probelm with HON is that it is basically DOTA (same heroes, etc) with some extra features that help. But it’s the same balance problems, the same angry community, and the same “protect your carry to farm him killing their whole team an hour in” gameplay.
LOL heroes are freaking awesome. So many awesome new designs that do really dope shit… I love Cryophoenix. Blitzcrank is also a much improved Pudge. Shaco is a pretty fun stealther (not my favorite, but supposedly cool), and Corki is an incredible carry as well with tons of funky skill-based targeting options.
The gameplay is way more team oriented than DOTA, which is a little bit of an adjustment, but is great. Being on vent playing with your friends is really fun.
And it has really good matchmaking, especially if you premake with friends a little bit as a 2 or 3 man (or 5 sometimes). You get really competitive matches that go back and forth — I’ve had amazing comebacks in some matchups.
I’ve liked it so far playing the open beta, plan on getting it once it’s released. Sivir is by far my favorite champion to play!
Sivir does seem pretty beastly. I know they annoy me. :) I am playing Tryndamere (I think it how it is spelled) but he is a tough one to play.
I’ve been playing this game a ton with friends since we’ve all but quit WoW.
DotA always intrigued me but had such a high barrier to entry that I never got into it. I found LoL to be way more approachable, though. I can appreciate why some people prefer HoN, but I value the fact that Riot is actually trying to make a new game with LoL.
I usually run a Kassadin with my team, but I’ve played Alistar and Chogath on occasion, as well.
It definitely fills some of the holes left by WoW in my brain.
I am lvl 28 now in LoL. Got there mostly with Nunu. I feel like I should start playing a carry because I am too reliant on the other players on my team (being good).