League of Legends Competitive Play Begins July 13

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League of Legends will add competitive ladder play on July 13 in the free-to-play Defense of the Ancients-style game. Along with the update will be a visual style overhaul made to the game's website and interface. New screenshots showing off the new style can be found below.

The first season of ladder play will also launch alongside Ranked Games and Draft Picking, improving the game's offering for serious players. The game, while free-to-play, monetizes itself through microtransactions, though everything can be purchased via points earned by playing the game.

The full list of features coming on July 13 is listed below.

  • Ranked Games - Once Season One begins, summoners of Level 20 or above will be able to indulge in our ranked game system. At launch, ranked players will be able to join one of three queues: 3v3 Premade, 5v5 Premade, or 5v5 Solo. Players will receive an individual rating for each of these queues.
  • Ladders - Once Ranked Play begins, players who choose to participate will have their Elo ratings displayed publicly on the League of Legends Ladder. On the ladder, players will be able to see just how they stack up against the rest of their fellow summoners. The ladder will be available on the League of Legends Community Site.
  • Draft Mode - Champion selection during ranked play will take on the form of a live draft. In 5v5 premade and 3v3 premade, the first phase of this draft process will provide the inviter of each team with the opportunity to ban the use of two champions. Banned champions cannot be selected for use on either team, so choose wisely!

    After bans have been dispensed by both sides, the teams will begin the draft process. During ranked play, draft picks will be exclusive, meaning that a drafted champion will not be available for play by the opposing team. The team who received the second ban will begin the drafting process by drafting a single champion. Following that, the game will follow a 1:2:2:2:2:1 draft format for the 5v5 brackets and a 1:2:2:1 format for the 3v3 bracket.

    Through this system, we hope to encourage players to embrace a wider range of champions, allow for teams to effectively counter popular strategies, and develop a familiarity with their opponents and counter accordingly. Initially Draft Mode will be available both in Ranked Play and in practice games. Casual games still utilize blind pick during champion selection.

  • Improved Visual Styles - Since our launch back in October of 2009, our UI Team has been hard at work improving the visual components of the PvP.net interface. With the substantial renovations required to support Ranked Games, now seemed like the opportune time to give the game a facelift. We wanted the new look for League of Legends to be brighter, more visually appealing, and easier to use. I could elaborate further, but I think that once you get a look at the accompanying screenshots their work will stand on its own.
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From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 6, 2010 5:43 PM

    *Improved Visual Styles

    This means that they copy what the WoW Armory.



    Ya, I think I'll stick to HoN.

    • reply
      July 6, 2010 5:44 PM

      They also need to heavily fix their champion/summer spell balance.

      • reply
        July 6, 2010 7:05 PM

        They release balance patches every 2 weeks. It'll never be perfect, but the balance is not game breaking. There are some champions that are more powerful than others, but there are always viable counters.

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      July 6, 2010 7:00 PM

      So the art style of the UI is a dealbreaker for you? How about judging the game...by...you know, its merits?

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        July 6, 2010 7:06 PM

        They need to work alot on balance and visual updates before changing the UI.

        • reply
          July 6, 2010 7:20 PM

          Visual updates? The graphics are fine, as is the art style. The stylized graphics fit the genre well.

          The balance is continually being tweaked and evolving. No one who plays League of Legends complains about Riot Games' balance. They are releasing patches every 2 weeks consistently.

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            July 6, 2010 8:16 PM

            The dealbreaker for me, is that they expect to use a P2P networking system for a tournament play, and expect to get away with it. Just about every game I play, there's at least 2 people with a consistent ping in the 300-500 area.

            The dealbreaker for me, is that sure they do balance updates every 2 weeks, but that doesn't mean the game is balanced. They've done numerous balance changes that make sense. (Nerfing Shen's Vorpal Blade, not addressing the ability to have a large amount of Champs on one team that can teleport around the map, thus encouraging backdooring, etc)

            And as stated above, the fact that I either have to spend more money than what HoN is worth or play for quite a long while, to have everything I need to be on level ground with everyone else, competitively.

            There's also some general item/champ ability/summoner spell combination's that are extremely unbalanced. I do give them props for planning on removing Flash entirely, though.

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              July 6, 2010 9:10 PM

              Well, the game runs as smooth as butter for me and I don't lag at all...so I don't really pay attention to the networking at all.

              How is the balance in Heroes of Newerth better? It's possible, but there are roughly the same number of champions so how different could it be?

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              July 6, 2010 10:27 PM

              I call shenanigans. You can't even see others ping in game, and I have NEVER heard anyone complain about lag that wasnt some serious issue on their end.

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                July 7, 2010 1:29 AM

                Like lag would disapaer somehow just because the game is so awsome.

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                  July 7, 2010 3:55 PM

                  Their netcode is incredibly good. In my 1k+ games, I have never experienced experienced lag that wasnt something on my end.

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              July 7, 2010 5:38 AM

              If you're saying League of Legends uses a peer to peer networking system, you're flat out wrong. It's client/server, just like HoN; and other people's connections will not slow down your game.

            • reply
              July 7, 2010 5:38 PM

              Except it's not a P2P networking system - it's a client/server system with reconnect, and netcode that means that a high ping for another player only hurts them - it doesn't slow down the game for everyone (or make them jump around).

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      July 6, 2010 9:21 PM

      Looks like our the LoL community will miss you, oh wait.

    • reply
      July 7, 2010 5:54 AM

      Jokes on you, you bought an inferior copy of a free Warcraft 3 mod.

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