DotA and LoL


# League of Legends is less random – In DotA, many abilities, runes, physical attacks, and terrain mechanics have a random component to them. We’ve removed many of the random elements of DotA’s gameplay to make you more reliant on skill instead of luck.
# League of Legends has Brush – In League of Legends, Brush is a tall grassy terrain that provides a Champion with a form of invisibility, you can see out of it but enemies can’t see in! It’s great for ganking and juking.
# League of Legends is even more of a team game – We know that teamwork is one of the most important parts of DotA, but we wanted to put even more focus on it in League of Legends. In addition to the pre-game team decisions such as summoner spells and Runes, we’ve added a number of team objectives to the map, such as epic monsters, (which replace DotA’s runes), and team experience for killing towers. Games are decided by which teams win team fights – not which guy solo farms an agility carry.
# League of Legends has a persistent meta-game called the summoner system – In League of Legends, players are known as “summoners”, powerful magic users who summon powerful champions to fight for them on their behalf on our various map scenarios called the Fields of Justice. The summoner is tied to the player’s account, and represents the in-game identity of the player. As the players play the game sessions, their Summoner will actually level up out of game and gain power which they can use to assist their champion in each match. The summoner system adds a tremendous amount of strategic depth to the game by allowing players to customize their experience based on their play-style through runes, masteries, and summoner spells. We will also track stats, rank, teams, and clans through the summoner system, reinforcing the players’ identity within the community and adding weight to a players reputation.

I heard that League of Legends doesn’t have denying, is that true?

It’s true, even though League of Legends is based on DotA we’ve intentionally decided to remove denying from the game. We know this is a huge change for some people, but we have some really good reasons for removing it!

* It enlarges the early game imbalance between ranged and melee Champions, and we think it is more fun for all Champions to be at least somewhat competitive at all phases of the game.
* It leads to passive play, and slows down the game. We feel that high-activity; high-action faster games are more fun. By not having denying, there’s a stronger incentive to push. Additionally, it prevents strong lane control which is ultimately about passive play. Team fights more than anything else are what make this genre fun, and faster games mean more team fights.
* It is weird. Killing your own guys?

How will competitive League of Legends work?

League of Legends has been designed and built from the ground up to be a competitive game. League of Legends Season One, which began July 13, 2010 is an opportunity for competitive players to compete in Ranked Games and tournaments. In the future, many competitive features will be added to the PVP.net multiplayer platform including:

* Automated, and player-made tournaments
* Even more in-depth stat tracking and advanced player profiles
* Clans and pre-made teams with in-depth stat tracking
* Replays and Spectator mode

In addition to having a design team full of competitive gamers, we have put together a council of thought-leaders from competitive DotA and LoL communities as well as other professional gaming organizations to help advise us during our development process to ensure that players like you take part in shaping the competitive experience. We’ve already engaged with many members of the competitive DotA community during our Competitive DotA Roundtable and the $15,000 cash prize DotA tournament at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany and these are just small examples of the type of events we have planned.

With these large-scale, international, cash-prize tournaments already in the works, some top DotA players are already putting their teams together for future competitive play. The competition is fierce, start training now to participate in these awesome upcoming events.

Will League of Legends be updated as often as DotA is?

We view Season One of League of Legends as just the first step in a long journey. Our plan is to keep our full development team allocated to League of Legends for a long time to come, regularly releasing new Champions, Maps, platform features, and more. We are currently releasing updates bi-weekly, and have no plans to slow down.