This course will explore League of Legends, the world’s most popular video game with over 100 million players and eSports tournaments that draw over 100 million spectators. We will examine LoL through a variety of lenses, including gameplay, eSports, psychology and game design. We will use a combination of in-class discussions, online resources and weekly homework assignments to analyze professional-level games and improve our own gameplay through analysis and practice.
League of Legends is a multiplayer online role-playing game where the player controls a champion and fights other teams of six in a contested territory called Summoner’s Rift. Each game lasts between 20 and 40 minutes, with one team winning if they destroy all of the enemy’s turrets and inhibitors. The game has a massively complex structure and an intimidating learning curve, even for experienced players.
Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill and fellow founder Brandon Beck worked with a small crew of playtesters and interns to develop the game, which they called Onslaught before changing it to League of Legends. The project was a hive of activity, with the team churning out the massive design document and slapping together a prototype that could be shown at the 2007 Game Developers Conference.
But the work was intense, and the team’s ideals started to clash. Some wanted to make a DOTA clone quickly and cheaply, while others favored innovating on the genre and improving the existing experience. The tension was so great that in early 2008, three members of the core team left. 롤대리