The Mind Of A Summoner #2

I've been pretty sick and haven't gotten around to posting, what a bummer right? Well at least now I don't have to worry about being sick for a while. A few days off league has left me a lot of time to think about what exactly to talk about today.

The idea of lane calling

                  

          Team Chat is becoming a battlefield for summoners. Since the very beginning of my experience on League of Legends people have been calling lanes. What I mean by this is that when you are matched with a team and load in the first thing on team chat is everyone spamming which lane they would like. The choices being top lane, mid lane, bot lane, and a jungler if you do not have two players going to mid/top together. This seems like a good way to get people where they would want to be but consistently for months now all i've seen from this idea is people yelling and causing team problems before even beginning the game. My conclusion is that so many players have forgotten that this meta of lane calling is not required by players. League of Legends is a meta loving game. We go to lanes as certain characters because the other team is going to, it's what we leveled up learning to do and quite frankly that's all most people want to know how to do. They don't want Twisted Fate adcing bot lane with a Soraka top because "you don't go there". Lately all i've done is bluntly point out to people that calling a lane...does not get you it. I've been called a troll, been told i've been reported, you know all that good stuff. Now with my goal of pushing this idea out of the way of how everyone is playing I do see a bit of change in people after I get to play with them. They realise that switching things up does very well when the other team has no idea how to react. The only problem I come upon is when people do not want to adapt.

They yell, kick, and scream the whole game at how we are going to lose when in reality we have every advantage.

Advantages to changing up the meta:

• You can confuse your opponents. The element of surprise and them trying to figure out your plan can gain you early kills while seeing if your plan will work.
• Allows you more room to get people in places that they do better in. Let's say you have two people who do well mid...put them both in mid and see what happens.
• You have more room to create fun invade plans.
• It gives you more opportunities to explore how different champs can or can not work together.

Now these advantages only really work when you have a team comp that makes sense and people know what they are doing. That's all I have to rant about the meta for today but here's a sweet league play I found.

             How to feel like a pro:

"Dat flash" 

Outsmarting opponents always feels so good...

 

 

The Mind Of A Summoner #1

         Sometimes you just have to give in to that game that you've passed over and over. Maybe it's the graphics you don't like, the combat, or if you are like me- because you know you'd be hooked. That game I resisted for so long is League Of Legends.

 

Since I've constantly been heavily invested with MMORPG's for over ten years now it was hard for me to understand why my friends wanted to play the same character over and over in some realm that didn't have any permanent levels or achievements. I like to be instantly gratified each time I log in with my full gear sets, rare title and daily quests ready. That wasn't enough to fully keep me out of Riot's grasp though...League of Legends was something I pushed away mostly due to my e-buddies dropping our mmo's for it. Countless people pushed me towards it but I always managed to dodge away. My reasoning still "What's the fun in losing everything you get in an hour over and over? That's kind of stupid..." Losing raid members to some game you had never played was kind of a bummer and I just put a bad label on LoL. Then about two months ago I found myself downloading it because of the stale MMO atmosphere I've explored lately. A break from the constant consistency in the way MMORPG's work can't be too bad for me after all, right?

        I've been around for awhile and sometimes you just need a break from the dedication most MMORPG's take. Lately free to play models and new combat systems have kept my interest for short periods of time but haven't sold me the feeling of wanting to stick around. The question finally struck me...

What gaming can I do with a learning curve that won't require me to grind?

 I gave in. I'm admitting it! Woooah. For three(? more or less) months I've been playing LoL daily. The constant PvP is something I enjoy along with the following key points:

• Item building.
• Constantly new opponents.
• Mastering a champion.
• The interaction between you and the game- to think on the spot to counter situations/people, checking other players farm/build, map awareness, exc.
• The amount of champions and the different play styles available.
• The amount of knowledge you can gather is endless.

League of Legends has offered me a way to have short periods of time fighting, learning and interacting with many players at once.

I plan on starting to blog a bit more now. College has settled down, it's warm outside, my roommate and I just can't stop playing LoL. I shall continue blabbering about LoL in this series I have named "The Mind Of A Summoner"...why is each word capitalized? I like how it looks.

Oh, you can plan on getting a short blerb about Guild Wars 2 from me this week after i'm able to pick up from where I was a few months ago. Time to compare it to current releases! 

-Z