Connor Noland

Ms Rogers
Writing 1010
10/25/14
The League of Legends Community and Literature
League of Legends is the most played game in the world with 27 million people playing
it daily and 67 million playing per month (Tassi.) It has a vast community which use large
amount of writing to communicate new ideas and strategies with other players. The game itself
requires a lot of strategy and new ideas are constantly popping up while older ones are thrown
away as the metagame changes. League of Legends uses literacy from players to communicate
strategies on how to play more effectively, from the developers to communicate their thought
process of updating the game, to players communicating in game, and from the players giving
feedback to the developers of the game.
One example of literacy the League of Legends community uses is when the players
communicate strategies to other players on how to optimize their play, usually with a certain
champion. Champions are different characters in the game, all with various stats and abilities.
These make champions all unique and, with over 100 of them to choose from, gives players
many different ways to strategize and play. An example comes from an online guide teaching
players how to play a champion named Riven on a popular guide site called Solomid. The author
describes the champion as an Attack Damage oriented caster champion that uses positioning,
mobility, and high burst damage to assassinate squishy opponents or deal constant damage to

tanky front-liners. (TaeyeonLOL) To people outside the League of Legends community, this
description would make nearly no sense. However, to people within the community, it handily
summarizes the champion Riven and offers new strategies for players.
Breaking this sentence down, Riven is a champion that uses Attack Damage, which is a
form of damage in the game that determines how much physical damage your autoattacks and
Attack Damage scaling abilities do that can be reduced by how much armor their opponent has,
caster champion, a champion who relies mostly on their abilities as opposed to their
autoattacks to deal damage, that uses positioning, meaning that where they are in relation to
their opponent is important, mobility, meaning that they can move quickly around the
battlefield, and high burst damage, meaning that the champion does her damage short but high
bursts of damage in hopes of quickly killing their opponents as opposed to sustained damage
where they slowly but surely whittle away at their opponents until they die, to assassinate
squishy opponents, meaning that this champion targets opponents that have low defenses
resulting in them dying quickly, or deal damage to tanky front-liners, meaning that the
champion can whittle away at the more defensive champions who often fight near the front of
teamfights to soak up damage from the enemy to ensure that their higher damage but squishier
allies can deal as much damage as possible. This information is useful for the players as it allows
them to quickly decide how or even if they would want to play this champion.
What took a paragraph to describe to someone who is not a member of the community,
the author was able to describe in one sentence the basics of the champion to someone who is a
member. This illustrates the power of the community and literacy that the author can so
eloquently describe a champion in one sentence and have members of the community instantly
grasp to core concepts, play style and build of the champion. The guide goes on in further detail,

describing in depth other aspects of the champion detailing the runes, masteries, skill order, item
builds, summoner spells, matchups, and how to play the champion during the early, mid and late
game. (TaeyeonLOL) This is an excellent example of literacy in the community and is one of
several thousand that experienced players of the community have written to help those who are
newer or less skilled at playing the champion.
Another example of literacy in the League of Legends community is developers of the
game telling players their thought process when working on or updating aspects of the game.
This was shown recently in a blog post from one of the developers describing their thought
process as the updated a champion with new abilities, stats and a new visual upgrade. The
developers described the core features the wanted in the champion as we wanted Sion to be an
unrelenting war machine, a ragged Noxian titan whod be sewn back together after battle and
pointed in the rough direction of the enemy army when they next rolled up. This sense would
have to seep into every aspect of Sions identity to make him a cohesive champion.
(FizzNChips.) Right off the bat, the developers tell the players what they were planning on
having as Sions core concepts. They wanted to make Sion a hulking undead warrior of Noxus, a
faction in the game. They went into greater detail later in the blog post outlining how they took
these core concepts and applied them to his gameplay, narrative, and art. These development
blogs are great examples of literacy in a community as very few game developers write blogs
telling the players their thought process behind the various changes in the game. They also get
players excited for these new champions, generating a lot of hype for the upcoming changes. It
also gives players another point of view into the champions character and personality. An
excellent example of this is towards the end of the article, when the author pointed out one small
detail, Speaking of brutality, check out Sions jaw: Its Jarvan Is crown! (FizzNChips) This

