Sunday, September 3, 2017

Untie the League

Had the best League game yesterday. I mean, my score by the end was 0/3/0, (zero kills and assists, three deaths, not the absolute worst but still,) but it was truly a pleasure to be on that team. Apparently a great way to inspire camaraderie is to question whether your current teammates are just bots? It really gets people to teamchat to assure you that they're not, and a conversation and shotcalling just flow forth from there. 

Also, I guess I'm playing League now.

There's been kind of a (pretty darn clever) advertising push on YouTube lately (or maybe it's just to me based on like demographics) which makes sense that they'd do it now, because it's tournament season, and --man you wouldn't believe how hard it is to track down an ad when it's unlisted, even when it pops up in front of every video, but eh did I say it's hard it's actually pretty easy I just copied the reference from the referral URL that links out of the video-- but the pitch perfection of this ad campaign is only one of the reasons I'm getting into it (I'm a graphic design student; liking advertisements instead of being annoyed by them is one of our prerequisites.)


You also see League stuff at Fandomonium[!] and I had no idea what was going on, what with all the turrets and minions and, do you control the minions themselves or guide them somewhere like with Age of Empires or something, or does each champion have their own minions, and what's the deal with jungling? (I still have no clue as to that last one. But the minions are just bots that go out in waves from both sides like some kind of two-way tower defense game, is the answer to how those work.)

Really though the tipping point that sparked my interest is Overworld, the fictional VR e-sport from Dan Wells's latest series, Mirador. Which books are totally awesome and great and you should consider reading them because I was pretty bored at first because I couldn't relate to the teenage girl protagonists at all but they were just so engaging and well written that I was wholeheartedly into everything by the end, and the latest book, set during an Overworld championship, is especially good (and may I say that Fang is a BAWSS.) Dan Wells has a League account, and Overworld is molded directly partially off of it and other Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas. With some elements of FPS in there, which actually makes it a lot like, BattleBorn (sigh...,) but everyone basically plays empowered versions of themselves instead of taking on the roles of any characters (it being VR and all.) There are similar positions on the teams and stuff, and item purchase works the same way, and it's explicitly stated to be the most popular e-sport of 2050, much like how League of Legends is the most popular e-sport of today.

So yeah. I feel like I should be more hipster about it, like aren't there smaller quirkier games out there that could use the support?, but, whatever, I'm not. It's free-to-play, no skin off of anybody's nose. I'm like Saitama. I'm just a hero for fun.  

Speaking of Leagues, though, there is zero chance for the latest DCEU movie coming out November to be anything but awesome. What a year!

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