little detail was something that probably would have been overlooked if the author hadnt
pointed it out, but once the players saw it, many were shocked at the amount of detail put into the
champions. This little interaction between the developers and the players helps show how
literacy can lead to a better game and to a stronger community.
Another example of literacy in the League of Legends community is when players
communicate in the in game chat. League of Legends is a very teamwork oriented game,
requiring players to work together to win the game. Victory often hinges on which team can
communicate the best and the primary way this occurs is using the in game chat. However,
players have to stay still while typing and can lead to an enemy catching them while typing to
their teammates. Therefore, over time, the community has learned to use quick abbreviations and
words to quickly get important messages across. These abbreviations are used throughout the
game, from the very beginning to the end. One example of these abbreviations is gl hf (Good
Luck Have Fun).Players often type this at the beginning of the game in all chat, which allows
both the enemy and your team to see what you have written. It is a polite way to wish everyone
luck and as a friendly reminder that it is just a game. Once the game starts in full, abbreviations
such as mia (Missing in Action) or b (Backing) will start showing up. These abbreviations
are important to use, for varying reasons. The first one, mia, lets your teammates know that
one of the champions is currently missing, and to be wary for them trying to gank or show up
expectantly, often resulting in someone dying if they arent expecting it. Therefore, calling mia
is very important and failure to do so often results in a teammate dying. The other abbreviation,
b, lets your team know that you are going to recall back to base, a safe place where you can
buy items and regenerate health. This important to communicate as it lets your team know that
they should be careful, as they will be down one player if a team fight should break out. Finally,

when the game is either won or lost, it is considered polite to type gg (Good Game). This small
abbreviation lets the other players on both teams know that you had a fun time and there were no
hard feeling. Typing in gg wp (Good Game Well Played) is sometimes used, letting the enemy
know that it was a well fought game and is usually a sign of respect. These are only a few
abbreviations and words used in the game, but do a good job showing the use of literacy used by
the players in game. They help foster sportsmanship and teamwork, and really go far in making
League of Legends a positive experience.
The final example of literacy in the League of legends community is when players give
feedback to the developers via the forums, found on the official website. This can take the form
of bug reports, complaints, or even just a pat on the back for the developers. These forums serve
as a way for the players to give feedback to the developers or for the developers to answer their
questions. An example of this is a forum post complaining about some recent changes for a
champion. The player asks the developers for some sort of clarification on why this (the
changes) is done this way. Its frustrating to see. It makes me feel like I have very little choice in
the items I pick up because of how riot is performing balance on these types of champions.
(GhostStalker.) A Riot employee responded to this complaint giving some reasons for this change
including to Create game-by-game variance in a champions strength Create distinct
gameplay through alternate incentives... Create intra-game variance, typically over time.
(CertainlyT.) This led to a civil argument with both sides having good points and comments. This
kind of interaction through the forum is a wonderful example of how a community should use
literacy to explain their ideas and ideals and interact with other members of the community.
While many other game communities lack forums or ways for the players to talk to the

developers, the League of Legends community is able to use the forums as a place to use literacy
to make a difference in the community.
League of Legends is a huge community of gamers who all love the game. As the major
way of communicating is through the internet, literacy plays a huge role in the community, both
in and out of the game. By allowing player to player, developer to player, and player to developer
communication, the community is able to express new ideas and feelings about the various parts
of a game they love. The developers at Riot Games do an excellent job expressing their mindsets
when designing parts of the game and making League of Legends so successful. This has led to
the systems of players writing guides to playing more effectively, to developers writing blogs to
communicate to the players, to players communicating in game, to players and developers
having civil conversations in the forums.

Works Cited
Tassi, Paul. "Riot's 'League of Legends' Reveals Astonishing 27 Million Daily
Players, 67 Million Monthly." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 12 Oct.
2014.
"RIVEN BUILD GUIDE: [S4] The Playable River. By TaeyeonLoL." Solomid Blog.
Solomid, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.solomid.net/guide/view/51731-riven-build-guide-fighter-by-taeyeonlol>.
"Dev Blog: Reimagining Sion." League of Legends. Riot Games, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 2
Oct. 2014. <http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/championupdate/dev-blog-reimagining-sion>.
"Stop Balancing Champions by Watering down Their Strength with the Same
Weakness." Stop Balancing Champions by Watering down Their Strength with the
Same Weakness. 11 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.
<http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/uXXJPR0X-stopbalancing-champions-by-watering-down-their-strength-with-the-same-weakness>.